Recommendations for sand? (Preferably Home Depot or Lowe's)

[frog522]

Does anyone have any recommendations for sand? Home Depot or Lowe's would be better since they are relatively close to where I live. I would prefer to be able to haul a whole bunch of 50 lb bags over having a huge amount of sand delivered (that way I can add just enough sand to my liking and not freak out my parents either that I'm turning their property into a chicken playground

)

Right now I got the birds on newspapers in the run like parrots but it smells awful. It's just temporary until I get the run completely set up. I'll be putting the sand over a completely concrete run floor.

-- Any recommendations on brands or type of sand to use?
-- What drains well?
-- How do I take care of it? Scoop up poo every few days and use DE when needed (still need to buy DE, never used it yet)
-- Any other tips would be appreciated!

froggy

 

[Imp]

I don't know what brands might be available where you are, but go for a construction sand. Whatever has the most variation in size. That gives your chickens a choice as to what they want.
The bigger the grit the better the drainage.
Personally I would skip the DE and mix in Stall Dry (A mix of Clay & DE) It's much easier to find. & Cheaper.
You can also use lawn clippings and fall leaves, in the run.

Imp

 

[poltroon]

I would be inclined to choose the play sand, because I'd figure it would be cleaner and less likely to have anything nasty in it, since it's for kids to play in.

 

[elmo]

I find that play sand is too fine. I use all purpose sand, the kind that they sell at the Home Depot in our area. For some reason, the "all purpose" sand that they sell at our local Lowe's is also too fine. Go figure.

I use a reptile litter scoop taped to a long wooden handle to clean up droppings.

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/group/13167/product.web

Works great. Picks up the poo and leaves the sand behind.

I don't have a truck, so what I've done is buy a couple of bags of sand at a time and make multiple trips to the store, several days apart. That way I avoid wearing myself out completely. I'm not as young as I used to be! It only took about 10-12 bags or so to cover my 64 square foot run, 1-2 inches deep.

 

[kichohana]

I bought one of those 1000 lb bags of sand from Lowes, and then spent $19 to rent their truck to get it home. They loaded the bag in the truck, i drove it home and unloaded it into a wheelbarrow and into my coop. Whole process took about 1 hour (had the truck for 75 minutes). The one bag of sand filled my 6x7 chicken run to a depth of about 5". whole thing cost me about $50 - $29 for the sand and $19 for the truck. If I had bought individual bags of sand at $2.50 bag I would've paid probably twice as much for the same amount.

Just something to think about...

I clean my run with a giant kitty-litter scoop from the dollar store. Periodically - when it starts to get stinky... - I sprinkle in some DE and/or Sweet PDZ. The girls like to dig and dust bathe in their sand-filled run.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

I got mine at the local rock/gravel place. It was $17.00 per 2,300# and my coop took 5,600# to do all of my runs.

 

[ddfin]

So just got back from feed store to get pullets. They said the Home Depot sand might have chemicals in it that would harm the birds. Of course, I put down 6" of the stuff and they said put a wire screen over it and lay down regular bedding.

What do you all think?