How much bedding do you need?

[Ascholten]

is your coop going to be a closed bottom, or open, as in it's just sitting on the ground and they can scratch around etc. If it's open, they will dig, and it will compost fairly quick. If it's closed it will still compost, not as fast as open, they can't dig because the bottom is closed but they WILL scratch-throw the stuff all over the place, out the door, into the next area etc. They do this often in the morning, looking for bugs etc first thing when they wake up.

The close bottom, it will remain drier for the most part, and WILL still compost, you will have a layer on the bottom that looks like dirt really, made up of crumbled this, that, composted, this, you get the idea. Occasionally I'll scrape mine out with a dust pan just to give them more of a shaving bottom and less 'dusty' poopowder. This stuff also makes an outstanding ground cover around plants too as well.

Aaron

 

[CrystalAnon]

The skirt absolutely. The hardware cloth, they don't know what it is, and will dig anyways, and possibly hang up a toe and hurt themselves. Not to mention the poop and stuff will just get hung up in it as well, clog it and make a nasty mess that you won't be able to 'fix' as easily as you'd be able to with just bare ground to shovel off of.

The sandy dirt is fine. but ONE THING. You live in Florida, howdy neighbor!

The physical location of the coop, and the overall slope off the ground. It NEEDS to be higher or at the very minimum even with everything else. When you get that 3 pm gully whumper that rolls in and dumps 2 inches of rain in 30 minutes, it needs to be able to run off and not sit there and turn the coop into a cesspool. How good does your sand drain? Being central, Im going to say you got a lot of silt in it too, and it may like to just hang out and not so much drain off.

with this in mind, maybe some sort of French drain setup or something to bring water OUT of the coop might be a good idea. Just some things to think about.

Aaron

Thank you Aaron!
We’re definitely going with the skirt. Good point about being able to clean under that hardware cloth too! That was one aspect I hadn’t thought of. I was mostly concerned about it hurting them physically. I’ll make sure my husband thinks of that issue too, if he wants to bring it up again.
Howdy neighbor!
We have a slight incline, where the coop & run is, so I think the rain will run off quite well. We had a good downpour last night & the coop stayed very dry. I try & monitor that, anytime it rains. Rather know before the gals move in.
And yes, it does drain rather well. Not great… we do still get puddles in the yard when it’s coming down that hard for an extended period of time, but nothing too crazy. We are not in a flood zone, so that certainly helps. We’re at 142’ elevation here. So we’re basically on a mountain, in Florida terms!
Out of curiosity, what is a “French drain setup”? I’ll look it up, but thought I’d ask what you mean by that.
Thank you so much for your input! It’s nice to be speaking with a fellow Floridian here. We moved across country from California in August, so we’re still learning the ways of Florida. But we both feel this was one of the best decisions we’ve made in the whole of our adult lives. Besides our marriage, of course!

 

[MarlaMac]

I’ll be a first time chicken owner in a month. I’m getting everything I need together now.
I thought for sure there would be a thread on how much bedding you need to have on hand to last a while, especially with the difficulty it’s been to get certain things sometimes. I could not find a thread on this, so I apologize if this has been talked about before.
About how long, in your experience, will 88lbs of hemp bedding last?
I know everyone has a different situation, but we have a coop that’s slightly smaller than 8ft by 6ft 7in (outside measurements) about 50 sq feet inside. We’re only planning on spreading bedding in the coop, as needed & the laying boxes. Not in the run. And of course, as bedding for the chicks in the brooder for 5-6 weeks. We’ll have 10 chicks (god willing) when they arrive & likely a couple less once we figure out which of the 4 straight run chicks are female or male.
About how long do you folks think 88lbs could last, with daily (and probably obsessive) cleaning?
I’m probably overthinking & overbuying… but this is so important to me to have everything they need & more.
Thank you!!!

I am an obsessive coup cleaner. What I do to cut down on the amount of bedding I use is spreading towels (chicken coup only towels) over the bedding before the chickens go to roost in the evening. I pick up these towels in the morning after everyone is out and put the poop in the compost pile and bring the towels in and put in a chicken towel only basket and do a load of laundry every couple of days to clean for reuse. My coup stays perfectly clean and I only have to worry about an occasional poop from a gal going in to lay or if broody momma takes her brood inside to get out of the wind.

Once every couple of weeks, I clean the bedding out, put it in the compost pile, clean the coop floor and roosts with vinegar/water solution. No problems with bugs to date and the ammonia does not have a chance to build up b/c no waste to degrade.

Have fun with your chickens!

 

[3KillerBs]

Do you think that’s a good idea, to opt for the skirt? Or would hardware cloth on the ground not be the problem I’m envisioning?

The skirt is best.

We have a slight incline, where the coop & run is, so I think the rain will run off quite well.

That sounds great.

If possible, put on your rain gear, go out in a really torrential downpour with a handful of landscape flags and mark any areas where water either runs through in a channel or pools.

Then you'll know if you need to dig diversion ditches or install French drain.

The holes are small enough they don't let a lot of stuff get into the pipe, especially if you have gravel / rock around it,

Some versions come with a "sock" on them to filter out silt, etc..

https://www.lowes.com/pd/NDS-4-in-x-10-ft-5-PSI-Corrugated-French-Drain-Pipe/3136611

I was curious if anyone here have heard of Chlorine Dioxide for cleaning?

Unless you get some dire infectious disease or some other really unusual issue happens, your chicken coop should never require wet-cleaning, especially with a deep litter system in place.

Dry chickens are healthy chickens.

Just shovel out the litter when you want compost (it may need to be piled so it can mature), use an old broom to knock the cobwebs off the rafters, and add new litter. The remains of the old litter contains the necessary beneficial microorganisms to jump start the composting process on the new litter.

 

[CrystalAnon]

is your coop going to be a closed bottom, or open, as in it's just sitting on the ground and they can scratch around etc. If it's open, they will dig, and it will compost fairly quick. If it's closed it will still compost, not as fast as open, they can't dig because the bottom is closed but they WILL scratch-throw the stuff all over the place, out the door, into the next area etc. They do this often in the morning, looking for bugs etc first thing when they wake up.

The close bottom, it will remain drier for the most part, and WILL still compost, you will have a layer on the bottom that looks like dirt really, made up of crumbled this, that, composted, this, you get the idea. Occasionally I'll scrape mine out with a dust pan just to give them more of a shaving bottom and less 'dusty' poopowder. This stuff also makes an outstanding ground cover around plants too as well.

Aaron

Our coop & run are both open. All is directly on the sandy dirt.
My husband wanted to put hardware cloth down on the ground inside the coop & cover it with dirt & bedding, but I opted for a skirt around the outside of the coop with hardware cloth, for digging predators. I didn’t want the hardware cloth on the ground to impede their scratching.
Do you think that’s a good idea, to opt for the skirt? Or would hardware cloth on the ground not be the problem I’m envisioning?
Thanks for your reply!

 

[Ascholten]

I must respectfully disagree with you. The media has done a great job of demonizing it.
I’ve taken it myself, as well as many people I know, to great effect. Nok-Out is a stabilized CD, so it does not need activation, and you don’t need to leave the room. In giant doses… sure… many things are toxic, in fact most things. But not in the doses you take for detox, and certainly not for the cleaning product I’m speaking of.
It’s used in a wide variety of applications across society & industry. As well as perfectly safe as a food grade decontaminate (restaurants/food facilities use it, because it can be ingested, unlike many other cleaners, without ill-effect), and water purification. I would argue CD is far & away better than fluoride for cleansing drinking water of contaminated & bacteria.
I’d say do a little more digging into this topic. You might be surprised what you find.
Here is a documentary on the topic. It is incredibly well-sourced & comes with a giant reference book with all of the published scientific studies to back what the narration of the documentary is putting forth.

https://theuniversalantidote.com/

Happy digging!
Much Respect,
-Crystal

I have done research and when the FDA and other supposedly respectable sources say do NOT take it as a food additive, ingest it, or use it for medicinal purposes, I will take them at their word on that. I also know what it does as well as I have worked with it in the past myself. It's basically another form of Bleach, only more toxic.

But feel free to use it however you wish.
For the rest still on the fence, don't listen to either of us, do your OWN research.
A good start would be to look at the MSDS for the stuff. I'll use the liquid type first since that would be the diluted one
https://www.magnumsolvent.com/productdata/MSDS/chlorine-dioxide.pdf

some more info

https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=581&toxid=108


Here's another interesting take on it
https://coastalhealthdistrict.org/chlorine-dioxide-should-not-be-used-to-treat-covid-19/

read the entire page, not just the tag line. I'll cut an excerpt.

Products are being marketed online under various names: MSS, Miracle Mineral Solution, Master Mineral Solution, Water Purification Solution, CDS, Aqueous Chlorine Dioxide, and others.

Ingesting chlorine dioxide products are not meant to be swallowed by people, and can lead to:

• Respiratory failure
• Potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms
• Life-threatening low blood pressure caused by dehydration
• Acute liver failure
• Low blood cell counts
• Severe vomiting
• Severe diarrhea

The Georgia Poison Center advises that chlorine dioxide not be swallowed, and not be used outside of industrial settings where appropriate precautions against injury from this chemical can be used.

===== snip ====

breathing is about the same as swallowing, it still gets into your body.

Here is more info:
this one is real nerdy
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Chlorine-dioxide

-------

i think this should be enough.

Again, people need to do their OWN research and don't just blindly listen to anyone else on anything that could be potentially life threatening.

Also remember, Birds are a LOT more sensitive to stuff that humans are, and things that would just give you itchy eyes will flat out kill them.

also remember, some of this stuff, is from the same morons who brought you the tide pod challenge on tic tard. So you can gargle with your chlorine dioxide, do the tide pod challenge, and every time you burp, you can do the laundry ! but at least when you fart, it won't be smelly because it ate your intestines on the way thru.

Please don't stare into laser with remaining eye either.
Margarine is safer than butter
Cigarettes are cool to smoke.
Agent orange won't harm you one bit
Have a swim in love canal to cool off
saliva causes stomach cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.
rats cause cancer.

------

seriously though, this stuff is so effective against germs and odors, because it pretty much destroys anything organic it touches. Birds are highly susceptible to fumes, tke teflon as an example. Im going to have to recommend against using this in a coop. if you get any fumes in there, it could harm them, just like bleaching the hell out of the coop and them getting into those fumes can harm them.

Aaron

 

[littlecoopnextdoor]

@CrystalAnon I like the deep bedding because we have harsh winters, so it's nice to have that extra dee cosiness in the winter. No issues with dust from the paper. I think dust in coops is usually their dander and feather dust most of the time?

 

[3KillerBs]

One question I would have with that, do you ever find any issues with dust, with the paper shreds?

Chicken coop dust mostly comes from the chickens themselves -- it's mainly feather dander.

Excellent ventilation is one of the best means to limit dust build-up.

We’re in Central Florida. I wonder if the deep litter method would be okay for warm weather too.

Deep Litter and Deep Bedding work in any climate, though the moist, Deep Litter system composts faster in warm climates.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/using-deep-bedding-in-a-small-coop.76343/

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

Yes!


...or injure feet.

My chicken ripped her comb 95% off on hardware cloth!

 

[Ascholten]

F french drain is basically like a septic pipe, they sell them in the Home Depot / Lowes etc stores, even TSC might have them. Think of a 4 inch pipe with a bunch of holes drilled into it. You put this around the perimeter of your coop area. The holes are small enough they don't let a lot of stuff get into the pipe, especially if you have gravel / rock around it, but DO let the water drop down into the pipe, to collect and run off / get pumped out etc, whatever works for your situation. People use this for water removal from areas where it may pool.

You may be on the mountain (Mount Trashmore don't count !! ) but all it takes is a small swail or dip and you can collect water.

if it's running off then you should be ok. When you get a torrential downpour and it pools for an hour or so, that's pretty normal, but if it sits there murrking around for most of the day, that's not good. I think you'll be fine.

Aaron