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Hen pen like a mudbath
Sun 19-Jun-11
7:48 pm
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Yorky
Ireland
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Does anyone know how to prevent a hen pen becoming muddy when wet? It's fine in dry weather but once it rains at all it turns in to a quagmire. There's a greenhouse in the pen and the gutters are connected to a water butt but this hasn't helped.

The ground is made up of unprocessed bark mulch which works when it is first applied but with rain and hen droppings the pen has in effect become a compost heap.

Any suggestions?

Sun 19-Jun-11
8:19 pm
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JoannaS
Latvia

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All I can suggest is to put some drainage in. If you dig a big hole next to the pen and fill with gravel and put drainage pipes under the pen to the hole. We are going to have to do that with our new barn as there is a spot which gets waterlogged. We have also put a slope on our ground around our greenhouse that goes to drainage ditches but I don't think that is very helpful to you. 

Sun 19-Jun-11
11:46 pm
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Terrier
York

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sorry can't really help,ours is like that most of winter, but our hens free range, so they just go to bed with muddy feet and paddle for the frist hour or so in a morning.  Drainage sounds the best option, but it's a bit of a bother, you could just put a few big branches or logs in the pen, so that at least the hens havesomewhere dry to perch when they feel like it - we have several big old branches and they love to sit on them.

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