Ceder posts

[ashleyr]

I've heard bad and good thing about chickens and ceder, so I thought I'd ask. Can I use ceder posts for my chickens run? (As in the posts that will support the wire) I've heard that it can be toxic to them. Anybody give me a little input on this?

 

[vehve]

Let me start by saying that I have absolutely no experience with cedar.

Cedar has some oils in it, that can be toxic to chickens. This is more of a risk if you're using cedar shavings as a bedding material, as the surface area allowing evaporation would be astronomically larger than with solid pieces of wood. You might want to clear away sawdust residue from cutting the posts to size, but unless your chickens are going to be gnawing on the posts 24 hours a day, I doubt there is any risk involved with using them. I would take similar precautions as when working with treated wood. And I used treated wood in my coop without worrying about it at all, I just cleared away the sawdust.

 

[ashleyr]

Okay, thank you for clearing that up for me

 

[ashleyr]

Also just realized I spelled cedar wrong..

 

[AkChris]

Cedar posts are great to use for a run and will cause no problem for your chickens. The problem comes from the aromatic oils being inhaled by the chickens and causing respiratory irritation and/or allergic reactions. It's really only a problem if there is a large surface area for oils to evaporate (like wood shavings) and in a closed space (like the coop). Even then some people have used cedar shaving with no problems. In an open air environment the small about of aromatic hydrocarbons evaporated from the cedar is going to quickly disperse. And as vehve mentioned the surface area of the posts is relatively small so there won't be that much off gassing anyway. Plus most off gassing will happen when the posts are freshly cut and then will be greatly reduced over time.