The Aloha Chicken Project

[draye]

I would love a few more Aloha eggs, but right now I have about $9.00 in my PP do wouldn't do much.

I also have a couple if folks asking for more. Wants me to sell them the ones I saved for myself. I'm determined to hang onto them.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Deerfield, Is your bedding material covered with netting?

No, it's just left outside to decompose. We spread it over the garden area and after about 6 months we started using it as bedding in the chicken house 50/50 with dirt. It hadn't decomposed a lot at that point but as time passed it decomposed more and more, made it more soft under their feet and it sure keeps the smell down in the house. My chicks seem to be a lot healthier raised on deep litter (dirt + woodchips) than they were on pine shavings. I was so worried the first time I used this with new chicks but I had a broody and just let nature take it's course.

 

[HEChicken]

Quote:
Deerfield, I apologize that I think I missed a post and reading this I'm trying to figure what I missed. I read back a couple of pages but didn't see it. If you can point me to the post number that started this discussion that would be better than asking you to rewrite it......

However you have just given me a great idea - maybe this is similar to what you are doing. I traditionally used straw as bedding in my chicken coop. That's because I had 30 bales of the stuff. I loved it because the chickens would eagerly spread it for me looking for wheat seeds so all I had to do was throw a couple of flakes in there and in no time it was thoroughly - and very evenly - spread out for me.

Sadly, I ran out of straw a few months ago, so I switched to using old hay. I don't like it near as well. The birds aren't as interested in scratching through it so the only way I can encourage them is to sprinkle a handful of BOSS over it every morning. That at least gets them to turn it over but they don't break up the hay as they did the straw so when it comes clean out time it isn't as easy a job. But its an organic material that we have plenty of, and not having to go out and buy bedding is a big plus.

Last weekend we picked up 2 truck loads of tree mulch from our city's recycling facility. They allow residents to drop off tree limbs and pick up mulch for free which I think is a great service (saves having to pay landfill fees to drop off tree limbs and then turn around and purchase tree mulch from the nursery). Anyway......we got this mulch for our veggie garden, to lay down as walkways and weedblock and we are thrilled with the results of a few hours of work.

My idea after reading your post quoted above is to try using the tree mulch as bedding in the chicken coop. I am thinking the birds might find it more interesting than the hay due to the possibility of finding bugs in it. It would smell good when fresh and I think would absorb a lot of odor and moisture as well.

So my question is - is this what you are using? I know you had said at one point that you have one of the tree services dump tree mulch at your place. I'm less clear about the spreading it on the garden before using it. Do you spread it and then rake it back up and haul it to the coop to use as bedding? What advantage would that have over using it fresh? And then, after you clean it back out of the coop, what happens then? We've traditionally taken what we clean out of the coop and spread it on the garden as mulch/fertilizer. This year I'm afraid we overdid it and the garden has too much nitrogen but we shall find out, if the sun ever comes back out. I just cleaned the coop two days ago and on that cleaning dumped the bedding in other areas around the property that could benefit from it, rather than the veggie garden, which has plenty right now. But in time I'd need to add more back to the veggie garden as well.

Sorry for the convoluted post with lots of questions....my mind is spinning with the possibilities

 

[HEChicken]

I just asked DS what he thinks of this idea. He was one of my helpers spreading the mulch on the veggie garden and also my helper cleaning out the chicken coop. His initial response was "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I told him why I don't like the hay and asked again what problems he could see. He suggested there could be stuff in the tree mulch that is toxic to birds. I suppose that is a possibility since we have no idea which trees were mulched to create it. On the veggie garden I wasn't too worried about that as we weren't directly mulching the veggies but only using the mulch around the outside perimeter of the garden. I'd hate to bring in toxins and make my birds sick but off the top of my head can't think of any trees in particular that I know are toxic to them so don't know if I/he is worrying about nothing. Your thoughts?

 

[myfivegirls]

Quote: Anyway......we got this mulch for our veggie garden, to lay down as walkways and weedblock and we are thrilled with the results of a few hours of work.

My idea after reading your post quoted above is to try using the tree mulch as bedding in the chicken coop. I am thinking the birds might find it more interesting than the hay due to the possibility of finding bugs in it. It would smell good when fresh and I think would absorb a lot of odor and moisture as well.

So my question is - is this what you are using? I know you had said at one point that you have one of the tree services dump tree mulch at your place. I'm less clear about the spreading it on the garden before using it. Do you spread it and then rake it back up and haul it to the coop to use as bedding? What advantage would that have over using it fresh? And then, after you clean it back out of the coop, what happens then? We've traditionally taken what we clean out of the coop and spread it on the garden as mulch/fertilizer. This year I'm afraid we overdid it and the garden has too much nitrogen but we shall find out, if the sun ever comes back out. I just cleaned the coop two days ago and on that cleaning dumped the bedding in other areas around the property that could benefit from it, rather than the veggie garden, which has plenty right now. But in time I'd need to add more back to the veggie garden as well.

Sorry for the convoluted post with lots of questions....my mind is spinning with the possibilities

I just asked DS what he thinks of this idea. He was one of my helpers spreading the mulch on the veggie garden and also my helper cleaning out the chicken coop. His initial response was "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I told him why I don't like the hay and asked again what problems he could see. He suggested there could be stuff in the tree mulch that is toxic to birds. I suppose that is a possibility since we have no idea which trees were mulched to create it. On the veggie garden I wasn't too worried about that as we weren't directly mulching the veggies but only using the mulch around the outside perimeter of the garden. I'd hate to bring in toxins and make my birds sick but off the top of my head can't think of any trees in particular that I know are toxic to them so don't know if I/he is worrying about nothing. Your thoughts?

I'm not Deerfield, but I can answer some of the questions about wood mulch - on gardens and in the chicken coop. And I'm also talking about the kind that is from trees chipped up alongside the road, powerlines, etc - that you can get for free and has multiple size chips.

1. We use wood chips on our garden - directly on the wide-row beds, around the plants, and have great success. Look up "Back to Eden Gardening" - the basic element is using these wood chips, and after trying it for several years - I really like this method! That being said, I think it takes a few years of the wood chips decomposing before you get to see some of the huge benefits Paul gets, but there's was a marked difference the first year we used them. I still water, especially after transplanting, sowing seeds, and during very dry/hot weather - but the soil does stay pretty moist as long as the mulch is thick enough.

2. Last year, we had some of this mulch that had lots of pine in it, and since not all plants like acidic pine properties, I experimented with putting some of it in the chicken coop. I mixed the semi-dry, semi-damp wood chips with pine shavings and wood pellets. I raised chicks via broody hens in there and they did great! I later added leaves in the fall, stirred it up some, and it still seemed to be a nice consistency. Then, after we moved - the roosters moved into it, and later the ducks - added hay all winter; it mostly froze and was a huge paid to clean out in the spring. But, underneath all this compacted hay was a beautiful layer of partially decomposed wood chips, leaves, shavings, etc. But since it was really wet due to the ducks - I cleaned it all out & started fresh.
I haven't tried the wood chips since then, but this post has reminded me of that - and we have some nearby. I'd like to try it again, since it did so well the first time. Plus, it usually already contains worms and "decomposing" properties, so it's likely to make a good foundation for deep litter, even though all my coops have wooden floors.

Just thought I'd share, for what it's worth.

 

[HEChicken]

Thanks myfivegirls! I am only using the tree mulch as a perimeter around my veggie garden as a walk way and weed block. I do use the no till, deep mulch method IN the veggie garden but prefer other types of mulch for that. My understanding is that tree mulch pulls too many nutrients out of the soil as it decomposes so isn't recommended to use actually around the veggies. I haven't tried that though. I really think the chips we got would be difficult to use around small seedlings due to their size, so I think I'll stick with my other mulch, which is a variety of materials but mostly the straw and hay bedding removed from the chicken coop, the hay bedding removed from the goat and sheep shelter, shredded tomato plants from last year's crop etc. Having the wood chips as a walkway around the garden makes for a nice visual separation as well, making it easy to see the paths vs. the garden area.


I've done the deep litter bedding method in my poultry coop for about 6 years now. I have a love/hate relationship with it. On the one hand, not having to clean it out every week is nice. And being able to add in a new layer of fresh bedding when the old gets too saturated is easy. But - when I DO have to clean it out, its a killer job! This year, I did the big clean out after the winter, and then I decided to stop doing DLM, at least over the spring/summer/fall. The idea behind DLM is that as the bedding layer is decomposing, it is generating heat, which helps to keep the birds warm. Great in winter, not so great in the middle of one of our hot midwestern summers. So the last couple of months, I've cleaned it out once a month. When I put in clean bedding, I have the birds turn it over for me each morning via a handful of BOSS as their reward for doing it. It takes about a month, in a 10x10 coop with about 100 birds, for the hay to become so saturated that even when they turn it over, it doesn't look clean. At that point, I clean it out and start over. So far I am really liking this better. Yes, I'm cleaning monthly instead of only twice a year, but each coop clean goes pretty fast. My floor is concrete and it gets quite damp by the time the bedding is saturated so after cleaning I leave it to dry thoroughly before putting in the clean, dry bedding. Unfortunately, hay as a base isn't that easy to clean out as it clumps and the hay strands are long and don't break up. That's where I was thinking the tree mulch might be easier to clean out. As you said, I was thinking the worms and other bugs that come with it might be of interest to the birds as well.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

HEChicken, Rushing here a bit but the short version is I started using wood chips to improve the soil in the garden and looked at how much I was spending on pine shavings from Atwoods and decided to try "deep litter" after reading about it on BYC, with the wood chips/garden soil. Even though I have a concrete floor in the chicken house, I just pile it up in there. It works great! When we clean out the coop, the stuff goes in the part of the garden that won't be planted till next year and we bring in some of the other decomposed wood chips (full of grubs, worms, etc). It works beautifully and I only started using it with chicks late last year but it worked beautifully for them too. Supposed to slowly acclimate them to cocci in the soil, kind of like getting an immunization. I've had no trouble with it since using the deep litter.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

I just asked DS what he thinks of this idea. He was one of my helpers spreading the mulch on the veggie garden and also my helper cleaning out the chicken coop. His initial response was "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I told him why I don't like the hay and asked again what problems he could see. He suggested there could be stuff in the tree mulch that is toxic to birds. I suppose that is a possibility since we have no idea which trees were mulched to create it. On the veggie garden I wasn't too worried about that as we weren't directly mulching the veggies but only using the mulch around the outside perimeter of the garden. I'd hate to bring in toxins and make my birds sick but off the top of my head can't think of any trees in particular that I know are toxic to them so don't know if I/he is worrying about nothing. Your thoughts?

I had enough cedar in the wood chips that the smell was quite noticeable, but once it had been out in the sun, wind, and rain decomposing in the garden and tilled into the soil, never caused them a problem. I think you would absolutely love the wood chips as opposed to the hay. The problem with birds and cedar is that the fumes put off from the larger surface area of flakes causes it to be too concentrated for the birds. Birds do fine in and under cedar trees, it's just the concentration of fumes. So, once the wood chips aged a bit outside they were fine in the coop. What you don't want is a coop full of cedar flakes only. Mixed in with the dirt (DH had tilled it in a couple times to aide decomposition), it works great. I can't think of any other tree that might be problematic for the birds.

 

[HEChicken]

Thanks for those responses. We don't have a tiller, nor a place to till it in to age for awhile, so I think we will be hauling it home and putting it straight in the coop - if indeed we decide to do it. I have a little time to think about it since we just cleaned the coop 2 days ago so it won't need it again for a little while. However I think I really like the idea of trying just the mulch even without aging/tilling/soil additives.

Re cocci - had you been having issues with it? I know I'm out of the loop so I'm sorry I wasn't aware. I've never had a case of cocci - not really sure why because honestly, I don't do anything different than anyone else. Sometimes I get medicated chick starter, other times I don't. However none of my chicks are raised in a brooder any more. I think its been two years since I last brooder raised chicks. Since then, I've had so many broody hens that all of my hatching is done in order to provide chicks for broody hens to raise. I give the hens the pipped eggs or newly hatched chicks, move them to a nursery pen for 48 hours to bond, and then boot them out of the nursery pen. It is so fun to see those tiny little balls of fluff trailing around after their mothers, free-ranging at only a couple of days old! I never get tired of it. I wonder if its because they're exposed to cocci from birth that they have immunity to it? Just throwing out ideas since I actually know very little about cocci. I tend to not research something until I am faced with it and having never dealt with it, I've never done any reading on it.

 

[myfivegirls]

Thanks myfivegirls! I am only using the tree mulch as a perimeter around my veggie garden as a walk way and weed block. I do use the no till, deep mulch method IN the veggie garden but prefer other types of mulch for that. My understanding is that tree mulch pulls too many nutrients out of the soil as it decomposes so isn't recommended to use actually around the veggies.

Yes, if tree mulch is worked into the soil / tilled - it will pull too many nutrients out of the soil; that topic was addressed in the Back to Eden Gardening videos.
But, just left on top of the soil, it gradually breaks down. Perhaps also it's if the wood mulch is really "new" and hasn't decomposed at all yet. But, some of the wood mulch
we've used directly on the garden has been dumped off via the chipper truck, only having a few months or over the winter before we planted in it.
And I have found that the bigger pieces of chips aren't the best for sowing seeds or really small seedlings. But, we have a wood chipper & have chipped some up ourselves.
It's a much finer mulch, and I've been using that this year where I'm sowing seeds, with the larger mulch being where I'll just be doing transplants, large seed sowing, etc.

I've done no-till, deep mulch method for several years - using hay, chopped up leaves, grass clippings, etc - they worked to some extent, but didn't keep the soil moist underneath.
Perhaps I didn't put it on thick enough, and I certainly went through many years of a hard time direct-sowing small seeds, due to the mulch.
And if I pulled back the mulch to sow seeds, then the weeds would also germinate!