Best Coop Bedding??

[JacksHomestead]

Jack, my coop is fairly small and very easy to keep clean. My husband thinks I'm nutty, but I pick up the poop every evening in the coop and the extended run. Just use a glove or a plastic bag over my hand and into the waste bucket. Takes a couple of minutes, and my girls like to follow me around discussing the busy and exciting day they had.

This makes sense to me because if you just pick up a little every day you wont have a mountain of chicken poo to be shoveling out at the end of the week!!
I have been thinking of a diy wire sifter so i can just lift up the wire and the sand would fall through and catch the poop ,thoughts?!?!?!

 

[Stephanie R]

That would be awesome, but wouldn't you have to have it fairly deep so that the chickens didn't get caught in it?

 

[sroy]

Is if fine to have just pdz mixed with sand for coop floor or should i just mix it in with the shavings.

I have sand and PDZ in my coop floor. It cleans up SO easily! I just use a kitty litter scoop. My chickens are still sleeping in the floor and they cuddle right down in the sand and pdz. don't know why they don't roost yet. lol

 

[Chicken girl 15]

What is PDZ? I see it mentioned all over but no clue what it is.

 

[sroy]

It's a stall sweetener. A mineral called zeolite I believe. It helps get rid of odors and dampness.Works GREAT! I get it at Tractor Supply. A 25 pound bag was $8.99

 

[ZeBeeSue]

I use straw and wild wheatgrass. Works well! Straw alone sticks to wire, though. Also FelinePine catlitter works.

 

[MeepBeep]

I use the deep litter method and won't ever be going back to the frequent cleaning routine...

I initially started out with about a 50/50 blend of pine shavings and straw to a depth of about 12" last year... Over the year I have added some grass clippings, leaves, more straw and some more pine shavings not a lot just enough to keep it about 10" deep as it compacts and composed... I also don't pick up any food scraps, I just let them composted as well...

Coming up on a year and I could no be happier, very little to no smell and it simply works... The only maintenance I have done is adding a bit more and turning it over with a pitch fork about every 4-6 months...

I have a platform under their roost that I stretch a blue tarp over to catch roost droppings, I can simply remove and replace when dirty...

 

[Chicken girl 15]

I use pine shavings and LOTS of them. I only clean about every 2 months and it's only to fluff add more shavings and make sure it's composting correctly. The chickens have done a good job at turning all bugs, garden scraps and their bedding into a nice start to next year's garden soil.

 

[Guvnah]

I save up bags of leaves in the fall, and just use that throughout the year. It's free. The neighbors do all the work, bagging it and putting it at the curb for me (whether or not they know they're doing it for me.)

My coop is 6'x6' inside, and one bag of leaves puts a nice 3-4 inch layer on the floor. Every other week I rake it all out and put it on the compost pile, and just dump another bag of leaves in there and spread it around.

I find that leaves that were raked (as opposed to being collected with a mower) are better. Mowed leaves are all chopped up and don't spread as deeply. (Not as fluffy.) Also, many times mowed leaves have grass clippings mixed in, which triggers decomposition of the leaves. Mowed leaves are better for making a compost pile for that reason.

So going into winter I need about 20 bags of leaves stacked away behind the garage. That gets me through to the next fall when I can get new ones.

 

[JacksHomestead]

I save up bags of leaves in the fall, and just use that throughout the year. It's free. The neighbors do all the work, bagging it and putting it at the curb for me (whether or not they know they're doing it for me.)

My coop is 6'x6' inside, and one bag of leaves puts a nice 3-4 inch layer on the floor. Every other week I rake it all out and put it on the compost pile, and just dump another bag of leaves in there and spread it around.

I find that leaves that were raked (as opposed to being collected with a mower) are better. Mowed leaves are all chopped up and don't spread as deeply. (Not as fluffy.) Also, many times mowed leaves have grass clippings mixed in, which triggers decomposition of the leaves. Mowed leaves are better for making a compost pile for that reason.

So going into winter I need about 20 bags of leaves stacked away behind the garage. That gets me through to the next fall when I can get new ones.

Do you use a mix of whatever leaves are raked and put to the curb or do you use a certain type of leaf???