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Deerfield, Is your bedding material covered with netting?
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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
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.
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?
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.