Frozen pine shavings?

[Ted Brown]

I bought a bagged bale of large flake pine shavings and it is frozen. Now out of bag but several days latter still a large frozen brick.

Suggestions?

Subsequently bought a bag of pine pellets but one needs to wet it down some to cause it to expand. -20C here, not anxious to add water into my coop? How should I proceed?

 

[RoyalChick]

Wow. Never seen that before. Depending on the circumstances, I would either leave it in place and it will slowly melt/break down. Or, I would put it in a large trash container (bag or bin) and put it in the garage to melt and then you can assess how much water there really is.

 

[aart]

Suggestions?

Bring inside somewhere warm?

Have never had this happen, but I make sure I buy bales that haven't been rained on.

 

[paintedChix]

Woof! Sorry that happened.

I have seen it happen - bags gotten partially wet (CO & NE). We broke up chunks best we could & put larger chunks on outside edge of walls (horse stalls). But, don't think we came down to those temps.

For the pellets, I'd spread them w/o wetting them. Any manure & humidity should cause them to start breaking down. At the same time, they should work to dry out poop. I say "should" because I've never used them in that extreme of a low temp.

 

[RoyalChick]

One thing on the pellets, I never wet mine down. I just use them as they come out of the bag and they slowly break down as they absorb liquid from the chicken poop.

 

[Ted Brown]

This is my 6th winter, I have never had a frozen bag of pine flakes before. The feed store blames the supplier/manufacturer and offers fine pine shavings or pellets as an alternative. I bought a bag of pellets and, following @paintedChix advice, just spread the bag on top of existing large flakes.

Will update with how things work out.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

We made a Lowes run today to pick up the last () batch of 2x4s, and many of them were frozen together. cough *kiln-dried* cough

 

[Ted Brown]

Pellets were dumped around, I did not add moisture. Looks like feed laying on the ground, has not changed in 48 hours; has been mid teens negative Celsius, will warm to +s for 2 days.

I had another conversation with the feed store and made a 2nd round trip, got 3 bags unfrozen large flake pine shavings. Outside staff guy said it happens but is rare.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I am glad you got it worked out Ted.

I do get the occasional frozen bag of shavings. I stick them in the greenhouse to thaw them but still won't use them until weather warms up. I worry it would increase humidity in the coop since it had clearly been wet.

 

[linguini]

I bought a bagged bale of large flake pine shavings and it is frozen. Now out of bag but several days latter still a large frozen brick.

Suggestions?

Subsequently bought a bag of pine pellets but one needs to wet it down some to cause it to expand. -20C here, not anxious to add water into my coop? How should I proceed?

So sorry that your pine shavings bag came in wet. I'd just buy another bag and make sure it's a dry bag. Leave the wet bag to dry out in warmer weather. (I'd imagine you'll need to spread out the shavings to dry them out.)