Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips?

[gtaus]

I actually chop up a banana peel into tiny pieces they they eat it up. I don't eat bananas often, so I tried it out last time

Well, I just toss the whole banana peel into the chicken run. The chickens eat the white fleshly inside part, but leave the peel skin alone. That peel skin just gets scratched around and mixed into the litter and turns into compost. Same goes for other food items like watermelon rinds. Hardly anything left but the skin by the time the chickens are done eating a watermelon rind.

One advantage to chopping anything organic up into small pieces is that if the chickens don't eat it, that little piece of whatever will compost faster than a complete or much larger piece.

I feed food scraps and leftovers to my chickens all the time. Now that they are living in the chicken coop, I just toss the scraps out on to the paper shreds litter and the chickens have no problem eating what they want, and the rest of the material that remains gets buried into the paper shreds. Come spring time and my coop cleanout, I suppose I'll find lots of bones in the bottom of the paper shred litter.

 

[avjudge]

This thread has gone quiet for a while, but I just thought I would wake it up to mention that I seem to be finding an increasing number of cardboard boxes (cereal box weight as well as corrugated) that have a thin layer of plastic on the outside.

As a result, I now nearly always soak any box that has a printed layer on the outside to confirm whether it’s plastic or paper.

I had written previously on this thread of soaking to remove the printed layer for cosmetic reasons so the shreds that end up spread on my lawn would be brown & blend in, but I had slacked off that until recently. “Soaking” means I drop it on the bottom of our utility sink and let it sit there as the sink is used, after which it easily delaminates, then I just toss the part I’ll shred over a shower rod to dry, so I’m really not putting a lot of my time into this.

I find boxes made and printed in China much more likely to have this layer - just recently I have found this on boxes that held aftermarket ink cartridges, LED lightbulbs, and a hand vacuum. The lightbulb box caught me by surprise.

 

[gtaus]

I seem to be finding an increasing number of cardboard boxes (cereal box weight as well as corrugated) that have a thin layer of plastic on the outside.

I can't say that I have seen a thin plastic layer in the boxes we get at my house. However, I am an Amazon Prime member and we get cardboard boxes that should shred up nicely, but they are sometimes covered with, what appears to me, is a plastic tape. I thought Amazon had made a move to using only compostable products in their shipping boxes and tape. I know that might not apply to Amazon third party vendors, but things coming from Amazon shipping, I thought, were supposed to be using compostable cardboard and tape. If anyone knows something about this issue, please let me know. Thanks.

One of my used thrift shop shredders is fully capable of shredding up cardboard boxes. If there is not too much tape on the box, I'll take the time to remove it and run it through my shredder. Some shipping boxes, however, just end up going to the recycle center. I don't want to ruin my shredder with plastic tape on the cardboard, and I don't want plastic tape getting into my coop paper shreds. That would not be good if the chickens ate some, and it would not be good in the compost as I would have to pick up plastic pieces from the garden later.

I'm not a Green Warrior, but really, how difficult is it to make things that work for shipping items while at the same time make sure those boxes can be composted and not sit in a landfill for the next 100 years, or more?

 

[gtaus]

Since I'm here anyways, I might as well update my status on using paper shreds as deep bedding in the chicken coop. This is my second winter using paper shreds, and all seems to be going just fine. I am shredding up enough paper, junk mail, newspapers, light cardboard boxes, etc.... that I am able to dump in a large Menards plastic shopping bag every 2 weeks to freshen up the coop litter.

I started off in the fall with about 2 inches of paper shreds in the chicken coop, and after about almost 3 months, the deep bedding is about now 4 inches deep. Since I have up to 12 inches capacity for deep bedding in my coop design, I am well within my target to finish off the winter with capacity to spare. In fact, I could put more shreds in the coop than my current rate of every 2 weeks.

As usual, the only real place that the chicken poo accumulates over the winter is directly underneath the roosting bar. The rest of the coop bedding is pretty much poo free. Living in northern Minnesota, with temps like today's -23F low, the poo underneath the roosting bar freezes solid, is as hard as concrete, but does not smell. I dump a fresh bag of shreds on the specific area every so often just to keep it looking good. In the springtime, that poo pile should thaw out and melt into the paper shreds, at which time I will clean everything out and dump it into the chicken run composting system and let it turn into compost.

As I have said before, I had real good success with using wood chips as bedding in the coop, but I have found that, for me at least, the paper shreds work just as well as deep bedding, but they have the added benefit of composting much, much faster when out in the chicken run composting system. Also, when I do my spring cleaning and remove all the spent litter in the coop, the paper shreds are much lighter than the wood chips to haul out. I'm at an age where that matters, so another benefit to the paper shred system in my opinion.

 

[Jenni Hen]

I was alerted to plastic in strange places when I spread my 'rough' compost on my allotment plot, in the rough bit right next to the public path. Then it rained, and a scattering of rain-washed plastic tea bags emerged all over it. So embarrasing! I reverted to using loose tea again.
On the boxes we get, it's usually clear whether the coating is plastic or not and I'm not shredding plastic-coated cardboard or shiny paper. However, the stuff I have been shredding is doing a grand job of wicking up moisture and the chucks have been able to dustbathe all winter so far!
It's also helped OH to face his long-overdue clear-out of documents, knowing that it's all going to make the chickens happy

 

[gtaus]

It's also helped OH to face his long-overdue clear-out of documents, knowing that it's all going to make the chickens happy

I'm the same way. I hang on to paper stuff far too long. But when I do decide to shred those papers, at least now I have a good feeling that the chickens will be using them as bedding and later everything will be composted and used to grow people food.

 

[becstalls]

Following. As a family of 8, this would be a GREAT way for us to deal with paper and cardboard waste

 

[littlecoopnextdoor]

Following. As a family of 8, this would be a GREAT way for us to deal with paper and cardboard waste

I'm 8 months in and loving using shreds in the coop! when I shovel out my run onto the garden in the spring, I will put all the shreds from the coop into the run to turn into compost in time for fall turnover.

 

[RoyalChick]

I was alerted to plastic in strange places when I spread my 'rough' compost on my allotment plot, in the rough bit right next to the public path. Then it rained, and a scattering of rain-washed plastic tea bags emerged all over it. So embarrasing! I reverted to using loose tea again.
On the boxes we get, it's usually clear whether the coating is plastic or not and I'm not shredding plastic-coated cardboard or shiny paper. However, the stuff I have been shredding is doing a grand job of wicking up moisture and the chucks have been able to dustbathe all winter so far!
It's also helped OH to face his long-overdue clear-out of documents, knowing that it's all going to make the chickens happy

Yea bags are now plastic? WTH I always chuck the used teabags into the compost/chicken run. Ugh.

 

[littlecoopnextdoor]

Yea bags are now plastic? WTH I always chuck the used teabags into the compost/chicken run. Ugh.

most tea bags are NOT plastic but some of the ones that are try and look fancy and use 'mesh' etc. Don't buy those. Honestly, loose leaf tea tastes better, is cheaper, and super easy to compost.