Alternatives to wood shavings?

[smilingcat]

Find a nearest feed store and see if they carry coarser wood shaving. Are you using ones for gerbils and other little critters and the ones you can buy at a pet store? If so, the wood shaving is really fine. We use coarser ones carried by our feed and tack store. Buy the shaving in bales. Banties don't seem to mind at all that the shaving is coarse. Occasionally, we find big chunks of wood.

Surely, even in Northeast. people are into dressage so it should be easy to find coarse wood shaving from those catering to the highbrow crowd.

 

[jak2002003]

Dry river sand.............just sieve it to remove the dry poop once a week. Thants it.

 

[Muffin14143]

Hmm, these all sound like pretty good ideas. The problem is that the wood shavings stick to our clothes, and get tracked around the house. I will have to do some more research. I have a small coop, about 4'4.

 

[Eggcessive]

I use Sweet PDZ on my poop boards under my roosts. It is like a fine clumping kitty litter, mostly used in horse stalls to keep things dry. For such a small coop as yours, it would only take a couple of bags, as it is pricey at the feed store. You can sift out the poo with a kitty litter shovel, and it is non-toxic. You can even use the poo for composting later.

 

[gg706]

I use straw from Lowe's Home Improvement. The chickens LOVE it! It is pretty clean, as in not ALOT of dust and such, so it does not bother my allegies as much as hay would. It still has grain tops on it so the chickens LOVE to dig around and find the little seeds. I buy it 3 or 4 bales at a time and it lasts me several months. I am only using it in a chicken tractor so it is not a very big area.

 

[Muffin14143]

Wow, those all sound like great ideas! I had no idea there would be so many different bedding ideas. Quick question, does the straw stick to clothes or other fabrics? That is the biggest problem with my wood shavings.
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[gg706]

No not really...... it does make a bit of a mess in the shed as the bales are bundled with twine and once you cut the twine it is not restrained anymore. Straw is smooth and slick not rough and pokey like wood chips. I suppose it could stick to your clothes but I have not had a problem.

 

[jojomojo]

We use pine pellets. We pay about $5-$6 for a 40lb bag. It takes several for our 8x8 coop, but it lasts a REALLY long time (especially with a poop board in place).

 

[Muffin14143]

Those are all really good ideas. I will have to see what my feed store carries.

 

[donrae]

Hay is food, not bedding. Straw is just stems, there's nothing in it to be allergic to.

I also have never had a problem with wood shavings sticking to anything and getting tracked around. I just buy a big bale of pine shavings from the feed store, they're fairly large and don't stick.

I've used wood pellets for horse stalls before, you might look into those. I can't remember the name, maybe Dry-stall or Stall-dry, something like that. Ask at your feed store for pelleted horse bedding. That stuff will last your size coop forever.