Another option to sand or pine shavings...

Wise Woman

Crowing
12 Years
Apr 12, 2011
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My Cottage
Has anyone tried industrial hemp? They sell it on the Carolina Coops website, but it is pricey some pricey stuff. They claim that it will last a year or more when using the DLM. Here is the list of benefits they have posted on their website.

Hemp Poultry Bedding Benefits

  • One of the most absorbent animal bedding on the market
  • 2x more absorbent than pine shavings or straw
  • Higher salvage rate, since it is an industrial absorbent (absorbs 4x its weight), saving time and money
  • 1/2 bag covers approximately 24 sq. ft. at about 1.5 inches deep
  • Unlike some pine shavings and straw, hemp bedding has minimal dust
  • More comfortable and softer, so chickens are more likely to nest
  • High thermal rating, keeping chickens warmer while they sleep
  • Biodegradable and all natural
  • Chemical free
  • Decomposes faster and is less acidic than pine shavings or pellets

I have to admit I am tempted to try this. They sell it by the bale. Each bale is $32 and shipping for 2 bales will be around $50. Has anyone used this stuff? Do you like it? Do you think it is worth the extra money? I typically use pine shavings. Any thoughts?
 
Exactly! I am chronically ill and this means I can't always do the chores I want to do, when I want to do them. That is one reason I don't like poop boards and prefer the DLM. Hmmm. More thinking on this I suppose.

I see you are in Ireland! How lucky are you?? Stay safe as Ophelia blows through. Hope it won't be too bad for our friends across the pond.
 
I don't do DL yet. But the hemp "lasting" that long, to me would mean it isn't breaking down and becoming usable in my garden. Hay molds pretty fast and breaks down pretty slow already. I would expect the same issues with hemp that I get with straw. Unless it was cut down into a couple inches and not long like straw, I personally would skip it. :confused:

My time is priceless. More valuable than gold. It's one of few things that no matter what, once it's gone.. you can't get it back or make more of it! :pop

I will also note... rats just LOVE having bales of hay or whatever around to use for nesting material. So IMO they attract rodents. And that alone is enough reason for me to use shavings in the future... once my hay is gone that I already have. Rats spread parasites and disease as well as steal eggs and eat chicks/chickens while still alive! :mad:

Thanks tons though, for sharing something new! Good to know there are options. :highfive:
 
It is just starting to make it's way.. tomorrow should be fun, but this is tiny compared to the mad ones they get in North America. We get storm force gales regularly, especially this time of year and over winter, so it shouldn't be too bad.
I'll be bringing the animals in anyway.. you never know..

Regarding DLM/Sand etc.. one thing I have realised, especially on here, is that people live in very diverse areas.. some desert, some humid/wet etc, so a lot of these methods will have diverse results. I am going to start DLM (after Ophelia kisses us), and see how it goes.
 
I know nothing about hemp, that is why I am curious. I have been a pine shavings user for my whole chicken keeping life, with the exception of a short foray into sand in 2012. I have never used hay or straw so no worries there.
 
It is just starting to make it's way.. tomorrow should be fun, but this is tiny compared to the mad ones they get in North America. We get storm force gales regularly, especially this time of year and over winter, so it shouldn't be too bad.
I'll be bringing the animals in anyway.. you never know..

Regarding DLM/Sand etc.. one thing I have realised, especially on here, is that people live in very diverse areas.. some desert, some humid/wet etc, so a lot of these methods will have diverse results. I am going to start DLM (after Ophelia kisses us), and see how it goes.
You are correct... things were MUCH different when I lived in the desert verses now the rain forest. :)
 
it should work fine. I like to mix things like leaves, wood chips and dirt. I call what I do DLM but I'm not technical about it. chickens love to have something to dig in, if it's biologically active and aerobic it doesn't matter so much what the ingredients.
 
Some basic concepts. You need to keep the coop dry. A wet coop stinks and is unhealthy. No matter what you use, sand, hemp, wood shavings, wood chips, dry leaves, hay, straw, Spanish moss, cottonseed, wood pellets, or bare dirt, if it stays dry it works. If it stays wet it doesn’t work. Water can come in from ground level, from windows, doors, or ventilation, or from a leaking waterer. So rule number one, keep your coop bedding dry.

There are different ways to keep things dry. Keep water out to start with. Don’t build a bathtub where you dig down into the dirt and fill that with bedding. Water won’t drain from that. Keep your floor high enough to keep water out but also so it can drain if it gets wet. Good ventilation and turning can help bedding dry out if it does get wet. One trick is to scatter a little scratch in the bedding so the chickens turn it for you when they are scratching to find all those treats.

Poop is wet and if it builds up it won’t dry out. Absorbent bedding dries the poop out and with decent ventilation should dry out itself. In many ways the bedding should act like a diaper, absorb the moisture and keep the baby dry, at least to a point. But once the diaper gets soaked it doesn’t absorb any more moisture. So rule number two, don’t let the poop build up to the point it won’t dry out. A lot of us use poop boards for that but if the coop is kind of big that scratch trick to get them to turn it for you helps a lot too.

For the Deep Litter Method to work, you need a certain mix of nitrogen (poop) and carbon (bedding). There are ideal proportions of those components but any mix will work given enough time. Different beddings will break down at different rates too. Wood is pretty slow compared to many other things. Wood shavings will break down faster than wood chips because of the shape. The main thing is to have enough bedding so the poop doesn’t overwhelm it.

DLM also requires moisture. Think damp. Too much moisture and it gets wet, the process goes anaerobic, and it stinks and is unhealthy. It can turn slimy too. Too little moisture and the microbes that break it down cannot live and reproduce so it doesn’t break down.

I don’t do the DLM, I keep my coop too dry for the bugs that break it down to work so it does not turn into compost in the coop. I empty that on my garden in fall so by planting time it has broken down. I don’t do that every fall, I usually go three or four years between emptying the coop floor out. I don’t need to that often I just want it in my garden.

I use wood shavings, just open a bag on the coop floor and let the chickens spread it for me whenever I get to the point I need to add another bag. While it doesn’t break down the chickens’ scratching eventually turns those shavings into a powder, they really get pretty fine. So the dust you experience with chickens is a lot of the bedding scratched to a powder. Some of the dust is bits of dry skin, down, and feathers they shed. Some of it is dried poop that they scratch into a dust. Different bedding materials will vary as to how easy they are to scratch into dust.

I don’t know what the correct answer is to you Wise Woman. My thoughts on bedding are more what is inexpensive and readily available. But what your coop looks like and conditions (elevated or on the ground, type of floor, number of birds, physical ability, and who knows what else) will likely make your answer different from mine.
 

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