I lay pallets down and fill all the spaces between the slats with leaves,soiled coop bedding and dirt so when it all settles there are no gaps. The chickens have a dry place to stand on when its wet and love to dig and peck around in it .The bedding and leaves will be ready for the garden beds in 12 months or so. Just Lift the pallet to remove the compost and place in your garden before repeating the same steps. My chickens love pallet islands!
Great idea for a quick fix. Long term solution would be to add enough organic material so it is even higher than a pallet. That way, when you harvest your compost, you don't have to bother with pulling up the pallets.
The ground was poorly draining clay and after rain and much moisture weeks on end, it would smell awful.
After my chickens ate all the grass in their run down to the bare dirt, the run would turn muddy after a heavy rain. Since I have been adding wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves, the run is no longer muddy and everything smells like a fresh forest floor after a heavy rain. When dry, I cannot smell anything. The chickens constantly turn over the litter in the run as they scratch and peck for bugs and worms.
When I mow, I have a pull behind lawn-sweeper that I pull until it's full, then when it rains
like it has been, I take pitchfork fulls of the lawn sweepings, and cover the ground in the pen. The hens like scratching around in it, and in a few days its back to normal conditions.
I've done this 3 or 4 times now -- all out of the same sweeper full. Throughout the winter, once the lawn-clippings are depleted, I'll throw down hay or leaves or just leaves. Lord knows we have plenty of leaves to utilize !
Yes, use all that free material for litter in the chicken run. It did not take me very long to discover that all I had to do was to dump the grass clippings, leaves, or wood chips into a pile in the run and the chickens would level it out themselves in no time. That's pretty much what they do.
I have thought about using the plentiful pine needles I have on property as bedding but read that wet pine needles are not healthy for them?
I have some pallet compost bins for anything that is moldy and I don't think would be good to throw directly into the chicken run. However, if I add all that fresh material into the chicken run, even in a big pile, the chickens will level it out themselves and keep turning it over as they scratch and peck the litter for bugs and worms. I have never seen anything go moldy once in the chicken run. It does compost, but in a natural, healthy manner.
I've never had an issue with pine needles, but I don't bag them for fear of mold
If you have lots of pine needles to use, why not just throw them down into the chicken run when you have them? No need for storing them them and letting them get moldy. If you do bag pine needles, and some of gets moldy, then build a pallet compost bin and/or just throw the moldy stuff into a compost pile elsewhere.
I will bag some dry leaves and store them for winter use in the chicken coop. But I also store some dry wood chips to lay down fresh layers of litter in the coop during the winter months. The chickens will naturally turn over the litter in the coop, but in our frozen winters, I'll throw chicken scratch into areas in the coop that I want the chickens to work over more.
Most of the litter in my coop is dry and workable even in the dead frozen months of the winter, but the litter under the roosts will freeze hard as concrete from the chicken poo. So I do have to throw a new layer of wood chips/leaves under the roosts every once in a while to keep things fresh. I don't clean out the chicken coop until after the spring thaw, and by that time, my litter in the chicken coop may be as high as 12 inches. But I designed my coop for the deep litter system and so 12 inches works great for me. Throwing fresh wood chips and leaves under the roosts keeps the coop cleaner and smelling good.
I have wood chips in my run but couple months ago I also started adding stall pellets we use them for the bunnies we buy the 50 pound bags at
tractor supply for 5 bucks
I was able to find our local county landfill will let us take, for free, as many wood chips as we want to haul out on our trailers. Since then, I have not had to purchase bedding/litter material. I do have both a gas and an electric wood chipper at home. They are good for yard clean up of fallen branches. However, it takes a lot of time and effort to make lots of wood chips at home. I can load up my trailer with free wood chips at the county landfill in about 20 minutes that would take me hours and hours to chip up at home. One free load of wood chips from the county landfill will last me more than one year as I also mix in all my lawn grass clippings and leaves from my yard as I put them into the chicken run.
Another paper product I use is shredded junk mail and light cardboard that we get in the mail, cereal boxes, etc... Instead of bagging up all those paper products and sending them to the recycle/landfill, I shred them up. The shreds first get thrown into the chicken coop as part of my litter mix (along with wood chips and leaves), and then get dumped into the chicken run in the fall/spring cleanings when I empty the coop and put down fresh litter. At first I did not like the look of all those colored paper sheds out in the chicken run, but I discovered that they break down really fast in the rain. Also, in the summer, I can just throw down a layer of grass clippings over the paper shreds and they are gone, out of sight.
Anyway, those stall pellets are just basically waste wood products, which is what I am able to get for free at our county landfill, making wood chips at home, and by shredding junk mail at home. All great sources of absorbent carbon litter for the coop and/or run. And less stuff getting thrown into the landfill.
