Hay for bottom of chicken enclosure...any hay or specific kind?

[Here chickie chickie!]

I have a coop inside of a steel cage enclosure. The floor of the enclosure is wooden and I'm concerned if its raining, the wood will get wet and slippery for the chickens. They can take a ramp up to their coop to get out of the rain but I'm wondering if there is a certain type of hay I should be putting ontop of that wood floor to keep it dry. Any suggestions?

 

[OrloffTom]

I use just regular shavings that you buy in a big bag to cover my coop floor.

 

[justbugged]

Don't use hay. It gets wet and stays wet and then it will mildew potentially killing your flock. I use straw and I use a lot of it. It is a lot less a inclined to stay wet. I also use DE and or Stall dry in the straw, to keep the crab nasties and smell down.

 

[Wolfwoman]

Wet shavings... yuk. If you know it's going to get pretty wet, just use straw I'd say. It soaks up more moisture than shavings or hay.


Tom, that does look like a Spangles Russian Orloff... might want to change the spelling of it tho

 

[Here chickie chickie!]

Thanks so much for the reply...never knew there was a difference between straw and hay. Where do you get straw?

 

[justbugged]

It isn't used for keeping the birds from sliding around as far as I know, but to make cleaning the coop much easier. Chickens are fairly sure footed even in the wet. I am in the NW so I am very familiar with wet.

 

[justbugged]

Here chickie chickie! :

Thanks so much for the reply...never knew there was a difference between straw and hay. Where do you get straw?

The same place you get hay, as long as it is a feed store. Just ask for straw.​

 

[justbugged]

Hay still has nutrients and moisture in the grass blade. Straw is from what I understand completely different plant. It has no nutrients and next to no moister in the blades. I am a little shaky on the details, maybe someone else has grown hay and straw. I know that straw is grown in Eastern Washington and Oregon all the time. I do know that the use of the outer parts of wheat stalks is what wheat straw consists of. Wheat Straw make great mulch, and you can grow a garden in bales of it. I know the straw I buy at the feed store is not wheat straw.

 

[TK421]

In Texas, straw is difficult to find until the fall. I use hay in my concrete-bottomed run. It works GREAT unless it's very wet. After several very rainy weeks, it gets matted, smells a little and attracts flies. To solve this, I either turn it until it dries or throw it on the compost and replace it with a new layer. Have only had to do it twice this summer because it's been so rainy!

 

[muddstopper]

Personally, I think the coop should be dry because if it gets wet, it wont really matter what material you put down, it will still get wet. JMO.

My thoughts on material to use is I prefer hay over straw or shavings. My reasons are simple. Straw is very low in nutrients and cost more than hay. My birds love to scratch thru the hay and pick what ever seeds they can find, as well as eating the blades of grass, this keeps the hay fluffed up and not matted down as i have experienced when using straw. Shaveing work ok, but again there is nothing of nutritional value in the wood. Again, JMO