Leaves in chicken run turning black, good or bad?

[gtaus]

What kind of chipper do you have? I've been thinking of getting one. Any advice?

I have 2 chippers. The first one I bought many years ago is a 5hp gas chipper/shredder. That will chip branches up to 3" round and has a separate shredder hopper for leaves. It works good, but they cost about $1200. Now that I found a resource for free wood chips at our local county landfill, I would not buy an expensive chipper like that. Plus, I don't bother to shred my leaves for the chickens. They seem to enjoy scratching through the whole leaves and breaking them down in the process.

Last year I bought a smaller 14amp electric wood chipper by Sun Joe that takes branches up to about 1 1/2 inches. It does not shred leaves. That small chipper is nice for very small jobs and the wood chips are great for my wife's gardens. But it takes forever to chip up a pile of wood for the chickens. Again, now that I found a free source for wood chips, I have not used either chipper this year.

My preferences, for what it's worth:

1) From my experience, I would say that a free source of wood chips is a much better option for me.

2) If money is no object, and you need a chipper, I would go for the best gas powered chipper/shredder I could find. They cost more, but the time you save in chipping and/or shredding cannot be compared to the smaller, electric chippers.

3) The smaller 14amp electric chipper works great for small jobs or picking up an occasional fallen branch on the yard and chipping it up to throw down as mulch in a garden. It makes beautiful chips, but it takes a long time if you have a large pile when you have to feed the machine one branch at a time. It will not shred leaves.

 

[gtaus]

I've been thinking about doing this with a good portion of my run bedding.
Makes my back hurt just thinking about it...
...so I sit down and think about this instead :

Oh yes. I dream of something like that too. Even a small one of those machines would be great for my small garden. But I spend less than a couple hours per year with my manual sieve, so it's not a good investment for me to buy/build a big rotating sieve. It sure would be nice, though.

 

[Judy Todd]

if you can't free range them for predator reasons but want to let them forage a bit outside the run, let them out an hour before sun set and stand out there with them. Predators won't want to attack with you standing with them. Its what I did before I was comfortable letting them forage the yard all day long. (they return to the coop before the sun sets)

Yes, exactly, I let then out after 9AM into the orchard and then shut them up by 3 or 4 PM. I know I am taking a chance on preditors, but it is wonderful to see them scratching around and another plus. They ate all the fallen apples, so almost no hornets, which I am highly allergic to. They, now seem to go in by themselves at about 4. I am outside much of the day working on various chores, so I am sure that helps keep the preditors away somewhat. We have bobcats, cougers, a resident bear plus hawks, owls, etc. It is a never ending battle.

 

[Kluk-Kluk]

Wow, what a great idea to throw piles of raked leaves into the chicken run! I can't wait for there to be enough leaves to rake so I can try this out with my girls!

 

[Lilyput]

My chickens love the leaves so much that I drive around neighborhoods "stealing" the bags of leaves left for the garbage truck! I never spread them, just dump them in big mounds in the run; the chickens love scratching all through them, like kids onto a big pile of snow!

 

[gtaus]

My chickens love the leaves so much that I drive around neighborhoods "stealing" the bags of leaves left for the garbage truck! I never spread them, just dump them in big mounds in the run; the chickens love scratching all through them, like kids onto a big pile of snow!

My chickens love scratching down a big beautiful pile of leaves. I never bother to spread out the leaves because the chickens love doing that.

Speaking of snow, we got our first snow of winter last night. My chickens did not like the snow and stayed in the coop almost all day today.

 

[member 158781]

on their own leaves take 2 years to break down, in a chicken run they take a few weeks. Its good for the chickens and good for the leaves.

Ok, so does that mean that it’s a good idea for in a coop or is it going to stink and be moldy?

 

[Compost King]

I have used leaves in a coop however they need to be very dry and less than 50% of your bedding material. I do not recommend it but if you are short on straw/hay/wood chips and need to stretch it out you can mix a little bit of leaves. Leaves are not very good with odor control they can often create their own foul odor if they get wet from moist manure. Some coops have better ventilation than others and its possible to get away with mostly leaves but I have found out the hard way that are not the best for coop bedding.

 

[Kluk-Kluk]

My chickens love the leaves so much that I drive around neighborhoods "stealing" the bags of leaves left for the garbage truck! I never spread them, just dump them in big mounds in the run; the chickens love scratching all through them, like kids onto a big pile of snow!

You're all getting me excited about a chore I normally don't like to do! Bring on the leaves!!

 

[gtaus]

You're all getting me excited about a chore I normally don't like to do! Bring on the leaves!!

Having chickens has improved my attitude towards chores I have to do all the time. For example, mowing the grass and dumping the clippings can be a pain, but now I consider it harvesting grass clippings to feed to my girls. They get fresh greens to eat and I save money on feed costs. Likewise, gathering leaves was never much fun, but now I dump those leaves in my chicken run and watch the chickens have fun scratching through all those piles of leaves. In return, I'm going to get some good leaf compost for the garden much faster than dumping it into a compost bin.