Daft newbie question....anything on the ground?

[Nicsknots]

Hi,

Ok, first of all, I am new. I got my hens yesterday and I feel really clueless about what I need to do to have happy hens and do everything 'right' and I might have been a bit naive beforehand so please be kind to me

My hens are in one of these houses. I have put straw in their nesting box and their house is on my veggie patch so the ground is grass/weeds. Do I need to put anything like sawdust on the ground or are they ok as is?

[its hilly]

Nicks welcome to the realm of chookaddiction.
Don't worry about asking 'daft' questions, believe me we've all done it For general advice just have a quick read back over RTRoost. There are lots of different ways of doing things right, and you'll find a lot of them by doing that.
Your girls will quickly scratch over the grass and weeds on your patch. Until then you dont really need to put another surface down. Once they reduce it to bare earth you could either move the coop onto another piece, or if that's impractical, then put down a 2/3" deep layer of bedding. People use various things..most horse bedding would work if you have a farm supply or saddlery near you. Or roughly chipped woodchip. Don't use mulch type bark though as it heats up easy when damp and gets full of fungal spores which are really bad for the hens breathing, and can make them very ill.

[Dazy]

Hi, I use woodchip in the run on bare earth, aubiose in nest box and sprinkled on poop tray, you mention that this coop is placed on your veg bed and I'm assuming that the earth is quite easy to dig. It might be an idea to place slabs or bury chicken wire around the outside edge to form a barrier against foxes, apparently they dig at the base of an obstacle but don't have the brain to step back and start digging a little further back, also chickens are champion diggers, mine often forsake their dustbath and dig huge holes.

[Nicsknots]

Thanks both It's funny you should say about the digging as I came home from work this afternoon to find that they had been digging..not out but something could get in. No -one told me about that; my rabbit already thinks she is houdini!!
I was maybe a little impatient about getting the hens so this weekend I am going to move them around the veggie patch a bit and put some woodchip down...they are messy girls! I have also discovered that the water and food needs to be suspended from their ceiling because they keep pooing in them and pushing dirt into them!