# Chicken coop on gravel/sand/concrete



## Will_Malone

Hi All, 

I am making some plans for our family to get some chickens and I was hoping for a little bit of advice.

We have an area in the garden which I think was used by the previous owners as a dog run, it is fenced and we are hoping to use the whole area for the chickens to free range. The area is made up of one half being predominantly a mixture of gravel and sand, and the other solid concrete with a couple of corrugated iron sheds. Its a real sun trap and in the summer it can get quite hot, due to both the exposed position and the ambient heat from the concrete, sheds and gravel.

We have a chicken coop, which we have located on the gravel underneath a large shady tree and we plan in install some raised planters throughout the area in order to grow some plants to produce more shade. In addition, we have a separate chicken coop extension run (which is open at one end) and plan to cover this in a shade cloth to provide another area of shade. 

A few questions spring from this:

- Is the gravel/sand mixture suitable for the chickens to be housed on? It is quite dusty, so my thinking is they would enjoy scratching and dust bathing in it, but its very poor quality ground, so there are no worms in it

- Is there something I could put down on top of the gravel to both make it more hospitable for them and reduce the ambient heat? Some kind of mulch maybe?

- Do I need to put anything down on the concrete areas?

- Any planting suggestions for the raised beds for producing some extra shade?

- Any other issues I should be aware of?

Thanks a lot


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## seminole wind

Hi Will and welcome. Good questions. I'm a firm believer in shade. I'm in Florida and all my chickens are under shade trees. With the chicken area, I like sand the most, preferably coarse sand , not beach sand. It's easy to clean and the chickens like it. They love scratching around and do it most of the day.
With worms, some people like to grow their own (meal worms?) 

We will be expecting pictures!


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## dawg53

Welcome to the forum. Gravel can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Gravel can help disperse flooding rains into the soil (with sand,) much like a drain field from a septic tank. However, chickens love to dig holes and will unearth the gravel. The problem is that if a layer of gravel is exposed, chickens will walk on it. Therefore it's possible to cause bumblefoot and other foot problems.
Sand alone is what I use in my pens. It absorbs water, dries quicker than soil, doesnt collect nasty puddles (chickens love to drink from nasty puddles rather than clean fresh water in waterers,) and sand doesnt wash out in heavy rains. It helps deter parasites. It's easier to scoop poop with sand. Think beach. 
If you have alot of gravel and it's nearly impossible to move, cover it over with alot of sand. Heavy rains will beat it down initially and you'll probably have to haul in more sand and layer it over.
Raising your coop up a few feet off the ground will give your birds shade underneath it, including airflow. We dont have trees in our yard but the tops of the pens are covered where the coops are located. I also use tarps and provide fans to move air during our hot summers. The chickens love to dig holes and lay in them to keep cool and dust bathe.
Consider purchasing field fence and laying an apron flat on the ground all the way around the pen. Tie it in at the base of the existing pen. All you'll need is 12" to 15" of field fence layed out flat on the ground out from the base of the existing pen. After you lay it down flat on the ground and tie it onto the existing fence, it will be impossible for a predator to dig through it, or dig under your pen to get at your chickens especially at night. Grass will grow up through the field fence and will be impossible to pull out by hand in time. Predators do not have the ability to reason and dig further out from the apron to get at your birds.
I also recommend that you put hardware cloth up all the way around your pen. A few feet up from the base of your pen is good enough. Hardware cloth isnt cheap, it can be found at Lowe's, Home Depot etc. Predators can easily reach through chain link fence and grab a chicken. Ensure the top of the pen is covered with fence or chicken wire. I dont recommend plastic netting. It will dry rot and the first small branch that falls from a tree will rip right through it, as will predators.
Keeping everything as dry as possible is paramount when owning chickens.


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