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

[Jenni Hen]

I have never tried dried grass on top of the paper shreds in the nest boxes. I'll give that a try this summer and see how it works. Mind you, I live in northern Minnesota and my grass is under snow for about 6 months out of the year. The idea of using dried grass on top of the paper shreds never really came to mind. Thanks.

I've done that and found it quicker and easier to clean out in the morning, because the stems form a mat that catches the poop and it just shakes off. I find the paper shreds are better than grass at absorbing water and at acting like toilet paper if anywhere needs a quick wipe-up. So I'm now using both.
I only shred as much as I need for the next couple of days because shredded stuff takes up too much room.
I prefer to keep the stock of paper in the house so I can be confident that it's thoroughly dry when I put it into the coop.

 

[gtaus]

I only shred as much as I need for the next couple of days because shredded stuff takes up too much room.

I have a kitchen garbage sized container next to my paper shredder. I line my container with those large plastic checkout bags I get for free at Menards. When the container if full, I take the paper shreds out to the coop. It normally takes me 1-2 weeks to shred up my paper products inside the house to fill up the container.

Shredder paper does take up a lot more space than unshredded paper. If I have an excess of paper, I leave it unshredded until I need it. I don't know what the exact ratio is, but I found one online source that stated shredded paper takes up 10X the volume of unshredded paper. That makes it great for bedding, but probably why most people would be better off storing paper products unshdredded until they need them.

 

[Jenni Hen]

I have a kitchen garbage sized container next to my paper shredder. I line my container with those large plastic checkout bags I get for free at Menards. When the container if full, I take the paper shreds out to the coop. It normally takes me 1-2 weeks to shred up my paper products inside the house to fill up the container.

Shredder paper does take up a lot more space than unshredded paper. If I have an excess of paper, I leave it unshredded until I need it. I don't know what the exact ratio is, but I found one online source that stated shredded paper takes up 10X the volume of unshredded paper. That makes it great for bedding, but probably why most people would be better off storing paper products unshdredded until they need them.

I think the ratio is far higher than that because yesterday I generated a large bagful using less than half a ringbinder of paper. I think the exact figure depends on shred length and type of paper. Now I've got an interesting physics and maths problem to take my mind off the stress of selling my old family house

 

[gtaus]

I think the ratio is far higher than that because yesterday I generated a large bagful using less than half a ringbinder of paper. I think the exact figure depends on shred length and type of paper. Now I've got an interesting physics and maths problem to take my mind off the stress of selling my old family house

I have never measured it myself. All I know is that I can take a small stack of papers and make a nice bag of shredded paper for coop bedding. Years ago, I started out with a simple strip cutting paper shredder. I never really liked that and it was a pretty weak shredder. Since then, I have had a number of crosscut paper shredders and I like them because the paper shreds are smaller, and the machines improved over time. No doubt, the crosscut shredder reduces the volume of paper shreds compared to the strip cutter.

I have never had a micro paper shredder, but I suspect that would also reduce the volume of paper shreds compared to either the crosscut or strip cutter paper shredders. I wonder if a micro paper shredder might cut the paper too small and not be as good for coop bedding?

One of the big benefits to using the paper shreds is that I have almost eliminated all my paper products at home from getting tossed into the garbage or recycle bins. It good for me to know that I use that paper for coop bedding, then into the chicken run composting system, then into my garden beds as finished compost to grow people food. Much better use of all that paper than filling up the landfills.

Although we have paper recycling bins in our town, I suspect that very little to none of those paper products are ever reused. At least when I shred the paper at home, I know exactly how it gets reused in my chicken coop as bedding and eventually recycled as compost into my gardens.

 

[avjudge]

I wonder if a micro paper shredder might cut the paper too small and not be as good for coop bedding?

My shredder does the micro cuts and while I was skeptical when I got it, I find I like the size. That’s mainly because I use a manure fork to clean and it allows me to sift the manure with most of the shreds falling out between the tines. (This works better with horse manure as if I shake chicken manure much of the manure falls through with the paper shreds.) I would say my shredder cuts to a size similar to medium bedding shavings.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I store the shavings in a feed bags, packed down and then scrunched as I tie it up with baling twine (bowline in one end, line around the bag and then passing through the loop of the bowline, around the bag at right angle to the first pass, back through the loop, pull as tight as possible and tie with a half hitch or two). This is because the vast majority of the paper is used when I completely clean the stall and the chicken coop once a year. I rarely need to top up between cleanings, as long as I don’t have a horse on stall rest (which has only happened once).

 

[gtaus]

My shredder does the micro cuts and while I was skeptical when I got it, I find I like the size.

I don't have a micro shredder, but I found a picture online of the size...

Is that what you get and use in your chicken coop?

For comparison, here is what I get with my crosscut shredders...

I have never used micro cut paper shreds, so I really don't know how well it works. The cross-cut paper shreds work great for me, but I would really like to actually compare the micro-cut paper shreds for use in the coop as bedding.

Well, then there's the cost considerations. I got my 10-sheet cross-cut shredders at the thrift shop for less than $5.00 each. They have never had a micro-cut paper shredder in the thrift shop. I don't want to purchase a 10-sheet micro-cut paper shredder at the big box store because, last time I looked, they were over $300 each due to the higher capacity bins and stronger motors required for commercial business environments.

Fellowes® 62MC Powershred® 10-Sheet Micro-Cut Paper Shredder for $319.99.

It would be great if I had access to a business that micro shredded paper and just gave it away. I know some people work at offices where they can take out the paper shreds from the office and use them as bedding in the coop. That would be nice.

If I ever see a micro-cut shredder come through the thrift store, then I'll give it a try. I can't afford to buy a new $320 shredder just to make "free" bedding for my chickens. That kind of runs counter to what I am trying to do with keeping my chicken costs down to a minimum.

But I am happy with my $4.00 Thrift Store 10-sheet cross-cut shredder and will be shredding paper for a long time. FYI, I bought 3 of those cross-cut shredders from the Thrift Store over the past 2 years, all less than $5.00 each, so I have 2 in storage if/when a shredder dies.

 

[avjudge]

I thought I had posted a picture of my hand full of my shreds here a year or so ago but can’t find the post. So here’s a new picture, with my (oddly foreshortened) hand for comparison:

 

[gtaus]

UPDATE: Just cleaned out all those old winter paper shreds litter in the coop this morning. Hauled out 5 Gorilla carts full (30 cubic feet) of paper shreds and dumped them into the chicken run to compost.

One of the things I like to say is that the paper shreds soak up the chicken poo and my coop never smells. Mostly, that's true. This year, we had snow until just over a week ago, so I was about 4-6 weeks late in cleaning out the coop this spring. Not a big deal until the outside temps went from 20F up to 70F yesterday. With all the heat, I started to notice that ammonia smell that we all want to avoid. No use to add more paper shreds this time of year, but it was time to clean out the old litter.

I had about 6 inches of paper shreds litter built up over this past winter. When I started to shovel it out, it smelled pretty bad when I got down to the floor layers. All the chicken poo from the winter had worked it's way down to the bottom. That is exactly what you want. The top layers of the paper shreds were still in good shape and did not smell. But the bottom layers of the paper shreds and chicken poo were pretty ripe. That should make some good compost out in the chicken run.

Now, compared to using wood chips, it was the same situation with the top layers of wood chips being mostly dry and "fresh". But when I got down to the bottom layers of the wood chips, it was every bit as smelly as the paper shreds. However, as I remember it, the wood chips were much heavier than the paper shreds. The biggest difference I noticed was that the paper shreds had almost no dust compared to the wood chips used as litter and I was working in a cloud of dust when I cleaned out the wood chips.

In summary, I am still very happy with using paper shreds as coop litter and I think the advantages of using paper shreds are better than other methods I have used, including wood chips which I also think is a great coop litter.

 

[LastMinuteLizzee]

That is a good use of that heavy cardboard. I use cardboard from those boxes and lay them down on the pathways of my garden, and then cover the cardboard with grass clippings. Looks like a green carpet. The cardboard breaks down over the summer, but it serves well enough to act as a weed barrier for that growing season.



Sounds like you are doing better than us! To be fair to myself, I am talking about one 13 gallon kitchen trash bag per week, not the larger trash bags for the cans out in the garage which I think are maybe 33 gallons.



I live in God's country. We have to haul our trash to the landfill/recycle center ourselves. No garbage pickup for me. I think that helps me think more about how much garbage I am willing to load up and bring to the dump. Recycling products for reuse at home saves me lots of time and labor in how often I have to make a garbage run - which for me is a 30 mile round trip task.

We do have few recycle bins on the way to town, and Dear Wife will drop off a bag or two of plastic, metal, glass and some paper products to those bins every week. We take advantage of the recycle bins. But non-recyclable garbage needs to go to the 30 miles round trip to the main dumping station.

Dear Wife is a treasure, but I still have a challenge to get her to give me all the cardboard products she routinely uses up. She is more into cleaning up the house than reusing our paper products for the chickens. So, for example, an empty tissue box gets tossed into the paper recycle. An empty cardboard paper roll from paper towels in the kitchen or empty toilet paper rolls from the bathroom get tossed into the recycle bin. Her junk mail gets thrown into our recycle bin. Empty cardboard food boxes get tossed into our recycle bin. I will take out all those items and remind her that I can shred up all those paper products for use with the chickens.

But, it's like talking to a wall and the next day I will find more of the same stuff in our recycle bin. Sometimes I can reduce our recycle bin output by as much as 1/3 to 1/2 of the volume just by shredding up those products she knows I could shred at home. And sometimes she gets mad at me for "dumpster" diving in our recycle bin at home!? Any advice in talking to Dear Wife about this issue? 33+ years together and I cannot get her to change on some stuff....

I know this is an old post but I can relate with you on the cardboard recycling! My husband throws away EVERYTHING and I often reduce the trash/recycle load by more than 50% by shredding cardboard or reusing containers.

 

[Sueby]

Because of this thread I started adding my paper shreddings to the coops mixed with the flake pine shavings. So far it seems to work pretty much the same. I don't have enough paper to stop with the shavings, but I can supplement & I like being able to get a use out of the paper before it goes into the compost.