Bedding

[Chicken Fred]

That looks really small to me. The pine chips I get from the farm supply place here in NC is a lot bigger. My Leghorns have never eaten the chips. Also I have always used straw in the nesting boxes. It packs down real well and they don't eat it and they don't poop in the box either.

 

[Kusanar]

I don't have chickens yet, but I've been planning things out... I was thinking about doing sand and sweet PDZ in the floor and then in winter when the floor would get cold, adding some larger flake shavings to it, then in spring, just sifting it all back out (or most of it anyway) to put it back to a sand floor. Does anyone see any big problems with that?

 

[LakeMomNY]

I use deep litter method in both the coop and run.

In the coop I use primarily pine shavings, but a good amount of the chopped straw from their nest boxes seems to get mixed in. I have one nest box that nobody ever lays in. Someone scratches it empty every few days. Go figure.

In the run I use primarily dried leaves, but also throw in weeds, trimmings, grass clippings, food scraps, and anything else that I would throw in a compost pile. If the shavings in the coop get too deep I pull some of them out into the run as well.

The two main reasons I choose not to use sand:

1. I have read dozens of people's comments about sand doing a great job of "keeping the smell down". What I don't hear from people using sand is that there is NO SMELL AT ALL. (My DLM experience has been no smell at all.)

2. People who use sand rave about the (5, 10, 30) minutes per day they spend managing their coop.

My daily chicken chores are:
Collect eggs
Let chickens out to free range (optional)
Put bowl of scraps in run (optional)
Throw handful of scratch into coop (optional)
Make sure door to run is closed and all chickens are in for the night. (Assuming the were let out)

My weekly chicken chores are:
Check food and water levels. Fill as needed.

My monthly chicken chores are:
Open a bag of pine shavings and dump in coop. (I don't even spread it around. The chickens take care of that.)

And that's it. I don't spend 10 minutes a MONTH on chicken chores. And there is NO smell. NONE. Not at all.

I can't IMAGINE having to scrape a poop board and scoop up/sift out droppings every day!!

 

[roostersandhens]

I use straw. It's the cheaper than shavings and works better!

 

[Fowlinthehollow]

From what I've read in other threads, cedar is toxic to chickens

 

[mrballance]

Lake mom, Ditto for me . I do the same as you. The large shavings in the coop, Get shoveled up every six months takes 30 Mins and gets put aside to be put in garden once a year. I rake the leaves in the yard in the fall and put into bags that I store in the shed, So I can dump them into the run when it needs it. It leaves a lot of time to enjoy watching them be chickens.

 

[karenerwin]

I have not seen anyone that uses cedar shavings in there coop and nest boxes. I've been using it and love it. It helps keep mites and other varmints at bay. Smells great too.

I have read that cedar is poisonous to chickens if they eat it.

 

[mak1]

From what I've read in other threads, cedar is toxic to chickens

I don't know about that but i used 75% cedar shavings 25 % pine shavings 3 years straight i switched to straw in the winter this year because i got it for free

 

[laurin]

We used to use pine shaving for bedding in our coop. Our 4 hens wouldnt stop eating it so we switched to sand a few weeks ago and we LOVE it. Its now so easy to keep the coop clean and it looks like the girls enjoy it way better than pine shavings. They spend hours dust bathing! BUT I noticed that the sand is very cold and we are far from the -30c that we get in winter. There is 2" of foam under the coop's floor. I think the very cold sand could be an issue and im not sure we can go back to pine shavings. Any suggestions? (The runs floor is also sand)

we always had chickens growing up, we live in the Kansas City area, and we always just use straw. You would be able to easily clean it out and then you could actually use as mulch later on.

 

[RezChamp]

I use deep litter method in both the coop and run.

In the coop I use primarily pine shavings, but a good amount of the chopped straw from their nest boxes seems to get mixed in. I have one nest box that nobody ever lays in. Someone scratches it empty every few days. Go figure.

In the run I use primarily dried leaves, but also throw in weeds, trimmings, grass clippings, food scraps, and anything else that I would throw in a compost pile. If the shavings in the coop get too deep I pull some of them out into the run as well.

The two main reasons I choose not to use sand:

1. I have read dozens of people's comments about sand doing a great job of "keeping the smell down". What I don't hear from people using sand is that there is NO SMELL AT ALL. (My DLM experience has been no smell at all.)

2. People who use sand rave about the (5, 10, 30) minutes per day they spend managing their coop.

My daily chicken chores are:
Collect eggs
Let chickens out to free range (optional)
Put bowl of scraps in run (optional)
Throw handful of scratch into coop (optional)
Make sure door to run is closed and all chickens are in for the night. (Assuming the were let out)

My weekly chicken chores are:
Check food and water levels. Fill as needed.

My monthly chicken chores are:
Open a bag of pine shavings and dump in coop. (I don't even spread it around. The chickens take care of that.)

And that's it. I don't spend 10 minutes a MONTH on chicken chores. And there is NO smell. NONE. Not at all.

I can't IMAGINE having to scrape a poop board and scoop up/sift out droppings every day!!

Wow. Wish it was that easy for me. Mind you, I have two coops with a combined main floor space of just under 102 sq ft. The combined upper " floor" space is almost 52 sq ft. That's 154(give or take)sq ft of floor space for 38 chickens & 4 turkeys. Lotsa cleanin. May be I will put the poop boards back in.
Nah! Winters already set in. There'll still be poop in summer.
Thankfully the ducks and geese prefer to stay out side, even in subzero weather. I just put straw in an open to the south facing 8Wx5Lx3H "hut" like a calf shelter for them. They seem to prefer hunkering down in the snow though.
Loft White, Nilodor in warm water and spruce shavings worked nice for the smell but the chickens would ingest the shavings and the LoftWhite would kinda "glom" together...so now I just use straw.
More work to keep the stink down but iz OK. As well, the straw composts easier to the PH of the soil here as opposed to the softwood shavings making it more acidic.