The bedding has been down now for 3 weeks and while official spring is a ways down the calendar we have already had seriously wet weeks.
So far I have to say I’m really pleased. I put it down after we had several days of hard all day rain. Things were already out of control in there.
The first two bags did a good job of absorbing all of that moisture. The very next day after putting those two bags down we had more rain. Since more is better I put down another bag. The next day when I opened the inner run door, which opens out, it pushed a bunch of the bedding material with it. The stuff had swelled up that much!
Since that day I have not put down any additional bedding and we have had more rain. I did put down three bricks which I can balance on to fill up there fermented food feeder. Which if you are ever in the area and want to be amused just swing by at feeding time and you can watch me walk the chicken high wire while holding an almost overflowing container of a very wet mix of food. The bricks are because I don’t take the time to put on my work boots to do the morning release. I don’t want to risk getting poop on the bottom of the shoes I’m about to go in the shop wearing. The ground is wet, yes, but it is not sink to your ankles mud.
I would say that I am very happy with this product and will continue to drive the 20 – 30 miles to get it. That being said I think I’m going to put down landscape fabric just inside the outside run by the door and also along the outer walls of the inner run. The rest can be this but that fabric may help to handle the run off and divert it out of the outer run. We have also been talking about adding a awning along that wall which will further divert the water out further from the inner run wall.
That will be a post for another day because it involves using PVC for the building material. We just did a blueberry cage for their raised bed. It was so easy, so quick, and so relatively inexpensive. This was probably one of the most fun projects we have done in a very long time and so gratifying because of how quick we were able to get it done. We had to order some more parts to make the six doors and then get it all covered with wire. For right now we were able to put a mesh over it to protect the buds from the frost.
Can’t wait to share this with you.
