Best Litter?? Struggling after years

[ChicFil- A]

Straw from the feed store here often has oats and weed seeds in it. So we give it to the chickens to clean up and kick around their run, and sometimes take it away before it gets too poopy to use for garden mulch. Or it goes into a hot compost if it did get too poopy. We're pretty lacadasical about it, but the dry climate makes it possible to to thaat without getting smells.

In some number of years I'll move the 20'x30' chicken run over and see if the spot where it was makes a good garden patch, we have very poor soil.

I have at one time moved our coop and run and put in a garden patch… needless to say it flourished and there was very little weed problem… good garden that year!!!

 

[Cornflower]

I'll be looking into using biochar for my friend's chicken coop. He runs a woodstove for heat in the winter, so there's a source of charcoal. You do have to separate it from the ash then pulverize it. It's supposed to make a really good bedding that absorbs all odor, digests the wastes via microbiome, and when you clean it out of your coop it becomes the best fertilizer for your garden. There's lots of how-to's online. I'll be studying.
I'm hoping to get some fertilizer for my garden if I can convince him to do this, and make the coop more maintenance-free.

 

[linguini]

I'll be looking into using biochar for my friend's chicken coop. He runs a woodstove for heat in the winter, so there's a source of charcoal. You do have to separate it from the ash then pulverize it. It's supposed to make a really good bedding that absorbs all odor, digests the wastes via microbiome, and when you clean it out of your coop it becomes the best fertilizer for your garden. There's lots of how-to's online. I'll be studying.
I'm hoping to get some fertilizer for my garden if I can convince him to do this, and make the coop more maintenance-free.

Will the ash generate dust? and I've read that ash with water can cause chemical burn for chickens. Please let us know your experience! Thanks.

 

[Cornflower]

Will the ash generate dust? and I've read that ash with water can cause chemical burn for chickens. Please let us know your experience! Thanks.

NOOO! I meant you separate the ash out of the charcoal and use the charcoal as bedding. Use your ash to make you some nice soap or throw it away.
No experience, is why I stated that I am looking into it. I tried as well as I could not to inflect this as advice directly but to do your own research and consider that method.
Biochar has been used as poultry bedding successfully both for the chickens and to inoculate the charcoal as a nutrient mass for your garden.
Also, you would be using charcoal generated only from burned wood that has not been treated and certainly not those charcoal briquettes sold for cooking out as those are treated with petrol started fluid, kerosene or gas. Just all natural wood from nature.