[CAL]

I'm getting a chicken coop and run tomorrow and plan on putting it on our gravel patio (its quite coarse 20 - 35mm dust free gravel).  Whats the best thing to floor the run in?  I was thinking of attachinh some marine ply to the bottom of the run as a permannet floor and then 4" bark on top of that.  My thinking was that the gravel may be too coarse for the hens feet and the marine ply should make it a bit more fox proof.

The chooks will be in the run in the day time and free ranging evening / weekends.

So by my reckoning its going to be about a week and a half until we buy the chooks and two weeks until our garden is wrecked...

[helens-hens]

The gravel would be a problem for the hen feet but I don't think the marine ply would necessarily be fox proof. I have put down cheap patio slabs as the bottom base for my run. They are inexpensive, foxproof and easy to scrub clean once in a while, so hygenic.

They aren't cemented in, just laid as flat as poss. It has worked well for me. I guess it does also depend on how big your run is?