Are these wood chips any good for run bedding?

[jotik]

Hello, my chickens have eaten down just about all the grass in my new coop and it's time for some bedding. Seems like wood chips are very popular and usually easy to obtain and not too expensive (or free). My local city compost site chips all the brush and branches they receive into large piles and then puts some out for people to take for free, so usually it's broken down a decent amount. It's also all sorts of various material sizes and shapes; as you can see from the pictures here. Is this stuff good to use for my completely covered run? Should I just take the bigger chunks out and leave the rest? Some of the piles of compost have more bits of pine needle branches and unsure if that's ok as well.

Or should I just contact a local tree trimming company and see if I can get actual chips from them? They would be fresh though and would need to be aged, so that doesn't help me immediately. Otherwise I can buy playground mulch from a company locally and it will be free of any bad debris and they say it's virgin wood. Unsure if it's aged at all and if I need to worry about moisture. Would have to ask. $40 a yard.

We plan on mulching around my kids playground and all around our small fruit orchard, so we are going to be buying the actual mulch anyway for that use. But figured if I could get free stuff that is going to break down a lot faster with manure and be replaced more often to go into my compost pile, that's one less thing I have to pay for. Or should I just use the same material for everything?

 

[David61]

i use tree service wood chips in my uncovered day run. Inside my covered armored coop/run i'm using large pine flake shavings from TSC for floor bedding and the nest boxes.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Go with the free stuff. Big chunks are beneficial unless your main goal is compost (in which case you'd want to sift them out before using).

EDIT: I worded it ambiguously. If using as compost, remove big chunks before it gets spread out/mixed into garden soil. They do not have to be sifted out while being used as run litter.

 

[jotik]

Go with the free stuff. Big chunks are beneficial unless your main goal is compost (in which case you'd want to sift them out before using).

Thanks. I figured it would be fine. I'm probably just overthinking it as this is my first setup

I've been reading around the site quite a bit about wood chip bedding and thought I would just see what this stuff looks like and what you guys thought of it.

 

[Smokerbill]

Those would be great, but $40 a yard sounds really expensive. Get the free stuff.

There was roadside tree trimming going on near my house last winter, so I went and told them they could dump the chips at my place. They composted for a few months, with the internal temp reaching nearly 150 degrees. The pile was steaming when it was covered with snow!

I hauled enough of those partially composted chips to my run to make a layer about 10 inches deep. With 8 chickens I never smell poop in the run, I barely even see it. I think that all the bacteria and fungus in the chips just eats the dropping up, or they soak into the wood. Either way, it works really well.

 

[aart]

I hauled enough of those partially composted chips to my run to make a layer about 10 inches deep.

Doesn't need to be that deep, even couple inches will do the trick.

 

[Cluckingtime]

I have a question about wood chips .. a couple of weeks ago I had a huge pine cut down and kept the wood chips.. how long do I age them and any particular way to age them fast so I can put them in my run?

 

[aart]

I have a question about wood chips .. a couple of weeks ago I had a huge pine cut down and kept the wood chips.. how long do I age them and any particular way to age them fast so I can put them in my run?

Let them sit for a couple weeks, then scrape the outer layer off the pile to add to the run in a layer about an inch or so deep. Do that every few weeks.

The problems come when fresh chips are piled deep in a run, that can promote mold blooms large enough to be toxic. Probably less likely with pine than with hardwoods where leaves are also chipped up.

 

[Cluckingtime]

Let them sit for a couple weeks, then scrape the outer layer off the pile to add to the run in a layer about an inch or so deep. Do that every few weeks.

The problems come when fresh chips are piled deep in a run, that can promote mold blooms large enough to be toxic. Probably less likely with pine than with hardwoods where leaves are also chipped up.

Thanks for the reply aart!