Nesting Material/Litter Material Question

[DHAllen0425]

I just finished my new coop and run around the middle of April. I had some left-over pine shavings that I was using for litter material at first. My girls are a little over two months old. I have recently (about a month ago) purchased a paper shredder. I thought it would be an inexpensive way to litter the 4'x4' roost coop. I have been using the Sunday paper, which I believe is printed with soy ink. I dont want to put my girls in any danger and wondered if this material was safe to use

 

[Wol1]

I don't see why not. I use straw. We can get it for $3.50/bale. One bale fluffed up would cover the bottom of your coop quite well. Have you looked at the deep litter method? I've been using it for a year and it's fantastic. I only need to fork and fluff the wet areas so they can dry. If it gets too gross under the roost I'll clean that out, but otherwise I change the whole thing out twice a year. But, I live in Ohio and straw is cheap and plentiful and the climate is probably different than what you have.

 

[chfite]

I use pine shavings from the farm store. I do add the shredded paper from the shredder to recycle the paper. It would wear out a normal home shredder to shred very much paper, even enough to cover a coop to any workable depth.

Deep litter is a good method as outlined above. A bale of pine shavings will last a long time and be much less work than shredding paper.

Chris