For the Run: Wood Chips or Sand, Back and Forth! Here's a photo - thoughts?

[Jac Jac]

Do you have any neighbors, family, or friends who would love to have you take their leaves off their hands come fall?

Presumably, those leaves stop somewhere downwind. Piling up against a fenceline? Against a building? You only need a little to inoculate your litter with the composting organisms -- but the organisms will appear naturally in due time if you can't get any.

You can use any kind of compost brown as litter, even your shredded bills (though perhaps not ideal in a windy place). In town I used pine straw, straw, leaves, corn husks and cobs (from both my own meals and the corn I husked for fruit stand customers), garden weeds, dried lawn clippings (they have to dry spread out because they'll make a mucky mess), wood chips, shavings, and whatever else came to hand.

The problem with straw is it's tendency to mat, but if you use it in thin layers, shaking the flakes loose and fluffy as you spread it, and break up mats with your manure fork as you notice them, it works fine.

Some people use hay but I never did because it was so much more expensive than shavings or straw.

I've also never used corncob bedding or the pelletized wood, horse stall bedding I've seen mentioned here. Likewise rice hulls, which seem to be regionally abundant in some areas like the pine straw which is inexpensive or free for the raking here in the southeast but pricey elsewhere.

BTW, any fresh wood product you obtain non-commercially -- chips from a landscape company, sawdust from a woodworker or lumber mill, etc. -- needs to be aged before it's used. There is a specific problem fungus that grows on fresh, green wood, but disappears after the wood has aged and dried.

Thanks for your insightful input. I got non-commercial woodchips/shavings; found out about the green wood fungus "problem" weeks later - after I completed my spread - now, I know better. So...thanks again.

 

[3KillerBs]

Thanks for your insightful input.

You're welcome.

I know less about chickens than most of the people here, but I know compost and had great success with deep litter for my in-town flock that was quite close to my house and my neighbor's house -- no odor issues even in hot or wet weather.

 

[Folly's place]

You've gotten excellent advice about the bedding already!
I'm going to butt in with some comments about your coop and run instead. I don't see any real ventilation in your coop, so are there windows on the other (south and east) sides? Latches on openings that are raccoon proof?
Chickens hate snow, and may be inside for weeks in winter unless you have a roofed run for them, or love shoveling that snow out of their run!
Here we wrap two layers of sheet vinyl around the windward sides of our coop/ run in winter, and have lots of upper ventilation all year. When we had the run roofed, it was glorious! It did take a few years for that to happen here, but no more shoveling!
Mary

 

[rosemarythyme]

Do you have any neighbors, family, or friends who would love to have you take their leaves off their hands come fall?

x2. Many folks are happy to have someone come and take their raked up leaves because otherwise they have to pay for it to be picked up. Even moreso if you offer to do the labor of raking and bagging.

If you have somewhere you can store leaves, you might be able to save them for year round use, if you can manage to rake them up dry and keep them dry. I save up something like 18 bags of leaves each fall and add them throughout the year to provide dry run flooring or just give the birds something to do.

Thanks for your insightful input. I got non-commercial woodchips/shavings; found out about the green wood fungus "problem" weeks later - after I completed my spread - now, I know better. So...thanks again.

No need to remove what's already there, but I'd either hold off on using more chips for a while, or if you really must (i.e. a big mud issue), get chips off the very surface of the pile and spread out very thin layers, to try and keep the chips airing out as much as possible.

 

[FLXChicken]

...Would be good if you could store a pile and just add in a bit at a time,
along with what every other dry plant matter you have...

Thanks, @aart for your advice! I appreciate it.

So, we can store in a pile and add as we go (as long as my husband agrees). Are you suggesting that we might want to consider starting by adding a small amount (instead of starting with maybe 3-4 inches deep)? And I'll have to look up the ramial wood chippings.. never heard of them!

 

[FLXChicken]

You've gotten excellent advice about the bedding already!
I'm going to butt in with some comments about your coop

Hi Mary @Folly's place ,

Windows or vents on all sides, large one on the side you can't see. Keep in mind that image was at the beginning of the build but showed the footprint of the run the best.

All windows reinforced with hardcloth wire and and latches for raccoon thwarting (and some sleepy mornings, human thwarting) on any window or door to the coop, brooder boxes, and run door.

No roof over the run (as maybe mentioned above?), but run covered / reinforced with a layer of chicken wire and welded wire.

Oh, I was born shoveling snow... lol. And a roof would not matter. The wind here creates snow drifts you could ski down. ;-)

Thanks for commenting!

 

[aart]

Are you suggesting that we might want to consider starting by adding a small amount (instead of starting with maybe 3-4 inches deep)?

If chips are wet, yes. Even just an inch can work wonders.
When my sandy soil lost all the grass and stared to get slimy and stinky, just thin layer of straw reduced the smell pronto(within 24 hours).
Better to put too little in and add to it,
than too much in and have to remove some(BTDT).

And I'll have to look up the ramial wood chippings.. never heard of them!

Link to definition in my post.

Aged ramial wood chippings are best IMO.

 

[FLXChicken]

If chips are wet, yes. Even just an inch can work wonders...

Got it - thank you, @aart !

 

[Chullicken]

I think I've tried just about all or most things for the chicken run and I've become a bit particular as to what I use now. It is great to reuse some of the wonderment's that nature gives us, but keep in mind in that context they work wonderfully. In a chicken run maybe not so much. All I've found using leaves in an hour of busy chickens scratching them into piles in the corner and then when the weather hits it they tend to retain a lot of moisture and moisture as we know is baddy not goody for chickens or their feet. Every time I hear or read the word wood chip and chickens I get the shivers, in my opinion (We all have them right), I couldn't think of a worse option. They don't compost well at all as I look at the pile I have out in the backwoods, time-consuming to do a pre cleanout picker-upper of poop and other things like wasted food and treats. Over time they just sink into the earth and do nothing there but give you less earth. People use them for various things and that's wonderful, but I see an awful lot of giant piles from the arborist companies sitting there staring at us when we drive bye.
I've grown to love Chopped Straw (Not that normal baled landscaping stuff) and the kids love it as well. The process keeps little tiny seeds and bits in the product so not only is it a bedding option, its a boredom buster extraordinaire, and it is very cost-effective, compost well (Makes an awesome brown) well, and dries out relatively quickly with a little raking to straighten it out. On a shallow note, it smells amazing and looks so fantastic once it's in (for a few days anyway, but it's ok! I'll take what I can get) the Only complaint I have about it is it tends to go in the run and coop well and it just loves to go up my nose and stick to everything I love and hold dear in my life. My second choice is 'All-Purpose Sand'. Drains well, can be helped to dry out with a little raking which should be done anyway to keep it working and doing its thing. It is very affordable, few bucks a bag at your local carpenter hang out, looks like a Japanese Rock Garden when you put it in and level it off, and also the girls love it for dirt baths. Cleans up well and really when it gets absorbed by the earth it really helps to create a lovely soil composition. I have thee blackest lightly damp soil in my chicken run, the stuff gardeners dream about. What I don't like is lugging the darn bags 50 feet from the car to the coop, I'm like 'Good Lord in Heaven did my driveway get longer!'. Just my $2.56 opinion to add to the exceptional advice I've read here already. Really in the end use, whats works for you and your back, what's readily available in your area, and fits your budget at the same time ensuring the health of our flock. Like your coop! Can't wait to see it all finished and happy chickens~

 

[Jac Jac]

If chips are wet, yes. Even just an inch can work wonders.
When my sandy soil lost all the grass and stared to get slimy and stinky, just thin layer of straw reduced the smell pronto(within 24 hours).
Better to put too little in and add to it,
than too much in and have to remove some(BTDT).

Link to definition in my post.

Thanks for the link to ramial wood chipping; highly informative and useful.