sugar cane waste as litter?

[Chookydeb]

can i pick more experienced minds?

i have my coop set up with deep litter, this time when i cleaned it i couldnt get shavings and i dont like straw (not that i could get any at the end of winter here anyway) so i had a brainwave and used sugar cane mulch i bought from the local nursery, its clean and a bit like a cross between chopped up staw and shavings, it seems fine so far - has anybody else used it or is there any reason i shouldnt use it?

one interesting thing is that the chickens dont seem to want to dig it out as much as they did shavings and straw - it is slightly heavier texture than either of those but that wouldnt bother these destructive little monsters much

 

[Going Bhonkers]

I'm not experienced with chickens, but that does sound like an interesting idea!!

 

[Chookydeb]

this morning i turned it over and loosened it up a bit, its great, bone dry and no smell other than a slight sweet smell, at $10 a bail its a bargain

 

[Going Bhonkers]

Does it look like regular shavings or do you have a picture of what it looks like?

 

[flgardengirl]

I would make sure that pesticides weren't used on the sugar cane because when we lived in Louisiana we lived near a cane field and they sprayed the heck out of those fields....

 

[Chookydeb]

they spray the heck out of wheat too so theres not much difference, it must be ok because this is the waste from the mill, if it was full of pesticides so is the sugar...hmm, good reason to not eat sugar

 

[Chookydeb]

umm, it looks like a cross between shavings and straw, like roughly chopped thick grass, mine is a bit more chopped than this picture, like coarse chaff