Using hay in the coop and/or run

[momofonly]

This forum is great! Here's another question.

How about using hay in the floor of the coop and the run?

When I was about 11 years old, we kept a flock of ducks for one year (until we moved) and I pretty much took over all the maintenance myself, including cleaning their house. It was lined with hay and every week I would rake out all the hay, spread it around, and wash it down with a hose. This seemed to work well, and we never had any problems with the hay. The land they were on was kind of a sand pit anyway, and we actually got grass from the manure.

I'm thinking could I just line the floor of the coop and run with hay, then once a week rake all of the hay into a wheelbarrow and dump it in our compost pile? We don't compost food scraps or garbage- just tree branches, leaves and things like that. We don't really make "compost" either- we just use it as a place to dump yard clippings. I don't want to do the deep litter method.

I'm thinking that with only 2 or 3 chickens, the waste load should be managable. What do you all think?

 

[9 Feathers Farm]

We do the same for our coops but instead of hay we use straw.

 

[chick4chix]

I have five hens in an 8'x4' ark with another 12' x12' run --all lined with straw. It works great and I do exactly what you are proposing- I kept the straw/manure litter raked into a 3'x3' fenced area (with chicken wire and posts) in the corner of the run- and allow the chickens into it occasionally to stir it up.
It began as a waist high pile and eventually composted down to practically nothing. I just moved and am going to do the same thing is this run- it works great- good luck

 

[33yardbirds]

We use staw also, inside and out. Outside just to give them something to scratch around in and they break it down nicely for the compost heap. I clean the coop when needed and the straw is also broken down quite niclely. We also live in a sandy pine woods area.

 

[foxchasr]

We use hay in our nesting boxes, dirt flooring. I clean out the hay and dump it in our compost pile which consists of table scraps, manure from my horse and whatever is left over on coop cleaning day.