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

[gtaus]

Thrift Store Paper Shredder Purchase

I just picked up another shredder from our local charity Thrift Store yesterday. It is a Fellowes 9C 9-sheet paper shredder...

It's used, of course, but it looks practically new. That model used to sell for $70.00 at Walmart, but I think the model has been discontinued. In any case, I picked it up at the Thrift Shop for only $2.00!

Our church Thrift Shop only gets a few shredders in every year, but I scoop them up at those prices. I know, sooner or later, I will wear out my shredder(s) making shredded paper coop litter for my chickens. No tears, I just pull out another shredder from the Thrift Shop and dispose of the old one. It does not take long to make enough paper shreds coop litter to pay back the cost of a used shredder at $2.00. I think I have 2 spare shredders at the moment.

Well, it's truly a win-win transaction because I usually get a good working used paper shredder for little money, and the money we spend at our local church Thrift Shop goes right back into the local community charities to help people in need.

I just wanted to mention this because if you can pick up a used paper shredder at a Thrift Store price, you don't have to spend a lot of money if you want to try using paper shreds as coop litter for your backyard flock.

 

[SkyAJK]

Shredded papers, fine sugarcane mulch, hemp, cardboard and newspaper

I used to use shred papers for my chicken bedding materials. I have plenty of it from the office.

Sugarcane mulch was bad, the lice/mites infestation.

Then one day, one of my pullets crop was as hard as a tennis ball, she was having her fill of the tasty shred papers...Grrrrr

We then used hemp, and geeeeee...many of my chickens enjoy eating hemp......grrrrr

We moved to use cardboard, and some of them eat it now. So I put cardboard under, then on top put a plastic sheet on top of it, then finally newspapers. I have to remove them as soon as the sun comes up so they can not see it to eat it. This is my current bedding material.

Now I am at the stage, it they die, they die. No more can be done. It is just simply too hard.

 

[gtaus]

We moved to use cardboard, and some of them eat it now. So I put cardboard under, then on top put a plastic sheet on top of it, then finally newspapers. I have to remove them as soon as the sun comes up so they can not see it to eat it. This is my current bedding material.

Well, I'm sure why your chickens would eat any of those litter materials. Crazy chickens? All I can say is that I start my days old chicks on shredded paper and continue using it my big coop as litter. I have never had a problem with my chicks, or chickens, eating litter instead of their food.

Sounds like you are putting a lot of work into your chickens that I don't have to do. I don't think I could get up at sunrise anymore even if I wanted to get up that early!

Now I am at the stage, it they die, they die. No more can be done. It is just simply too hard.

Keeping chickens should not be hard. I live in northern Minnesota, and we have long, cold winters, hitting -30F to -40F in the dead of winter for a week or two. That's bitter cold. When I first got my laying hens, I was somewhat concerned that some of them might not survive the extreme cold. But I had the attitude that if any of the chickens died because of the cold, that I would just not get that breed again. Fortunately, none of them died to cold weather. So, the breeds I got were proven cold hardy and my anxiety level went down a few notches.

in your case, considering how much effort you put into caring for the flock, I would suggest trying to find a litter resource that works best for you and letting the chickens figure it out that litter is not food. It sounds like your are working too hard, and that's no fun. Chickens should be fun. Well, most of the time anyways.

Of course, I would suggest using whatever free litter resources you have available. Although my current favorite litter resource is shredded paper, I have also successfully used free wood chips, dry leaves, and grass clippings from the yard. And I have mixed all of those together at the same time and that works as well. It's all natural and organic and makes great compost when I toss it out into the chicken run.

 

[fat brown hen]

The main benefit of shredded paper is that it's free. i still supplement with pine pellets and zeolite to improve moisture absorption (we've had some wet weather).

I recently started using a single sheet of cardboard under the roost. Swap it out every few days, no sweeping or raking. Now I have a stack of poopy cardboard, not sure what to do with it.

 

[gtaus]

I recently started using a single sheet of cardboard under the roost. Swap it out every few days, no sweeping or raking. Now I have a stack of poopy cardboard, not sure what to do with it.

Toss it into a compost bin!

I converted my entire chicken run into a composting system. If I had large or full sheets of poopy cardboard, I would just put it in the chicken run and toss some chicken run litter on top of it. That cardboard will breakdown in no time.

Also, worms love the glues used in cardboard. You could just stack that cardboard up somewhere out of sight and let the worms move in. I watched a few YouTube videos where guys just put cardboard on the ground and come back days later to harvest worms for fishing bait. How easy is that?

I shred all my cardboard before I put it into the chicken coop as dry deep bedding. I am assuming you must use a poop board under the roost. I don't know if cardboard shreds on top of a poop board would be more work, but maybe you could sweep up the cardboard shreds into a bucket and dump the poopy cardboard shreds out in the chicken run or into a compost bin. Shreds breakdown into compost very fast.

Whatever you decided, just know that soiled cardboard is a valuable resource that can be put to some good use. Well, at least that's what I think about it. Good luck.

 

[fat brown hen]

Toss it into a compost bin!

Oh yeah, the shredded paper composts very well. Cardboard sheets are a bit more awkward to fit in a bin, and get in the way when it comes time to stir it with a pitchfork... currently they are stacked, but as they break down, pieces tear off and blow around the yard.

In the end it's my fault for being lazy I want to use cardboard in the coop without doing the work of shredding it.

 

[gtaus]

Oh yeah, the shredded paper composts very well. Cardboard sheets are a bit more awkward to fit in a bin, and get in the way when it comes time to stir it with a pitchfork... currently they are stacked, but as they break down, pieces tear off and blow around the yard.

In the end it's my fault for being lazy I want to use cardboard in the coop without doing the work of shredding it.

Well, I got myself into the good habit of shredding my paper products a little bit at a time as I get them. That way, I never have a big pile of paper to shred which might seem like a bigger chore. Sometimes, breaking down a big project into many smaller steps just works out better.

I don't know how big your cardboard sheets are, but is it possible to fold them into a vat or tub, soak them in water until they turn into mush, and then fork them (and the water) into your compost bin? I watched a number of YouTube videos where people would soak paper products in tubs, stir it up into a creamy mush, and then press it into fire starter logs. Most of work is done just by the water soaking up into the paper and breaking down the fibers.

I think, if it were me and I was using poop boards, I'd just get a good pair of power cutters and cut the cardboard into strips when the cardboard is clean. Then shred the cardboard. Then use the cardboard shreds on your poop trays. When soiled, you could sweep the shreds into a utility tub and dump them into the compost bin. Being shredded, those cardboard bits and pieces would break down into compost pretty fast.

Having said that I don't use poop boards in my coop. I use dry deep bedding. As the bedding under the roost bar gets soiled, I just add fresh paper shreds, or another other type of litter, on top of the soiled litter. I do that for about 6 months. Every ~6 months, I do a full coop clean out. It works for me with my 10 chickens. I only have to really spend any time cleaning twice a year and that does not overwhelm me.

I built my chicken coop to hold as much as 12 inches of litter in the coop because I had planned on using deep bedding from the start. It's one of the things I got right for me. I am a big fan of dry deep bedding and semi-annual cleanouts. It's much less work than what I did years ago, with weekly, if not almost daily, cleaning.

 

[fat brown hen]

I don't know how big your cardboard sheets are, but is it possible to fold them into a vat or tub, soak them in water until they turn into mush, and then fork them (and the water) into your compost bin? I watched a number of YouTube videos where people would soak paper products in tubs, stir it up into a creamy mush, and then press it into fire starter logs. Most of work is done just by the water soaking up into the paper and breaking down the fibers.

I order most of my feed from chewy, so these are big hefty boxes that hold up to 100 pounds of food. The big sturdy sheets are perfect for poop boards, but a bit much for a shredder. Now that you mention fire, I wonder if I could dig a big pit, stack them up, and make a bonfire?

I built my chicken coop to hold as much as 12 inches of litter in the coop because I had planned on using deep bedding from the start. It's one of the things I got right for me. I am a big fan of dry deep bedding and semi-annual cleanouts. It's much less work than what I did years ago, with weekly, if not almost daily, cleaning.

Maybe this is a topic for another thread, but I'm somewhat OCD about cleanliness. I've never understood how the deep bedding crowd deals with worms, coccidiosis, etc. I do envy your system though. I spend a lot of time scooping every last bit of poop.

 

[gtaus]

Now that you mention fire, I wonder if I could dig a big pit, stack them up, and make a bonfire?

That would work, I would think.

But IMHO, that would be a waste of a great compost resource. In the last few years, I have really started using all my homegrown, organic resources to make compost for my gardens. Years ago, I used to haul away all our fallen tree branches, bag up all our leaves and grass clippings and send them to the landfill or burn them at home. Now I have learned how to recycle all that stuff at home to make better compost with chickens than I used to buy in bags at the big box stores.

Maybe this is a topic for another thread, but I'm somewhat OCD about cleanliness. I've never understood how the deep bedding crowd deals with worms, coccidiosis, etc. I do envy your system though. I spend a lot of time scooping every last bit of poop.

I have never had a problem with worms, coccidiosis, etc... If I did, I imagine I would have to look at my entire system to see what needed to be changed. All I can tell you is that when I decided to get laying hens about 5 years ago, I did a lot of reading on different methods to house and care for them. I learned about using methods like deep litter and deep bedding which I had never used. Deep bedding seemed like a good system to me so that is what I went with.

Compared to how much time and effort it took me years ago to constantly clean after my birds, the deep bedding system just works so much better for me. Most of the chicken poo automagically dries out and works its way down in the deep bedding, keeping the top layer of the bedding dry and clean. If it does get soiled, I just toss more bedding litter on top of the old. I don't see the poo and there is no offensive smell if I maintain the bedding correctly.

When I first started with the deep bedding system, I used to go into the coop and fluff up the bedding with a pitchfork. That accelerated the process of the chicken poo working its way down to the lower levels. I don't even do that anymore. Sometimes, if a place needs some work, I'll just toss some chicken scratch on that area and the chickens themselves will turn over that spot, cleaning it up. But most of the time, I just add fresh litter on top of old litter about every 2 weeks all throughout my 6 months period between total coop cleanouts.

My main coop bedding has been shredder paper products for the past 2+ years. But I don't hesitate to mix in free wood chips, leaves, or dried grass. It's all natural, organic, and will make great compost. But the paper shreds, IMHO, just have advantages over even leaves and dried grass clippings. Mainly, less dusty.

If I had to clean out the coop every few days like I did years ago, I would just not have chickens anymore. Like you, I was really concerned about any and all poo in my coop. I was constantly cleaning. It was tiring for my younger self. No way do I have that energy at this stage of my life. But honestly, the dry deep bedding system keeps my coop cleaner, smells better, and my chickens are happy and healthy. That's what works for me and allows me to enjoy chickens.

 

[fat brown hen]

But IMHO, that would be a waste of a great compost resource.

Ah, I have nearly 40 chickens+turkeys... they generate compost resources faster than I can find places to compost it These days I haul my poop buckets to the far end of the pasture and let it fertilize the weeds.

I have never had a problem with worms, coccidiosis, etc... If I did, I imagine I would have to look at my entire system to see what needed to be changed.

I wouldn't say that it's a problem, but it does show up from time to time, especially in young chicks and older hens. It's part of raising birds on pasture, where they are exposed to migratory birds and their diseases. It's also possible that my obsessive cleaning makes no difference and I'm just wasting my time.... but I can't help it. Gotta scoop that poop.

I might try deep bedding in the turkey coop. They don't scratch and peck in their soiled bedding the way chickens do.