Thoughts on Bedding/Litter -- Why I Chose Straw Today

It's a place they go in and out of. Food and water. Shade and protection during the winter spring moisture. I have put pine down and leaves las fall. Everything breaks down but the hemp. The feathers are more visible than any poo. It's also on a cement pad so I don't know if that makes a difference. Now my patio is a different story, It's pooville!
 
This is great! How often do you clean your run? Also, how deep do you make the pine/straw bedding in the run?

I "clean" my run by shoveling out compost when I want it.

I put in a pile of stuff and let the chickens spread it. Then I get more stuff together when I'm seeing patches of dirt or when there is some odor or when it's the season for pine straw to fall and I'm getting it off my lawn, etc. :D
 
After a visit from Elsa and even more delays on the Chicken Palace, I noticed the first faint indication of odor in my run and in the coop where I have the Ideal Dozen. As every Deep Litter/Deep Bedding fan knows, the solution to odor in the run is more dry organic material. Additionally, I had cleaned the Little Monitor Coop a couple weeks ago and deliberately shorted them on shavings to attempt to convince a hen to give up making her nest and laying her eggs on the floor so I needed more bedding in there too.

Sunday I raked up 3 gorilla carts of mixed pine straw and live oak leaves and have the expectation of getting another 1-2 before I exhaust all the easily-accessible stuff on the property -- which will probably occur before the next needle-fall. I mowed today and will probably pick up a few bushels of grass clippings after dinner or tomorrow morning with the lawn sweeper.

I don't like to use either the lawn debris or the pine straw as the primary material inside the coop because they're more likely to be damp. Additionally, I needed more dry organic stuff than I have to hand on the property at the moment. So, I still have half a bag of large-flake shavings, but since I have to put this run back to grass I'm trying to limit how much wood I put onto the soil. For the same reason, I'm not using any of the full load of chipped tree that's sitting next to my orchard.

Thus, straw.

Because while it's not as absorbent as shavings in the coop and does have the problem of packing and matting when used alone and in excess, it does do an excellent job of providing chickens with fluffy, comfy stuff to sit in -- great for nests and good for my floor-sleeping 7.5-week-olds who don't perch yet.

View attachment 2756951View attachment 2756953

I also used some as part of the mix in the Little Monitor Coop on the principle that mixed materials are better than any one material alone (I'll top it with shavings the next time it needs more bedding). The straw keeps the shavings fluffy and well-aerated, the shavings keep the straw from packing and matting.

I didn't detect any odor from the Splits' playpen-coop, but put some in there on general principles since they'd been bedded with fine-flake shavings at the same time I'd done the brooder/coop and that was where I'd had odor. That took up the first bale.

View attachment 2756963

Then I scattered another bale around the run on all the parts that looked more like dirt than pine straw.

View attachment 2756967View attachment 2756969View attachment 2756970View attachment 2756972

(The intact bale is part of my regular run clutter).

The virtue of straw in my run today is what is normally one of it's drawbacks -- it degrades more rapidly than most other materials I could be using. Slow as the progress seems, I will be moving the flock into the Chicken Palace by fall and I will need to plant grass here. Wood, even fine-flake shavings, would still be robbing the soil of nitrogen but with straw I can rake up the excess and it will actually be good to have some left to protect the grass seed. People planting lawns deliberately spread straw for that purpose.

There are situations where I wouldn't want to use straw, especially if it weren't mixed with other materials. I'm on exceedingly, even excessively, well-drained soil., but people with damp conditions often find that straw is prone to mold so I wouldn't want to spread it in the winter even in my conditions (That intact bale will eventually be opened and spread in my garden not my run and I will wear a mask while I do it).

Also, I don't like it alone as coop bedding because it packs -- forming an almost pavement-like mat of straw+poop.

But even that packing can have it's good side. When I bedded the Outdoor Brooder I laid intact flakes of straw down like floor tiles before bedding over them with shavings. They were splendid insulation between the chicks and the still-cool ground surface.

Finally, tearing the straw flakes apart, like spreading the piles of pine straw, will give the Splits something to do other than harass the younger chicks.

If you're still with me after all this rambling, I actually do have a point. :D

That being, that I think this makes a nice illustration of why so many different backyard chicken keepers have so many different systems of keeping their chickens -- each suited to a unique set of circumstances -- circumstances that may change over time. Mine will, for sure. Once the Chicken Palace is in operation, I have a truckload of wood chips waiting and doubt I'll have much call for straw other than the intact bales I use for run-clutter and winter wind-baffles.
 
After a visit from Elsa and even more delays on the Chicken Palace, I noticed the first faint indication of odor in my run and in the coop where I have the Ideal Dozen. As every Deep Litter/Deep Bedding fan knows, the solution to odor in the run is more dry organic material. Additionally, I had cleaned the Little Monitor Coop a couple weeks ago and deliberately shorted them on shavings to attempt to convince a hen to give up making her nest and laying her eggs on the floor so I needed more bedding in there too.

Sunday I raked up 3 gorilla carts of mixed pine straw and live oak leaves and have the expectation of getting another 1-2 before I exhaust all the easily-accessible stuff on the property -- which will probably occur before the next needle-fall. I mowed today and will probably pick up a few bushels of grass clippings after dinner or tomorrow morning with the lawn sweeper.

I don't like to use either the lawn debris or the pine straw as the primary material inside the coop because they're more likely to be damp. Additionally, I needed more dry organic stuff than I have to hand on the property at the moment. So, I still have half a bag of large-flake shavings, but since I have to put this run back to grass I'm trying to limit how much wood I put onto the soil. For the same reason, I'm not using any of the full load of chipped tree that's sitting next to my orchard.

Thus, straw.

Because while it's not as absorbent as shavings in the coop and does have the problem of packing and matting when used alone and in excess, it does do an excellent job of providing chickens with fluffy, comfy stuff to sit in -- great for nests and good for my floor-sleeping 7.5-week-olds who don't perch yet.

View attachment 2756951View attachment 2756953

I also used some as part of the mix in the Little Monitor Coop on the principle that mixed materials are better than any one material alone (I'll top it with shavings the next time it needs more bedding). The straw keeps the shavings fluffy and well-aerated, the shavings keep the straw from packing and matting.

I didn't detect any odor from the Splits' playpen-coop, but put some in there on general principles since they'd been bedded with fine-flake shavings at the same time I'd done the brooder/coop and that was where I'd had odor. That took up the first bale.

View attachment 2756963

Then I scattered another bale around the run on all the parts that looked more like dirt than pine straw.

View attachment 2756967View attachment 2756969View attachment 2756970View attachment 2756972

(The intact bale is part of my regular run clutter).

The virtue of straw in my run today is what is normally one of it's drawbacks -- it degrades more rapidly than most other materials I could be using. Slow as the progress seems, I will be moving the flock into the Chicken Palace by fall and I will need to plant grass here. Wood, even fine-flake shavings, would still be robbing the soil of nitrogen but with straw I can rake up the excess and it will actually be good to have some left to protect the grass seed. People planting lawns deliberately spread straw for that purpose.

There are situations where I wouldn't want to use straw, especially if it weren't mixed with other materials. I'm on exceedingly, even excessively, well-drained soil., but people with damp conditions often find that straw is prone to mold so I wouldn't want to spread it in the winter even in my conditions (That intact bale will eventually be opened and spread in my garden not my run and I will wear a mask while I do it).

Also, I don't like it alone as coop bedding because it packs -- forming an almost pavement-like mat of straw+poop.

But even that packing can have it's good side. When I bedded the Outdoor Brooder I laid intact flakes of straw down like floor tiles before bedding over them with shavings. They were splendid insulation between the chicks and the still-cool ground surface.

Finally, tearing the straw flakes apart, like spreading the piles of pine straw, will give the Splits something to do other than harass the younger chicks.

If you're still with me after all this rambling, I actually do have a point. :D

That being, that I think this makes a nice illustration of why so many different backyard chicken keepers have so many different systems of keeping their chickens -- each suited to a unique set of circumstances -- circumstances that may change over time. Mine will, for sure. Once the Chicken Palace is in operation, I have a truckload of wood chips waiting and doubt I'll have much call for straw other than the intact bales I use for run-clutter and winter wind-baffles.
Yup, read it all through. Ay yi yi, so much to learn. I only hope my chicks don't suffer due to MY ignorance.

We put out to coop last Friday (Four days ago only). I have fallen pine needles yay thick out there. They have trodden down half of it; the other half where the roosts are they don't go . . . yet. Looks like I'll be needed to mix up the stuff in their coop. I'd love hemp (hubby says it would fall through the hardware cloth he put on the floor to deter predation); plus it's expensive as all get out (to me). So, I have been looking at "hay" vs. "straw". I'd better decide soon, for that flattened part looks really flat. I am shooting for deep bedding/litter; for odor and composting.
 
I only hope my chicks don't suffer due to MY ignorance.

Chickens are tough, adaptable animals that can thrive under many different management systems. :)

While they're little you might need to fluff the bedding from time to time, but as they grow they'll do their own digging (encouraged with a handful of treats tossed into the bedding anywhere you think it needs to be worked over.

Every form of bedding/litter has it's advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages of pine straw is that, for many of us here in the US south, it's FREE. We'd have to rake it off our lawn and do something with it anyway so we might as well give it to the chickens.

Fall leaves are the same way -- they're there and we have to rake them so why not use them (leaves are more prone to packing when wet but compost more readily).

Straw, wood chips, and the rest of the list of options all have their pros and their cons. We can try whatever we want to try and if it works then great and if it doesn't work we can try something else. :D

What works for one person in one climate might or might not work for another person in another climate.
 

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