Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: Greasehog on April 08, 2010, 22:16
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Hi
I'm looking to get my first chickens later on in the month as i'm preparing their chicken run at the moment. I was wondering if it was ok to put the hen house on a concrete base or would this hurt their feet?
Any tips or info would be greatly appreciated.
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Having the house on concrete has lots of pluses in terms of cleaning and the security of the house but hens reaaly like to have somewhere to scratch about and dust bath in.
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Thanks for your reply, so the concrete won't harm their feet will it i was a bit about that.
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You can always put a load of wood chip on top of the concrete for the chooks to scratch around in.
having a concrete base would make it easy to remove the whole to spray down with a hosepipe and replace the wood chip to keep the area smelling sweet.
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I agree with Casey, put some chips down, the chickens will love you for that - it will give them loads of space to scratch around and go bug hunting :)
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Thanks for the replies everyone... :)
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my run and house is on concrete with a good few inches of bark on the top and the chickens love it. no messy feet and legs for my delicate laydees ;)
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My pekins are on flagstones with bark over the top, if you put a wooden "skirting board" around the bottom edge of the run, it stops it spilling out and keeps things a bit tidier. The birds have feathered feet and this really helps to stop them getting clogged up with mud.
c x