Michigan

[dianaross77]

Quote:
Thanks RaZ. There is a Christmas tree farm near me. I'm going to call them and see if they have any too. Their list of products includes hay and straw.

 

[Farmerboy16]

Hi,

My neighbor has a large plot of white pine, and I can rake up as many as I want, but would like to know what is pine straw is good for in a chicken coop/pen? Thanks.

 

[dianaross77]

People use it for bedding/litter. Most of the people I've seen mention it use it for ducks. It biodegrades well so it seems ideal for the deep litter method in my duck house which has a dirt floor. I am currently using hay which works well. I just use a pitchfork to turn it over once every other week and add another layer. When I turn the bedding it just smells like dirt instead of duck poop. A lot of people with ducks use it to cover the pea gravel they use in the runs. It just softens it so it doesn't irritate the ducks' feet.

 

[Farmerboy16]

Quote:
Thanks, all of my pens have dirt floors, and was thinking whether to use bedding or plain dirt floor, and clean it out every week.

 

[dianaross77]

I think it would be great for that. It would help degrade the chicken poo and gives them something to scratch in. Also, the bugs and worms love it so that makes for happy chickens. My chicken run is under my pine trees and it rakes up really nicely and smells nice too. Unfortunately, my run is covered and my pines are short needled so I'd need A LOT more!

 

[Farmerboy16]

So, if I use pine straw, and do not have to ever clean out the pens, is that what you are saying?

 

[dianaross77]

Quote:
I have 4 hens in a 60 square foot run. They have been out there for 6 months and I've cleaned out the run twice by raking it. If you had a bigger run and were replacing the bulk of the needles lost to the biodegrading you could probably go for a pretty long time before cleaning it. I imagine it would depend on how much rain it gets.

 

[Farmerboy16]

The pens are in this half finished coop-

 

[1muttsfan]

Still grinding my teeth a little over the loss of my little cochins, so I went out and hung out with the chickens for a while. The little lav am rooster follows me around whenever I am out there, fluffing his feathers and crowing -

Here is is with one of his delaware pullets, all fluffed to make himself a big(ger) boy

 

[dianaross77]

Nice pens Farmerboy! I think if I were you, I'd give the pine needles a try. Something I've done occasionally is dump out a bag of pine pellets into the run and let them turn into sawdust.

muttsfan, that is the cutest little rooster I've ever seen.