Using hay in the floor of hen house

[Akane]

Hay and straw are not absorbent. In fact they do the opposite creating a nonabsorbent insulating layer that traps moisture and rots things. Your coop will actually be wetter and not dry as well with hay or straw as if it had no bedding at all. It will smell more and you will have more mold. Also your chickens will eat it. Mine ate 2 bales worth of straw over last winter because I was trying to use it to insulate the floor. Not much moisture here in winter when everything is frozen. While that may not do them any harm to eat clean hay or straw so long as they have grit available if your whole coop is covered in the stuff then like I said it will rot and mold. Unless you clean frequently you run the risk of chickens eating bad bedding. Alot of molds carry strong toxins and rotten materials can cause their own problems. You will have a lot less cleaning to do, a lot less smell, and less chance of sick chickens if you use something more absorbent like shavings. Even when I used straw in winter I made sure there was a layer of pine pellets (far more absorbent than anything out there) under several inches of shavings to provide a good absorbency layer under the straw and help avoid moisture sitting against it. I would never do that during the summer or outside of the time of year when most things are frozen. I'd quickly have a smelly soaking mess under the roosts and other high traffic areas.

 

[kathyinmo]

I use pine shavings, compressed pine shavings for horses. They're dried and thus they dry out poop so wonderfully! They reduce disease and don't have mildew spores as bad as hay/straw. Hay is dry, but because of the curing process it harbors mildew spores. It doesn't take much moisture added to humidity for the spores to become a problem for the more sensitive respiratory system of chickens. And, I do not want them eating any mold, mildew, fungus, etc >>> botulism... I have experienced this first hand.

 

[Kate+chicks]

We have a dirt floor and have been using straw as the top layer. It seemed to be working well but today when we cleaned out the coop (1X per month) I saw that some of the bales had wet and moldy material. That was when the "discussion" started. As the rotted straw went in...I removed it...my husband and I have some differences of opinion here.
He would really like to see like no straw at all and just dirt with removing the poop every week. I am favoring clean dry straw....but now I am seeing that pine shavings may be better. While I use pine shavings for our little chicks before they go into the general population, I am not so sure of how it will work in the big coop. The little chicks get really smelly in a week and we have to completely remove the pine shavings but they are contained in a brood boxso it is minimal fuss and expense.
If we have a dirt floor in the coop do we need anything else? Advice needed.

And for the DE....I use it religiously inside the coop and outside in the pen.

 

[dadtochickenfan]

I use straw in the summer when i change the litter every month or so. In the winter, I use pine shavings. Seems to work great for me

 

[Mrs. K]

I wonder if what you need to use depends a great deal on the area you are? As here in SW SD, we are soooo dry, bone dry most of the time. 15-30% humidity. I use old hay. I have it in the run and in the coop, usually I just pull the coop out into the run, put fresh in the coop and nest boxes. I have had the girls make a new nest in a corner in the hay, but as it is easy to reach, not that big of deal.

I like running the old hay through my girls, as they break it into smaller pieces, add manure to it, and eat weed seed. This I often use as mulch in my garden. In the winter I will make a big heap of it, if snow is expected, and then flip it on top of the snow, which gets my girls out of the coop.

I do think I would like a poop board, and I recently remodeled..... hemmm

MrsK

 

[Daisy8s]

I mainly use dry leaves. Rake them up in fall after they're dry, store them in huge construction-style garbage bags, add a bag about every 4 weeks...easy and free. I also dump kitchen scraps onto the worst accumulation of poop so they scratch the fresh manure under to decrease smell.

This spring I raked up dried grass from a large section of native grasses. Bagged that up too, and it's working very well.

So, between the leaves and in the fall and the tall dry grasses in the early spring (before new growth starts) all my bedding is free and lightweight enough that the hens can turn it easily while scratching so I don't get an accumulation of manure. There is almost never any smell in my coop.

 

[derekmo5]

Ive used straw for the past year and no signs of trouble. I do have to change it once every couple of weeks because of the smell.