Yes, I've used them....never freshly chipped up piles, though. Too hot~literally...you can hold your hand over the pile and feel the heat coming off the pile~and too wet for use in a coop or run when they are fresh. I also didn't use just a layer of wood chips....I always stress to everyone to use a variety of materials for good deep litter...the more variety the better. Then these layers are built gradually, like lasagna gardening, by adding dry material as needed when top layers become too moist. If my coop is dry and not holding good humidity to the mass, I'll add wood chips to hold more moisture into the pack.
I've never had any illness nor even respiratory symptoms from using deep litter in the coop and didn't when I put wood chips in there either. Never heard of anyone reporting any issues about such things until now.
As I see it, this is a special set of circumstances....newly chopped chips, small area of confinement compared to stocking numbers,
I'm a bit confused about this statement. Could you expound on this please?
right weather conditions for high fungal growth and birds that are susceptible to disease or illness actually getting an illness and dying from it. The rest of the flock showed no signs of any Aspergillus, so one cannot blame the chips for chicken death exclusively....birds with weak immune systems will eventually die from one of the million and one fungi, bacteria, etc. that are and will be in their environment and that's not too uncommon at all.
Happens all the time all over the world for various and sundry reasons.
This statement made earlier in the thread is quite apt....
Conditions were right, freshly chopped trees were used, which creates a heat and humidity to the materials~especially when piled or kept thickly layered~that would promote rapid fungal growth. Then a ground dwelling bird was placed on this hot, moist material filled with fungus and couldn't get off it...as that heat rose from the litter, so did the fungal spores. Then birds that already had compromised immune systems were present in that group of birds and died from the experience. Most lived and didn't have any evidence of the Aspergillus in their systems when swabbed...that tells me that, though the fungus was instrumental in their deaths, it wasn't the only cause or all the birds would have had it and sickened or died.
According to Dr. Clark the fungus transforms into the stage that it gives off spores as it dries. So when I moved chips from the pile and spread them out in the run the drying process began. This caused spores to be given off. All the birds were swabbed and all of them, including the 2 that died were in perfect health. The swabs do not test for Aspergillus. There is no test for Aspergillus. The swabs could be cultured but it is almost a given that they would be positive for the fungus given it's widespread presence. Per Dr. Clark the only cause of death was a "massive infectious dose of the fungal spores."
The fungus is more prolific in some parts of the pile vs other parts so once it was spread out those prolific areas also had a prolific amount of spores being given off once the chips began to dry. Dr. Clark also stated that even the position of the chicken's head at a given time could cause the to ingest or not ingest a lethal dose of the spores. It was the amount of spores in the 2 that died that overwhelmed them not any other condition.
The thing with deep litter is knowing when to use what kind of materials....folks in arid climates can get by with adding moist, humid bedding to counteract the dry, arid conditions in their coops while folks living in humid, hot areas are better using naturally dry and more woody materials to combat the natural humidity in their coops and runs...that would include woody stems of plant matter, dry and cured out wood chips, pine shavings, dry leaves, twigs, corn stalks, hay, etc. Trying to avoid materials that are moist or hold their own moisture like hay, grass, fresh wood chip with the green (leaves)chipped in, etc.
This is great information and this was my major mistake. I read a tremendous amount before I made the choice to get the wood chips. It makes perfect sense to me know that the chips were not the best choice for my conditions but at the time I made the choice seemed to be perfect because to me anyway, the fresh chips contained all the necessary components for great compost because they had the green leaves mixed in with the bark and wood pulp.
I wouldn't take this one incident and tell folks that they shouldn't ever use wood chips in their runs for deep litter....but I will be telling them not to use freshly chipped trees as their only deep litter material and especially not in the summer months or during any humid weather conditions.
I also completely agree with this.
