I ran my last batch of chickens on pine straw. No fancy floor material, no extra stuff to buy.
Back in the day, a Briton named Geoffrey Sykes advocated yarding the birds on a thick carpet of straw, over well drained soil. Think of it as an outdoor "deep litter."
Britain is wet and damp and this method kept the chickens out of the inevitable mud, proved to be cheap and the straw eventually broke down into what we might think of as 'compostable material.' Wherever it was tried, great improvement was seen, in both the health of the birds and their output of eggs.
He was well on his way to changing peoples minds in this direction when industrial poultry housing came along and relegated him to history. More is the pity. Today his book, "The Henyard," is prized as a rare and costly volume. I was lucky to find one.
Anything will suffice in the place of straw, from wood shavings to leaves raked from the forest floor. I just used pine straw the last time.
Back in the day, a Briton named Geoffrey Sykes advocated yarding the birds on a thick carpet of straw, over well drained soil. Think of it as an outdoor "deep litter."
Britain is wet and damp and this method kept the chickens out of the inevitable mud, proved to be cheap and the straw eventually broke down into what we might think of as 'compostable material.' Wherever it was tried, great improvement was seen, in both the health of the birds and their output of eggs.
He was well on his way to changing peoples minds in this direction when industrial poultry housing came along and relegated him to history. More is the pity. Today his book, "The Henyard," is prized as a rare and costly volume. I was lucky to find one.
Anything will suffice in the place of straw, from wood shavings to leaves raked from the forest floor. I just used pine straw the last time.
Last edited:
