Cleaning out coop - what to do with used pine shavings

[Mercyr79]

What do you have in your run right now? If it's dirt, toss your pine shavings on top on a calm day, and hose them down. Then scatter some chicken feed (or BOSS, or scratch, or some kind of treat) over it, and let the chickens go to town scratching and mixing and turning.

Do you know if this works with hemp bedding as well?

 

[Mercyr79]

First spring following using large flake pine shavings for bedding as coop bedding. For those of you who use it, what do you do with the dirty stuff when you do a spring clean out? It does not seem to compost very well. I don't really want to throw 3+ bales worth of the stuff into my compost bin and have it just sitting there for years, tying up one of my bins. But I don't have yard waste pickup options with my trash service.

Also, for anyone who uses hemp bedding in your coop, do you find it composts quickly? Is it worth the $?

We started using Hemp bedding recently. It is extremely expensive since we have pay $40 for shipping. The bedding itself isn’t the expensive part. I highly recommend it! I couldn’t handle the dust from the shavings. Hemp absorbs the poops or the occasional egg really well. I haven’t cleaned it out yet so I’m not sure how it decomposes yet…

 

[Sally PB]

Do you know if this works with hemp bedding as well?

I think it would be fine.

 

[Percheron chick]

I bought totes (700# each) of hemp chaff straight from the processor. It has some much seed in it even after the chickens picked through it I had volunteer plants all over. Too bad it didn't work for me. It was super cheap at $15/tote.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Do you know if this works with hemp bedding as well?

Hemp works fine mixed in with other run litter. It just disappears into my deep litter.

 

[perkolator]

I toss ours into their run, where it mixes with wood chips and other organic materials I add, plus the native soil and poop. Seems to compost fine when you do that. The small woody bits that survive to be in the finished compost are kinda a good thing for soil life as they support fungi

 

[ellen60]

My used coop bedding goes into the deep litter run.

I find wood shavings to be awful at breaking down, and they're costly. IMO hemp is a better mix in if you want to compost. It just seems to disappear into both the compost and the run litter after cleanout.

Where do you find hemp litter? Isn't it costly?

 

[My Three Chicks]

Where do you find hemp litter? Isn't it costly?

I've been looking into hemp too. TSC sells them. Expensive indeed. Chewy also sells online.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...th-dookashi-odor-eliminator-10lbs-25l-hempd10

 

[David61]

you are not composting right if the are not breaking down. Composting is a 3 part recipe.
fuel = (chicken poo)
dry/brown= pine shavings
organic= green grass clippings,weeds, tree trippings...
Using small tree / shrub branches keeps air pockets. you need air to burn fuel . add a layer of each every time.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Where do you find hemp litter? Isn't it costly?

It's expensive mostly due to shipping, but I use fairly small amounts of it compared to all the other litter materials so 1 bag a year is plenty. I order from Amazon.