Are all wood chips safe for a chicken run?

[aart]

then you'll be cooled off and out of your "I need to be right" childish additude.

Pot - Kettle.

 

[Brooks_]

which is why the average lifespan is 5 for commercial chickens

That's about 3 years longer than they are actually kept in commercial operations.

 

[NatJ]

That's about 3 years longer than they are actually kept in commercial operations.

I wasn't sure if that "5" was days, weeks, months, or years. (None sounded quite right to me!)

If you try to take an average that includes layers, meat birds, and cockerels culled at hatch, you could end up with just about any number, depending on what ratios you use.

 

[HBN]

Pine is not toxic. The people who claim that are usually trying to sell you something different.

If pine were toxic it wouldn't be used by millions of commercial operations operating on tight margins where even a fractional percentage of loss or gain can make or break the entire business.

Eastern Red Cedar gives off strong fumes that can cause significant respiratory irritation. Western Cedar is less aromatic and thus less irritating -- probably OK for use in the run.

Walnut is probably OK for the chickens but the juglone that inhibits plant growth might not compost away sufficiently to allow using the chicken compost in your garden.

Other than that, wood chips are generally safe.

Commercial growers’ primary concern is cost. Therefore, they will have done a thorough cost-benefit analysis of any thing they use in their flocks. Rice hulls and pine shavings are most commonly used in commercial settings because they are the cheapest. That does not necessarily mean that they are the healthiest for the chickens. If the degree in which these are cheaper than other, more safer, alternatives and that savings outweighs the cost of loss of chickens that they may experience, they will choose the pine shavings. So, for example, if they save $100 per 1000 chickens by using the pine and they only lose $75 worth of chickens per that 1000, they will choose to use the pine shavings because their net savings is still $25. Most people on this forum are more concerned with the health of their chickens than the cost benefit analysis of commercial farming. So it is entirely consistent that pine shavings are known and accepted to be bad for chickens AND commercial farmers still use them because they make the most economical sense.

 

[3KillerBs]

Commercial growers’ primary concern is cost. Therefore, they will have done a thorough cost-benefit analysis of any thing they use in their flocks. Rice hulls and pine shavings are most commonly used in commercial settings because they are the cheapest. That does not necessarily mean that they are the healthiest for the chickens. If the degree in which these are cheaper than other, more safer, alternatives and that savings outweighs the cost of loss of chickens that they may experience, they will choose the pine shavings. So, for example, if they save $100 per 1000 chickens by using the pine and they only lose $75 worth of chickens per that 1000, they will choose to use the pine shavings because their net savings is still $25. Most people on this forum are more concerned with the health of their chickens than the cost benefit analysis of commercial farming. So it is entirely consistent that pine shavings are known and accepted to be bad for chickens AND commercial farmers still use them because they make the most economical sense.

Million-dollar racehorses are bedded on pine.

 

[HBN]

Million-dollar racehorses are bedded on pine.

And? We are talking about chickens here.

 

[FredHill]

I have access to cypress wood chips (it's sold as mulch), but it is literally wood chips with no bark and no strand material. I can buy large bags for cheap. It doesn't rot or compost/break down as quickly as other materials.
My question is, does anyone have any experience with using cypress wood chips in their chicken run? My thoughts are it might work better because it doesn't soak up moisture and rot as readily as other materials. Ideas anyone?
Thanks!

 

[3KillerBs]

And? We are talking about chickens here.

If pine is really soooooooo horribly dangerous it wouldn't be used for any animals, much less valuable ones like racehorses.

If pine were really so dangerous stores wouldn't sell it for fear of lawsuits.

 

[saysfaa]

The scaremongering seems to be coming from this particular article: ...
The author seems to have an absolute loathing of pine to the point of paranoia. It is admitted that there have been zero studies about chickens and pine chips but the author goes ahead and uses other studies anyway and applies them to chickens. Seems like a storm in a teacup to me.

That is the only one I found also - last time this came up. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-have-conflicting-info.1536099/#post-25913125

Since it came up again so soon, I dug a little deeper. These are studies she references

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0091674989900730
"To determine if plicatic acid from cedar wood and abietic acid from pine resin could directly damage lung cells, we exposed [cells] to solutions of plicatic and abietic acids.
...
both caused dose- and time-dependent lysis [lysis is rupture of the cell wall] of [lung] cells. Instillation of [these] acids into rat lungs caused destruction of the [bronchial and lung cells].

She sees "When an animal inhales the abietic acid in pine (one of the main toxins), it damages the airway. Epithelial, tracheal, and lung cells disintegrate and slough off"
I see: if concentrated acid is injected into lung cells, it can damage them. To be fair, I didn't buy the paper to look up what concentrations were used but how else would they determine that the damage is dose related?

Next reference
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1600-0536.1989.tb03094.x

"Contact allergy due to colophony"
"7 resin acids, 3 ... derivatives and the neutral ...were studied by experimental sensitization using modified FCA... 4 resin acids [including abietic] proved to be weak sensitizers... 4 resin acids and [the 3 derivatives] were moderate and ... moderate to strong sensitizers.

She sees, "One of the most toxic chemicals in pine is abietic acid, which is the primary irritant in pine wood ... [it] can cause airborne contact dermatitis"
I see: abietic acid gives a weak reaction when injected in concentrated form with a substance that enhances reactions
(Based on looking up what FCA is - https://www.scbt.com/p/freunds-complete-adjuvant/) and a quote from MAC (see next reference source - yes, that source that she used), "In extensive experimental animal investigations with the FCA test and the maximization test, it was possible to show that purified abietic acid (99.8%; Karlberg et al. 1985), as well as dehydroabietic acid (Hausen et al. 1989), have if at all a very weak sensitizing effect."
And that it is substances people make from pine resin rather than the pine resin itself that causes most of the allergic reactions in people.
This conclusion is supported by looking up other published research by the same author - he has published least 92 paper - click on his name in the above link.
Also relevant is this descrption of "colophony" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10617209/

It is quite a bit more and somewhat different than the simple answer from dictionary which just says "pine rosin"

Next.
The MAK-Collection for Occupational Health and Safety, 2013
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_MAK_Collection_for_Occupational_Heal.html?id=aZfCDAAAQBAJ

This is documentations for the established MAK values (maximum workplace concentrations) of selected occupational toxicants, including an authoritative review of the available toxicological studies and data.

But if you search for abietic acid or pine, there is no results.

Netsearching abietic acid and MAK...

Gets https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/3527600418.mb51410kske3413

Which says...
"The skin irritation of 10% abietic acid in petrolatum is slight in the guinea pig; at this concentration...The sensitization potential of purified abietic and dehydroabietic acid is slight. Among the oxidation products usually contained in abietic acid..there are, however, potent allergens.... Under workplace conditions, the dusts and vapours of rosin (colophony) containing abietic acid, dehydroabietic acid and their oxidation products can induce asthma. The results of provocation tests with abietic acid have been positive....The cause for the persistent asthma occurring in a number of the exposed persons after long-term exposure to rosin (colophony) dusts or vapours containing abietic acid ...and, less well investigated, to soft wood dusts has not yet been clearly explained. There are indications for an immunological mechanism with involvement of abietic acid, especially from investigations on so-called solderer's asthma.

Restrictions in lung function and obstructive respiratory diseases have been described especially after longer term exposure to abietic acid or its oxidation and decomposition products in vapours of soldering fluxes containing rosin or during the manufacture of soldering fluxes containing rosin (temperature > 140°C). Also, also occurred after exposure to vapours of hot-melt adhesives based on rosin, unheated rosin dust [elsewhere this is explained as near planing machines], heated rubber chemicals, pinewood dust containing abietic and pimaric acid (Ayars et al. 1989; , aerosols of a water-miscible coolant or cleaning agents containing rosin.

And again I have lost interest in followingvthe research further.

Keep your pine shavings below 140C (284F), don't aerosolize them chemically or by planing them and don't worry about it.

Or use something else. It will have some sort of risk too. But you might feel better about it because you are avoiding this minuscule risk.

 

[saysfaa]

And since this came up again. Most likely from the same source based on how hard I looked for a different source and how parallel to that writing, this discussion unfolded -

I'd like to point out she dumps on people basing their conclusion on personal experience while heavily using her own personal experience.

And dumps on using a chicken authority figure I trust [name your favorite chicken guru here] says pine shavings are safe!

While saying,
For example, one of my favorite chicken gurus, [named in the writing] shared her story of trying pine in the coop here. She said:

Within two days, I had three chickens with respiratory problems. They were breathing with difficulty, one was braying almost like a donkey and squeaking in between breaths… I immediately suspected that the shavings were the culprit.

[the guru] acknowledges that she isn’t 100% sure the pine shavings caused the respiratory issues. She said nothing else had changed for her chickens besides the new pine bedding, so she couldn’t think of what else could be causing the respiratory problems"

Besides being inconsistent, if pine were toxic enough to make that much difference within two days - I think at least some of the people I know here and in real life would have noticed.