Different bedding for different seasons/temperatures?

[PrincessCleo]

Newbie question about bedding here.

I live in an area that gets really hot and dry in the summer (Regularly hits triple digits. I've seen it hit 116 degrees F here, and the humidity gets down to single digits.) and really cold and snowy/rainy in the winter. (Two winters ago we had no less than 3 ft. of snow on the ground at any given time between Christmas and March, and the temps can get down to around 0 F.) So my question is, are there bedding materials that are better suited for hot/dry weather vs cold/rainy/snowy weather? Or would using one bedding material all year be fine? I was planning on using pine shavings because I want to compost everything. But if there is something that would be better for the chickens depending on the time of year I'd rather do that.

Any advise or info is greatly appreciated.

 

[jp57]

I use the pine shavings year round.

 

[nminusyplusm]

I have deep litter in both coop and run. Summers here sound like yours, triple digits and really dry. We only get a couple of days of snow so I don’t have first hand experience on that but there is a thunderstorm season. DL wicks away moisture and keeps everything from turning into mud. During summer I add water to keep it composting and let the girls cool their feet.

 

[rosemarythyme]

As I use deep litter yes it does vary by season, but that's because the materials available for the litter changes with the season. In the fall it's a lot of dried leaves. Winter and spring, I dump in a lot more wood chips for drainage (also spring is usually when I clear out old litter). Summer, dried grass, which works well when it doesn't get wet and clumpy.

 

[ChickenDad921]

I live in north eastern PA. We have been going through a bunch of rain. My run started as grass, but we all know how long lasts. Ha. I was using grass clippings and and such. But with all this rain the run as turned into a gross mud run. I just added sand at least what I had in the garage. Means I get a trip to Lowes!! I'll be putting a good heavy level down to finish.
The coop I use pine shavings. And in the winter I will be doing the deep litter method to help keep the coop warm.
Hope this helps!

 

[lazy gardener]

If you intend to compost the bedding, I advise you to bypass the shavings. They take FOREVER to break down, even with a liberal dose of chicken poo. Go straight to deep litter, which is a combination of natural materials: AGED wood chips, garden weeds, grass clippings, dry leaves, hay, and what ever else you would collect in an average yard to go into your compost pile. Use that as bedding in both coop and run. A thread search for "deep litter" will find lots of information for you.