To fill my 10x10 coop with 3.15 cubic yards of sand, I spent about $20 for the sand. QUIKRETE Commercial grade sands are narrowly graded clean dry silica sands. Next time I brood chicks (coming up spring 2021! Youll see that out of all possible bedding materials, sand ranks #1. I use this brooder heating plate from Amazon in my brooder (the chicks love it!). Im not sure how they would feel about sand and pebblesI did ask them, and they were non-committal. I had to wait for the sand to dry out. But they actually prefer their sheltered coop dust baths in those cold, snowy months! These all have potential problems too, though. Product Type :Tools Package Dimensions :13.5" L X3.5" W X21.0" H Country Of Origin :United States Package Weight :49.9Lbs See more product details Customers also search What's in the box If you still feel uncertain about what to order, print off this picture and take it to your local gravel company. I have had backyard chickens for almost 6 years and there is always something new to be learned. And in the winter, wet sand may freeze. I had to empty the whole coop (and it was a large coop, so this took some effort), let it dry out for a couple of days, and start all over again. It also comes pre-washed, making it a safer choice. We throw all our grass clippings, leaves, and the straw from the coops in the run. One last thingif youre new to chickens, regardless of which bedding you choose, youll want to cover the bedding completely with paper towels for the first few days or even a week. bag 50 lb. Quikrete is all-purpose sand and is more course than play sand. If not, the sand could all fall out. Wait, what? Because moisture is 1 of 2 factors leading to frostbite (the other being low temperature), chickens in sand coops have a reduced risk for developing it. I didnt realize one of the drinkers was leaking the tiniest bit. Can Sand Get Wet in Chicken Coop? Building Materials Concrete, Cement & Masonry Concrete Mix & Aggregates Concrete Aggregates Customer Reviews for Quikrete 50 lb. PTO Parts. It's perfect for what they need for dust bathing and grit. Im new to chickens. Your friends chickens may not ever eat enough play sand for crop impaction, or perhaps the play sand they are eating is passing through their crops just fine. They just call it tube sand. Its probably easiest to just to let your gravel company know how big your coop is and how deep you want it filled, and then ask them for a quote. Chicken Health. That did the trick. It is so easy to clean. You want your sand to be as coarse as possible, while still being fine enough that most of it will sift through your kitty litter scooper. Can I use quikrete all purpose sand for chicken coop? However, your chickens will do best with sand if the run is covered. I ended up using this and mixing it with some dirt. Buy Now . Sand Commercial Medium #30 . Nope, she had just filled her crop full for bedtime. I visited the gravel company to see what they had available. It contains multiple sizes of particles, including small pebbles, etc. The good news, though, is that once you buy it, you dont have to keep getting more as you do with other types of bedding. My Store 19938 My Coupons (0) Contact; Create Account; Login; Search. Claire. Really, you could go as deep as you wanted. I mentioned above that if some of my chickens dont feel like going outside, they will dust bathe in the bedding. Your coop doesnt have a flooryour sand bedding may get wet if moisture is constantly coming up from the ground. Here we will give you reasons for and against and let you decide whether or not this is for you and your flock. When hurricane Irma came along and flooded the flooring, I was left with a heavy stinking mess. But the good news is that sand dries up very quickly because it does not retain a lot of moisture for too long. Will this work for my run? Buy Quikrete Premium Play Sand for Sandboxes, Tan, 50 lb., 111351 at Tractor Supply Co. Great Customer Service. Claire, After reading all the pros and cons, decided to give sand a Go and it has been life changing! Quikrete. I wish I had thought to measure the temperature difference before and after the sand so that I could give you actual numbers, but I didnt. Have the gravel down. Im in the Mojave desert too. Packaging: Available in 50 lb (22.7 Kg) and 100 lb (45.4 Kg) bags. I do this until the sand is almost gone, then replenish (about twice a year). And if you want to see how sand lines up against the two most common bedding types, straw and pine shavings, check out another of my very thoroughly researched articles, The best chicken coop bedding: Sand vs. straw vs. pine shavings.. If youre going to try the grass route, make them a salad box. I have a 6 x 3 box made from 2x4s and 1 hardware cloth over top. Quikrete is all-purpose sand and is more course than play sand. I am seeing the term litter more often in blogs, so maybe we are on our way! Once the hard work of laying the sand is done, maintenance is pretty standard. It also can be hazardous to humans over the long term. Chicks need to be exposed to outdoor pathogens slowly, so their immune systems can build up. Just because a bedding material is natural, though, doesnt mean its necessarily better than something more artificial, but I always find its a good place to start when thinking about whats good for your chickens. I love it! My coop never smells like chicken poop, my chickens feet and eggs are cleaner. Most folks useconventional bedding materialsin the coop and run. The soil is a filthy mess with 12 hens when it rains and tried shavings but they get bogged down and nasty and same with hay. Still shavings in nesting boxes and one enclosed nighttime coop but sand otherwise. Sand bedding is low cost in the long run because you dont have to keep buying new sand. Your sand dries the poop quickly and releases the moisture quickly, unlike organic bedding. I used play box sand for my chicks because it was safe for children. I leave the old sand out for the year and let it get rinsed and dried repeatedly through the year by the elements. Ill report back with how well it works. Every 1-2 weeks, I use a shovel with holes in it, like this shovel from amazon, to remove the poop on the floor in my large 10x10 coop. No, theyll dust bathe in the coop bedding instead. If you decide it is for you, we also have a section in this article about how to use sand in your coop and which type. I have heard a french drainage system works well too. Research backs this up as well see my article here. I know a lot of city dwellers take this approach, and its a lot cleaner. You can learn at your own pace and on your own time with this pre-recorded online course. All purpose sand is a type of sand that has been washed to reduce dust levels. This means it retains the moisture from chicken poop longer than more coarse-grained sands. I have a coop and enclosed run. Others have recommended 6 inches in depth. However, Ive recently learned that pine shavings are toxic to chickens. Some people say that their chickens eat more of their own feces when its covered in sand. It only takes a couple minutes to scoop out the poop. Because newly hatched chicks have not had exposure to outside pathogens yet, too much exposure too early can cause them to get sick and die. Do you put sand in the nesting boxes as well? Over the next year, I will add on to my coops, and I will try sand in one of the runs to see how it works out. 1/2 Yard runs about $25 if you pick up. Additionally, crop storage allows chickens to digest their food while they are sleeping at night (they love to go to bed with a full crop). So why risk it? The crop is like a little storage pouch. and we now have fabulous night crawlers too. After a bout of coccidiosis ran through the coop wiping out my chicks and two adult birds, I got rid of the shavings completely. I started my coops with pine shavings, hoping to use the deep litter method to keep my chickens warmer over the winter. Do you have sand in your coop? 60-Pound All-Purpose Sand Mfg.# 115260 Sku# 1920545. Also, this type of sand should not be used in a brooder, in my opinion. Thanks, Your email address will not be published. We put in 4-6 inches of masonry sand, it rained hard, like sideways, the sand was soaked. I never have to thoroughly remove the substrate in the coop as is done with straw or shavings. The tip of my roosters comb has been blue on and off for close to two weeks and now he and two out of five hens have been sneezing so Im looking to re-floor the run to see if its a respiratory issue. Quikrete purpose sand chicken coop, quikrete purpose sand chicken coop, free easy chicken coop plans projects buildingachickencoop 16000 plans download pdf format. I cant move the coop so trying to keep my 4 girls happy. Exactly! As I mentioned above, when I used other types of bedding in my coops, my chickens always had poop on their feet. When I first began keeping chickens I used wood shavings or wood pellets inside the coop. Believe it or not, Amazon sells bagged straw for coops as well! Because a sandy coop is such a cleaner coop, especially if youre scooping out poop daily or at least weekly, sand bedding contains lower bacteria counts.Chickens in a sand coop should have less exposure to other pathogens, like Coccidiosis. I also live in a place that has extremely clay-rich soil, which means the mud in the winter and spring is horrendous. All-purpose sand may initially sound exactly like that: made for ALL purpose. I put the sand in my coop today and it is wet from rain. Yes, sand can get wet when exposed to wet conditions. I have been worried about them in the 114 heat day after day, so Ive been putting a couple of frozen milk jugs of water in there. Many folks who used sand and were generally unhappy with the results had used the wrong type of sand hence many complaints were too wet, frozen, cold, etc. The second reason you dont want to use play sand, or any fine-grained sands, is because fine-grained sands are really dusty. In my smaller coops, I use just a regular kitty litter scooper every day. Chicken Toys Shop All. Sand is the cleanest type of bedding out there, simply because it doesnt degrade. While actual sand fleas are not insects and will not bite humans, sand flies will bite humans and chickens and may live on the sandy floor if the climate is suitable. So much easier to clean the chunks out, even the frozen urine only goes so far down and works like clumping cat litter. Your sand, or any other type of bedding, should always be dry. This option is expensive, but the benefits will be better ground to walk on and fewer mosquitoes! They had no idea what I was talking about. Perhaps buy a little extra sand to err on the side of caution. For a summary of the latest research on this, see my article, Pine shavings in the coop: The secret chicken killer? The pine shavings bedding on top was completely dry but some of the bedding near the floor was getting soaked. These kinds of conditions are not humane conditions for chickens. Would this work? The first-ever written word on the subject was printed back in 1919 regarding egg farming in California. Cheers! You can learn more about it here. Is this a good plan? Never had a problem with ingesting it. Now adding more whenever the rock quarry opens for the season. But there are also plenty of anecdotes where play sand has caused major problems. 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