New couple seeking advice please?

Hi all

We are new to this and I hope you all dont mind if we ask what may be silly questions?

We have ordered a coop that will be delivered in a few weeks and have a sheltered pen fenced off ready for 4 hens.  We are doing our research and we hope to get it right.

My question is what surface would be best for the hens?

At the moment its clay soil covered in gravel but would it be better to remove the gravel and put down bark?  I am concerned about keeping the pen clean.  the thinking was the gravel would be easy to hose down but the bark would be easy to replace if it got dirty.

The hens will have the run of the garden when we are in as we have the luxury of 6 foot fence all round.

Would the bark be better for the hens of does it not matter?

Best regards

Julie & Roy

Thanks Rob

I'm sure we will be asking a lot more questions.

Regards
Julie& Roy

Another thing to look at is that the bark can go into the compost pile for the veggie garden after the hens get through with it.

Don't feel bad about asking questions we were all at one time, new to chickens!

Bark tends to allow the muck and grit to fall through it, and then compacts restricting drainage.

I have mine on natural soil, but it drains pretty well, I turn it over once in a while for them to scratch in the clods of earth and so they are not paddling in wet weather.

I use wood chips.  The hens love to scratch in it.  Very natural.  Next month we are going to replace it with Easibed and see how that goes. 

My flock runs on earth and concrete, about half and half. They have inches of stuff to scratch in that varies with the season - straw, mud, all the weeds from the garden, more mud, leaves from the hedges in autumn (tons of the damn things!), bigger garden stuff that has been through the shredder. And with patience and many hours of little henny feet it turns into stuff that can either be composted on one more stage or go out onto the garden as a mulch. I chuck their corn into it every evening to make them work for their living