Bedding

[kemclaughlin]

We started with these based on the recommendation of the lady at the feed store where we bought our chicks. She told me that the older chickens will eat it if they are on pellet food. For the chicks, it does not seem to smell at all. I do change it fairly frequently, but not because it's wet. I am just worried about the little guys getting sick. The poo does dry and they pick at the pellets enough that some of them chip apart a little bit. Then after they have dumped some food into it, they can dust bathe in it. LOL Also, the brooder is in our living room so I don't want it to even start smelling. I have not tried the pine shavings because I was told that the chicks might eat it. Also, I was concerned that they would get it in their food and water. the pellets do occasionally get in their water, but they settle to the bottom and expand so I can just tip the waterer into the sink and rinse out the bowl if it seems like there are a lot. I change the water and add food every evening. I rinse out the bowl if it seems like it needs it.

 

[emilylea]

they like to peck at it and scratch at it but it smells so much better i use to use paper shreading but it didnt aboreb it good at all

 

[sagicraw]

Anybody have any thoughts on sand, straw or sawdust?

 

[aggiemae]

Some brands of the pellet bedding crumble into dust as soon as they get damp and then gets really stinky but I do like the "Crown" brand animal bedding for the brooder. The pellets are very hard because they are made of compressed recycled paper not wood pulp. We dodn't have enough leaves last fall to do the job so we used some in the run area under the coop where the soil was once very hard. Now the hens are scratching the pellets into the dirt and it's really improved the drainage. and condition of the soil.

Straw is great in the run where the sun can hit it and dry it out but it's hard to keep it clan and dry in the coop

I don't like saw dust for the same reason that I don't like pulp pellets. It stinky and damp and add to that it doesn't break down well in the compost and I also worry that it might some of to wood might have been chemically treated.

The "deep litter" method is pretty popular here on BYC and while it is pretty low odor if done properly it still basically means that your chickens are living on top of a pile of their own poop and it seemed that we had lots of flies before we switched to sand.

Now we use pine shavings (over folded towels) in our next boxes and a volcanic sand product called "Stall Dry" on our coop floor. The "Stall Dry" dries out the poop very quickly so we don't have flies and never get dirty nest boxes or eggs, we have actually had the same pine shavings in our nest boy for almost a year. Clean up, using a kitty litter scoop, takes about two minutes a day and it goes right into the compost. We threw down almost two bags of sand to start and have to add some sand to the coop floor every now and then, but are still using the 2nd half of the bag we purchased when we changed over from shavings.

 

[sagicraw]

Great reply aggie! Where do you get stall dry?

 

[sagicraw]

Are your folded towels cloth or paper?

 

[aggiemae]

Are your folded towels cloth or paper?

always cloth, for brooder because will eat paper. I try to make sure that they don't have access to anything like paper or wood chips that can replace chick food since ever bite of nutrition counts at this point.

If you used paper towels under hens they will just scratch them out and make a giant mess. Cloth toweling makes a nice soft base and shavings on top of it give the hens something to rearrange.

 

[aggiemae]

Great reply aggie! Where do you get stall dry?

the feed store.