straw or hay?

[midwife mama]

I am in Bozeman. Our run is dirt, well, it's compacted slightly wet dirt. We had 15 chickens and now I'm down to 11. It was starting to get stinky in the run even though the chickens can free range around the yard much of the time. We are somewhat urban, we have neighbors very close on both sides, and they had mentioned it was starting to waft over there too. I noticed some other urban chicken folks were using straw/hay in their runs, and the neighbors said the previous home owners here used hay in the run....so I thought it might help.

 

[sydney13]

ive read that when they eat the hay they can get crop bound. has any one had this happen and is this true?

 

[TrystInn]

Sydney,

We use orchard grass hay (it's much cheaper here than straw) with our chickens and we've never had any issues with the crops, fwiw!

 

[montanasandy]

Quote:
Hi, I live in Potomac, MT. If your dirt is wet, that may be the problem. It won't matter if you use hay or straw, if it is gets wet it will stink! Can you cover the run somehow? Then you might think about putting in sand. I think it would help keep things drier and have better drainage.

 

[chicmom]

I've used all of those, and I have to say my favorite bedding is pine shavings. The reason is because straw is really alot harder to clean up, and hay gets moldy real quick if it gets wet at all. The pine shavings give the coop a nice fresh scent, and they're easy to clean up. I just sweep them out about every third week, and add new. In the winter, you just sprinkle new shavings on top of the old, and that's your deep litter method.

 

[Keri78]

Covered run & sand is also a good solution!

However,I use hay in my runs...I just get a fresh bale of hay a month and toss it all over the runs and they have a GREAT time scratching around in it! They may peck at it a little but (in my experience they are not going to be eating it like they would grass. I've been doing this "Deep Hay Method" for over a year now and have yet to have to clean my runs. Although my side yard is REALLY low...I never have a problem with mud or flooding issues. My whole side yard has been flooded at times but b/c the runs are so built up with hay it provides excellent drainage(think mulch) and fresh hay smells nice too! Some people are concerned about hay & mold issues but my experience has been the the hay naturally decomposes and the chickens do a great job of churning it into the ground so I've never had mold issues at all. 2 of my runs are covered the other 2 aren't yet....but hopefully will be by this fall. If you have an uncovered run then the rain will work to your advantage in washing away the poo....if it's covered then you'll be mostly relying on the chickens churning it into the ground and also it just decomposing. I guess you could use a garden hose and spray it down once in a while to help wash the poo away in a covered run. Hope this helped!

PS. Hay is also EXCELLENT to use in the nesting boxes during the winter months when you need the insulation.

 

[midwife mama]

Thanks for all the info!

Our run is uncovered, though half protected by tree shade. We did have nearly 2 months of rain, so yes, that put a damper on the run so to speak. It's finally starting to dry out, but I had to put something down. We're hoping to have it covered by fall.

 

[boogiedog]

I made the mistake of putting hay in my uncovered run - just before some unseasonably late rains. Big mistake. It breaks down easily and stinks - not to mention getting slippery. I think next year I'll just deal with the mud.

 

[Wolfwoman]

Straw is for bedding, hay is for eating.