Coop Bedding Options

[EggsPatInOntario]

We just build a larger coup and considering different bedding methods, we compost our bedding at the moment along with the poop and kitchen waste. Any ideas appreciated. Also what is a poop bed?

 

[aart]

What kind of bedding are you using now?

Poop Board?
Let's you clean out all the night poops daily(or so), making floor bedding 'last longer'.

What kind of bedding you use may depend on how you manage the manure.
This is about cleaning, but covers my big picture

-I use poop boards under roosts with thin(<1/2") layer of sand/PDZ mix, sifted daily(takes 5-10mins) into bucket going to friends compost.

-Scrape big or wet poops off roost and ramps as needed.

-Pine shavings on coop floor, add some occasionally, totally changed out once or twice a year, old shavings added to run.

-Runs have semi-deep litter, never clean anything out, just add smaller dry materials on occasion, add larger wood chippings as needed.

-Nests are bedded with straw, add some occasionally, change out if needed(broken egg).

There is no odor, unless a fresh cecal has been dropped and when I open the bucket to add more poop.

That's how I keep it 'clean', have not found any reason to clean 'deeper' in 5 years.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What does your coop look like? How big and how many chickens? (Looking for chicken density) Do they spend most of their daytime outside or in the coop, especially in winter? Is it elevated or on the ground. Is the coop floor dirt, wood, linoleum over wood, concrete, or something else? Does your coop stay dry when it rains? Are you in Ontario, people's screen names doesn't always reflect where they are. To me it's kind of challenging to suggest a method if I don't know what you are dealing with.

My 8' x 12' main coop is pretty much only used at night, my chickens spend practically all their waking hours outside. In winter I may only have seven chickens in there but during the warmer weather I may have 40 to 50 chickens total, most of them fairly young growing to butcher size. Practically all the poop in the coop falls at night. So I use droppings boards under the roosts to catch the poop.

My built-in brooder is under the main roosts. The top is a sheet of plywood and off to the end where it doesn't reach I use bins to catch poop that drops. I also have a juvenile roost over my nests. I scrape these with a garden hoe with a broken handle so it's not so clumsy about one a week to once every six weeks, depending on poop load and how humid the weather is. That pure scraped poop goes straight on my compost pile.

Main Roosts over Brooder

Juvenile Roost over Nests

My coop floor is dirt. My coop stays pretty dry, too dry for the deep litter method. I put wood shavings in there as required and once every three or four years clean out the coop floor and till in that stuff into my garden in the fall. By planting time it has broken down. It has some dried poop in it and the wood shavings have been really shredded by their scratching.

Aart brings up a good point. Don't think of your coop in isolation, consider your run as part of your space system. My main run is on a slight rise and stays reasonably dry though rain blows in from the side. I don't use it as part of my poop management system but I toss things I don't want to go into my compost pile into it. Things like "noxious" weeds (stuff you do not want to introduce to your garden) or things that have a lot of seeds. For example, I grow a lot of marigolds and zinnias which produce a lot of seeds. Instead of putting those seeds in my compost I put them in my main run to decompose. I think that is better than sending that stuff to the landfill.

Some people use the deep litter method in their coop or in their run. I would not try that in my coop if I had a floor that would rot or the bottom's of the walls that would rot unless I had protection like linoleum or an appropriate paint to protect it. Mine stays to dry to support composting and I'm not going to add water.

People in other circumstances can't necessarily manage it the way I do. There are benefits, drawbacks, and trade-offs to all the methods.

I look at bedding material as a diaper. Bedding should absorb moisture to keep the area dry. If it is dry, poop won't smell that bad. If bedding gets wet it cannot absorb moisture and you need to do something. I personally believe chicken poop and bedding should be handled as seldom a necessary but when it's time it is time.

We all have our own favorites as to which material to use for bedding. Which ones suit us better depends on what our coop/run/compost pile systems look like and how we manage them. People use things like wood shavings, wood chips, hay, straw, dried leaves, sand, dirt, and who knows how many other things. I think whatever you use should be relatively inexpensive and and available.