I'm a firm believer in rice hulls. I put it in the bottom of their coop and in their nest area. I buy a great huge bag for $4 and it lasts for 3-4 months (my coop is built for 5 chicks). It's easy to keep clean and seems to absorb the poop remarkably well! Of course, I clean out their coop every day with a pooper scooper, but whatever poop I miss dries up and disappears in the hulls. When I start seeing the floor, I add a bit more. I push it all out once a month or so and start all over with fresh hulls, but I probably don't have to do that since I keep it so clean anyway. The girls run upstairs as soon as they see me changing it out and start scratching for any rice that might still be there!
We are fortunate to have a rice mill not too terribly far from us. The bottom of their coop is sand and it's gotten pretty wet lately from all the rain. I'm thinking about putting an extra heavy layer of rice hulls on top of the sand and see how it absorbs all that moisture. It certainly can't hurt anything! As far as the chicks eating the rice hulls, they have a fine time scratching it all around, but it hasn't seemed to bother them not one bit and they've been doing it for six months, so, I'm not too worried about it.
