Wondering about grass on the Coop floor

[Summer Rose]

Hello, My first post. I have researched the floor info but could not find anything about grasses. I have a 9X13' coop/hen house with a dirt & some gravel on
the floor. I just got 6 SF Hens and are only 6weeks old. I was wondering if I could add grass clippings on the ground floor? I have a lot of those grasses
that grow tall with plumes on the top, I cut them down for the winter, they have been laying in the sun so they are dried out. Would that be good for a floor
for at least awhile? I bought pine shavings but thought I would use them for the Nesting boxes and/or I have bags of shred paper not newspaper but sheets
from my printer mistakes. Please help and I apologize if this was answered and I didn't find it. Thanks

 

[morsekathan]

I can't speak to grass, but I like sand on the floor. It's so easy to clean the coop. I only have 6 hens, but I can clean up in about 10 minutes. There is a great article about it on in the forum - https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/using-sand-in-your-chicken-coop

 

[mickey328]

Dried regular grass would be okay in the short term, but it has so little "substance" that it'll decompose fairly quickly and get stinky and slimy and might well develop harmful bacteria. Lots of the decorative grass seems to have razor sharp edges on it...I know ours does.

From what I've been reading, sand is an excellent way to go if you have a permanent run. Ours gets moved every 3 or 4 days so they have natural, growing grass and bedding of any sort isn't really something we have to deal with...whew! LOL

 

[Summer Rose]

Thanks both of you. I went out and got some Straw which seemed to be the most popular on most
of the post as well as this person who has several hundred laying hens. I couldn't do the sand because
I don't have someone to help me lay it at this point, I'm doing all this myself. I do appreciate your replys
and will hope for some help down the road.

 

[bruceha2000]

I couldn't do the sand because
I don't have someone to help me lay it at this point, I'm doing all this myself.

What about your cute grand daughter? Kids love to play in sand

I'm not using sand (I use pine shavings) but other than carrying the bags to the coop, there isn't much to putting it out. Just dump it in piles and spread it with a flat backed garden (not leaf) rake flipped tines up. I spread the pine shavings that way as well.

Nothing fancy and the chickens won't care if it isn't totally smooth and flat. In fact, they'll mess it all up scratching around anyway. I makes no sense to spend ANY amount of time worrying about it being "perfect".

 

[mickey328]

From what I've been reading, the shavings seem to be the most popular. Unfortunately the cost is prohibitave for us, so we stick with chopped straw and at least so far, it's really working well.