Coop Bedding?

[Exotica]

Hello!

I was just wondering what everyone has for bedding?

I'm thinking about either sand so I can scoop the poop with a kitty litter scooper
or straw with zeolite. What do you think is better?

I'll also be putting a droppings board under the roost.

Thanks!

 

[Mutt Farm]

Hi neighbor! I use sand. I find it very sanitary, the poop dries very quickly.

 

[Exotica]

Hi neighbor! I use sand. I find it very sanitary, the poop dries very quickly.

Hello! I'm from the San Gabriel Valley area! Ahh okay! Do the chicken tend to eat the sand though?

 

[Mutt Farm]

Hello! I'm from the San Gabriel Valley area! Ahh okay! Do the chicken tend to eat the sand though?

No, they prefer the dirt in their run, but it's alright if they do ingest a little as they need grit to grind up their food.

 

[Exotica]

No, they prefer the dirt in their run, but it's alright if they do ingest a little as they need grit to grind up their food.

Ahh, okay! But does sand help with the smell? Have you ever used straw with zeolite?

 

[Mutt Farm]

Ahh, okay! But does sand help with the smell? Have you ever used straw with zeolite?

Sand is very helpful with the smell as it dries out very quickly and is very easy to clean. Lots of folks also use Sweet PDZ and just love it. I've not used straw. We don't need that type bedding for winter warmth and IMO the chicken poop just gets mixed in, attracts flies and holds moisture smell and bacteria. I use orchard or timothy hay in the nest boxes. With a sand floor and hay in the boxes for the hens to "build" with, I've not had a hen miss laying in the box either. Check out the PDZ. I don't need it here, but you might like it.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I use sand in my turkey shed, use my cat litter scoop taped to a longer handle to scoop daily.

I use a mix of shavings and hay in my chicken pens, but these all have a concrete floor to deter rats digging.

We tried the shavings in the turkey shed initially but it was on ground so the bedding got wet really fast.

So it does depend on the flooring of your coop and what kind of maintaining you want to do, and what your climate is, sand is colder on the feet in winter, my turkeys go outside to stand on hay during winter days so they are not on the sand very long.

 

[barneveldrerman]

I would use construction grade sand. It's perfect for the California climate and is easy to keep clean. You can use a kitty scooper to clean it.

Hope this helped!

 

[aart]

Sand and PDZ is great for dropping board....not so great for floor.eventually is becomes saturated with pulverized feces and needs to be changed out.
Depending on size of coop, what so you do with all that poopy sand?
Dry pine shavings will dry poops out better than sand and can be changed out once a year and composted.

 

[VH Chicken Farm]

We use "sawdust" from a local saw mill. It is more like little chips than it is dust. They allow us to go there and shovel as much as we want and only charge a few bucks for a garbage bag full. We keep it about 3-4" deep on the coop floor and it works very nice in our 8' x 8' coop. It sifts really well with the sifter shovel we made. We had used pine chips which worked OK too, but we found the sawdust chips keeps it dryer, is easy to sift with our sifter shovel and just keeps the whole house cleaner and smelling just fine. It lasts much longer between clean outs too. We are pretty fussy about the coop being clean, dry and no stench. It only takes a few minutes to clean out every morning when we let the birds (19) out, and keeps it smelling better. We do have dropping catchers under the roost's as well. We pull them out and scrape the droppings right onto the sawdust chips on the floor. Then we use the sifter shovel and clean it right up. We bought our aluminum scoop shovel at Harbor Freight for $20 and used the 20% off coupon so it was around $16. We then measured the spacing both vertically and horizontally on the back of the
shovel and drilled a hole at every intersection. The only sifter shovel I could find on line was $90 + Shipping. So this works well, just took a little effort. Good luck.