Mud, mud, glorious (not) mud .. winter flooring

   My girls run is about 15 foot long, 6 foot wide by 7 foot high.  It is half covered in a strip along the back so the henhouse is under that, and there is a band of dry earth where they choose to dust bathe. However, the rest of the run is a mess... so much pooh (lots of "caramel" yuk type) and mud where the rain reaches it..  I tried putting straw down but it just turned into a nasty cake which stuck to the girls feet and my shoes when I went in there.  What do others do about this ? I'm concerned because I keep reading in various sources about moving runs about.  This is a purpose built aviary which is part of a block over 30 feet long (the rest houses a resident captive bred tawny owl and occasional rescues)and is so huge that moving it about is not possible.  How can I keep it "sweet" ?  Its bound to pong in the summer and attract flies .. and though I pooh pick the solids up  nearly every day,(some days I go out to work during dark and don't get back till dark)  it's getting quite a quagmire in there.  Advice please experts .... 

covering the whole run is ideal for those who can afford it but for those who cant then woodbark { free from tree surgerns or a small price } is the next best thing it keeps the smell away and the girls will love srcatching around in it for bugs it helps soak up all the rain as well unless u have a small bit of ground like mine that just wont drain away  properly .

i was like you chooksbury having a run that u could not even walk into without hating it until i put down the woodbark .

I have got a large fixed run and i went to a large well known shop that starts with a B and ends with a Q and bought a tarpauline ( sorry about the spelling ) and put it over the run while the weather is bad and i can easily take it of later. It cost just over £5 and is brilliant.

I started off with a mesh roofed run.  I can't let the girls free range in the garden, and being ex batts I wanted to give them as much of an open air experience as I could, so didn't like the idea of a solid roof.

Soon changed my mind when they were all stood wet and muddy and miserable and pining for the nice dry battery cages  

Spent a fortune and roofed the whole pen with opaque corregated plastic.  Worth every penny.  Happy dry fluffy chucks, and really nice for me too.  I love sitting in there with them, nice and dry but still fresh and 'open airy', when its pouring down on the other side of the weldmesh. 

But still get muddy bits round the edge where it blows in.  Use soft wood chips in nice transporatable bales from b*q.  I poo pick every day, and if it starts looking messy, I get the garden fork out and loosely dig it over, working in the wood chips . . . well the girls do that actually!  I think if you turn and loosen the soil from time to time, it will stop anything nasty developing.

For the muddy bit by the gate, I've used decking tiles, again from b*q, and used them as stepping stones.  Or you could just use pallets as temporary rafts above the mud.

the only thing i find wrong about using pallets in the run is they seem to gather mood very quickly underneath and smelt gross so i stopped doing that , if it wasnt such a wind tunnel here i would cover the run with corrugated sheets but no matter how well i batten it down it wont last long .

Yes, that would happen because poo/food just sits underneath. I only use them when it's bad, and tip them up to poo pick from between the slats.

Woodchip from a tree surgeon, fairly deep. Rake it over weekly and sprinkle some Stalosan. Hose it down from time to time if the drainage is good. Change it when you can get another load.