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

[gtaus]

When you shred junk mail, I'm assuming the envelopes too, do you leave the plastic address windows, or just not use those envelopes?

I tear off the plastic windows and toss that piece into the trash. I don't want the chickens to accidently eat a piece of plastic window, although I don't think it would hurt them. Also, I compost all my paper shreds and I don't like any plastic in the finished compost.

Plastic doesn't decompose. I cut all stickers, tape, everything except for cardboard.

Some of the newer tapes are compostable. I'm thinking lots of packages we get from Amazon and QVC have compostable paper-type tape. The packing tape usually looks very dull and generic. If the tape appears shiny or more plastic, I remove it. Ditto for stickers as more and more companies are using compostable stickers as well. If in doubt, I remove them as well.

As long as you don't let everything pile up on you, it only takes me a minute or two to shred my daily paper products.

 

[BDutch]

I don't want the chickens to accidently eat a piece of plastic window, although I don't think it would hurt them.

Shredded plastic has sharp edges. I think it can hurt them badly.
And new plastics have lots of toxins in them like formaldehyde. Chickens are very vulnerable for toxins.

 

[gtaus]

Shredded plastic has sharp edges. I think it can hurt them badly.
And new plastics have lots of toxins in them like formaldehyde. Chickens are very vulnerable for toxins.

Oh, well I was referring to the plastic windows used in business envelops. That is certainly not hard plastic and would have no sharp edges.

When I bought big box store bags of compost, I would always sift the compost before I put any into my gardens. You might be surprised (or not) how much garbage I would find in the bagged compost such as plastics, metals, wood and glass. Now that I have chickens, I still sift my chicken run compost but there is no garage in it. I just sift it to reject the unfinished compost which then gets tossed back into the chicken run once again to break down further.

But I really went into converting my entire chicken run into a composting system and I soon had so much finished compost to harvest that I invested in making a cement mixer compost sifter. I literally sift hundreds of dollars' worth of compost from my modest chicken run every spring and fall. In case you have not seen my current setup, here is a picture of my cement mixer compost sifter last spring when I was sifting out finished compost to build some new hügelkultur raised garden beds...