Official BYC Poll: How Do You Get Rid of Dirty Coop Bedding?

[SubArcticFowl]

I scatter it in the run for composting. The system is a work in progress, but I try to make my chickens do the composting work.

My entire management system is also a work in progress as I've only had chickens for a little over a year. I recently switched over to shredded paper in the coop. My plan is to do a clean-out in early September before temperatures go below freezing for the winter. I will put the coop bedding into the run, water, and then cover with dried grass clippings and shredded leaves. Next September I hope to be able to do the same, but harvest some finished (ish) compost from the run first for the garden.

 

[Mr Spot]

We give ours to our next-door neighbor to till up in his garden.

 

[EmmaRainboe]

Dump in the woods. So I guess, compost? But we don’t use it.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Use it as fill.

 

[TropicalChick]

I live in Costa Rica - my coop ia at the bottom of a hill and is 3 feet off the ground and the floor is a wire metal grate so everything falls through.

I rinse the grate under the roost everyday and water runs under from the hill and the chicks scratch and distribute whatever’s left underneath.

Now and then I spread saw dust if it gets too muddy.

 

[Fishychix]

Usually I rake it into the run. If its really cruddy or the weather is terrible, I put it into the compost. I will put it in that into the garden in the fall.
When I cleaned out the run, i put that into the "woods", a few trees in the back of our yard. Its mostly broken down now, but it was just layer on layer from when I would just rake it into the run and add straw or hay if it was super wet or icy. And it STUNK!
Now I use pallets for the girls to stay dry on. I have also switched to pine nuggets in the run but continue using shavings in the coop.

 

[Hermits Garden]

I compost it by putting it in the run. The poo on the poop decks goes into a separate compost pile outside the run.

 

[Weldencoop19]

Compost and later utilize it.

Scatter in our prairie or farmer's field.

 

[Ascholten]

Ill scrape it up without digging an even bigger crater than they did in the yard for the bird-on-grass / outside stuff, and compost it What's left Ill fill in the holes they may have dug

For the stuff that's actually IN the coop (which is not much, they always seem to find a way to kick it OUT of the inner chambers) I'll just throw that into a 5 gallon bucket, along with their daily poop pickouts.

When that bucket gets full, I'll place it on TOP of a compost bin that's already active, that way the drippings when it gets hit with a heavy rain drip into the pile below. let it stew a month or so to calm down a bit, then spread it around my blueberries / blackberries and other plants that are big enough that it won't burn them up. If I don't have the bucket tagged for a specific use, I'll just turn it into one of my newer compost piles and let it all cook down.

I also have burlap sacks that I get my coffee in, I get a LOT of those, so I'll cover it up with a sack layer as well. This helps protect from wash away and more importantly, keeps the girls from digging thru it to eat the worms that will eventually show up to feast and help finish the process up. The burlap sacks, compost very well themselves and in 4 to 5 months, it's all ready to plant in.

Aaron

 

[Suzz]

I have no bedding in my coop just sandy dirt I use a long handled cat poop scoop I scoop daily and dump it in the woods