Bedding besides straw or shavings

[PAChickenChick]

Ok...so here's my 2¢....

I've picked the minds of some of the regulars here and I've come away with SAND as being a wonderful bedding.

1- it is good on the chickens feet
2- if they eat it, it will now become "grit" for them
3- it works well with water and dries out well
4- it dries out the poop so that it keeps smells down
5- the poop can be "sifted" out and the sand can stay
5a- poop without anything else stuck to it can be put in water and stirred up to make "tea" for the garden.
6- it's cheep...I mean cheap...lol
7- it cuts down on the dust
8- the chickens can use it to "dust bathe" in

there are only two down sides that I can think of...

1- sand fleas (not an issue depending on where the sand came from and could easily be taken care of with a little sprinkle of DE mixed into sand)
2- if you give the chickens food besides for seed/crumble..you would have to be sure it didn't get buried in the sand and then rot. (but you'd probably scoop this up too when poop scooping)

Anyway... this is just my opinion

 

[DawnSuiter]

My vote is for construction Sand. It's sharp and course and just perfect for all the reasons just listed plus another major reason

#9 Sand is COOL temperature wise and during the summer that's a BIG PLUS

About $7 to fill my 100sf hen house and I don't expect to have to change that but twice per year at MOST!

I have only used wood shavings in the brooder, and boy oh boy do I wish I could put sand in there for them. But the older chickens eat it and I wouldn't want the little chicks doing that.

about the cons above:

sand fleas, I don't think the course construction sand is a favorable habitat for anything like fleas

and I toss food in there all the time, if it's a juicy something it gets covered in sand right away and eventually they get to it. Not only do I not feed them more than they consume in just a few minutes, but nothing like a chunk of food can hide in our 2" layer of sand so finding things like that is easy.

 

[chickenfever]

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So can chicks not be outside either because they may eat small rocks? My chicks are 2 wks right now and I was thinking of moving them out to a coop and covered run in maybe a week.

 

[flakey chick]

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There is nothing my chicks like better, to eat. Well maybe cobwebs. Grapes? eh. Strawberry tops- could take or leave it. If the paper gets wet, they love to chow down on it. Then it shoots straight through them in a watery poop making more wet paper.

BTW, for the brooder nothing has worked better for me than old sheets. I use the pillowcases for the brooder and I put down an old sheet outside the brooder for a little "indoor free range time". The brooder is wire bottom so the wet part wicks and dries out. The solid part dries quickly and rolls off (into the compost bucket). Then the sheets go in the wash.

 

[DawnSuiter]

Quote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by bodyflight
#I have only used wood shavings in the brooder, and boy oh boy do I wish I could put sand in there for them. But the older chickens eat it and I wouldn't want the little chicks doing that.

So can chicks not be outside either because they may eat small rocks? My chicks are 2 wks right now and I was thinking of moving them out to a coop and covered run in maybe a week.

hey chickfever, small grit size sand particles are different than pebbles or tiny rocks... if it's about the size of their food, I suspect they'll try and eat it.. but outside rocks are generally not tiny sand particle size and if they are aren't usually found in such abundance that it would cause problems.

 

[chickenfever]

bodyflight,
I guess I'm a little confused, why couldn't the chicks eat the sand?

 

[SandraMort]

How do you scoop out the poop and how often do you do it? I'm picturing a cat litterbox scoop but that doesn't sound so efficient.

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[DawnSuiter]

chickenfever - they can eat the sand however I have heard rumors of impacted crops, this is where they store the grit, and so I worry about them consuming TOO MUCH sand because they are young and like children may not always know whats good for them

Sandra... today I am cleaning the coop. I will take my mulching rake, which is a small rake meant to rake between rows in your crops, and rake the top of the sand. Anywhere they play I will rake aggressively. Then I rake into piles and shovel out the piles into a bucket. For my 99sf coop thats about half a five gallon bucket full and I'm pretty aggressive with it so I tend to get alot of the surrounding sand & stones.

It just so happens that course sand is a great amendment to my soil and so this sand bucket gets dumped in my new compost pile.

you COULD use a kittle littler scooper, specially the cheaper ones that have the larger spaces, we have a dollar store one that would work well. yes you would also get a lot of the larger pebbles, but so what, no biggie there at all.

When I rake near the waterer I stir the sand up and redistribute it around the hen house so it can dry out. Other than that.. .I see very little if any food loss, I keep the feeders pretty high for them so it's a stretch and so far so good.

15 minutes total time every 2-3 weeks right now. I am however in a transitional stage where I finally have some girls for the hen house, & my boys are out in the tractor. So I will finally setup proper roosts with droppings boards which I have access to from the outside. It's build into the design but I hadn't set it up yet, I wasn't sure I'd have any hens this year and the boys are just temporary. Anyway, my point is that once that is done, I suspect there will hardly be ANY poop to clean up around the floor and then I suspect I could go months without raking.

 

[chickenfever]

chickenfever - they can eat the sand however I have heard rumors of impacted crops, this is where they store the grit, and so I worry about them consuming TOO MUCH sand because they are young and like children may not always know whats good for them

Bodyflight, thank you for clarrifying that for me.

 

[Omran]

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I don't even understand this personally...maybe it's me & my situation, but I have a constant problem with dirt turning into MUD b/c once chickens eat all your grass away it turns into nothing but dirt & poop, which eventually turns into majoratively just poop, so you have to add *something*

You are absoloutly wright,it works only in case you have a concrete floor like mine,and man has to keep a close look for mud and clean it.I know it sounds crazy but I don't mind working with dirt personally.In my case I have a concrete floor in the coop and I clean it once a week.