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

[gtaus]

I didn't mean to imply all chickens will eat all the things they shouldn't all the time. Just a little humorous interlude.

OK. Sometimes it's hard to pick up on a subtle joke via a text post. I was thinking about a guy on YouTube that picks up restaurant food waste and just dumps it on to big piles for his 100's of chickens to eat. He said he never bothers to sort out those few things "that chickens should not eat" because he finds the chickens will naturally eat all the good stuff for them and leave the rest. He only feeds his chickens waste food from the restaurants and the chickens appear to do fine.

In any case, a few bits of paper shreds, or wood chips, etc... will probably not hurt the chickens. I try to keep things like foam insulation away from my birds because I know they would probably peck at it, too.

 

[gtaus]

UPDATE: 27 APR 2022. We had 2 days in a row in the 40F's! Most of the snow has melted in the chicken run. I was able to pull up the bird netting that fell in the winter from the heavy frozen snow, and got that netting all remounted on the chicken run fencing.

Let the chickens outside for the first time since maybe last November. They had a great time.

I had expected to clean out all the paper shreds in the coop a few weeks ago, but we have been getting April snow storms - even a few days ago. Winter just won't let go. We are expecting rain and some snow through the weekend, so it looks like I will not be cleaning out my paper shreds in the coop until sometime in May.

On the positive side, the paper shreds are still working just fine as deep bedding in the coop. The coop appears clean and still no smell. I dumped another bag full of paper sheds earlier in the week, and there is maybe 7 inches of paper shreds litter in the coop right now. I think the paper shreds will be much less work to shovel/broom out then wood chips piled 7 inches deep. And now I have the chicken run ready to dump the paper shreds and cover up.

BTW, my chicken run compost system is really working great. Today, while putting up the bird netting, I checked out all my litter in the run and it is a dark black, broken down, ready to harvest compost. I will be building two new raised garden beds this spring, so I hope to use a lot of that chicken compost in the new builds. Also, I have a number of current beds that will need to be topped off with compost.

Everything is coming along fine here, just a number weeks later than I expected. Oh well, some winters last longer than others. Probably next update after I clean out the coop.

 

[SubArcticFowl]

I just got through this entire thread and it motivated me to fire up my shredder. Last winter I used wood pellets in my winter coop as I get them delivered in bulk to heat my house. I'm still not sure if it is best to fluff up the pellets with water or keep them dry, but that is a whole other thread. Pellets are relatively cheap for me, but they are not free.

Cheap or free wood chips are not available where I live. However, I might be able to get my hands on bails of shredded paper/cardboard from the city. The city collects recyclables, but unfortunately, they do not do much with them after that. The landfill operator told me about 30% of the paper they collect gets mixed in with their central composting system after being shredded, but the rest is just bailed and stored on site. So maybe he'll give me one if I ask.

I am all about free stuff. I just found a juice bar near my house that is owned by a long lost friend from my hometown. She is freezing all her fruit/veggie waste in pails and I can come grab as many as I want as often as I want. The only downside is I feel obligated to buy an overpriced smoothly for everyone in my house when I do go there. So it is not quite free, but the chickens love picking away at their frozen treat of veggie and fruit pulp. Next up, I might ask the local brewpub about their spent mash.

 

[3KillerBs]

After reading the early parts of this thread I told DH to stop shredding the envelopes along with the bills/credit card application junk mail so that there wouldn't be bits on plastic in the bin.

It took months, but yesterday I dumped a full bin into the coop under the roosts.

 

[gtaus]

However, I might be able to get my hands on bails of shredded paper/cardboard from the city.

I currently only have 7 chickens, so I get more than enough paper products to shred at home to keep up with the demand. Remember with deep bedding, or deep litter, you don't need to start off with your full load. In my case, I dumped a few bags of paper shreds in the coop and just added additional bags of shreds as I went along. So, I maybe started off with 2 inches to cover the floor, and then maybe every two or three weeks just dumped another inch of shreds in the coop.

I also use most everything paper at the house for making shreds. I shred up all that junk mail, newspapers, computer printer paper, food grade light cardboard (cereal boxes, etc...) and just about anything else that my shredder will cut.

Also, when you start shredding, a stack of paper, or newspapers, seems to make about 3X-4X the volume after shredding. So, you might not need as much paper products as you think. That is what I have found.

We have a local recycle bin down the road. If I needed to grab some newspapers for shredding, I could just take as much as I wanted. If I got a bail of paper from the city recycling center, that would last me more than a lifetime with my backyard chickens. I have more paper products to shred just from our normal intake, so I don't need to look elsewhere.

One of the big benefits to me using our homemade paper shreds as deep bedding in the coop is that it has reduced the amount of garbage/recycling bags we haul off to the landfill. Where I live, there is no garbage pickup. I have to haul our garbage to the landfill myself. That costs time and money as the city landfill is 20 miles away. Using almost all our paper products for the chickens reduces my trips to the landfill.

 

[Alagirl]

For the past 2 years, I have been using wood chips as the base of my dry deep litter in my chicken coop. The wood chips work great and I highly recommend them for anyone considering the deep litter method. This year, however, I am trying a twist on the idea. After I did my fall cleaning of the coop, removing all my wood chips for a fresh base to carry me over the winter, I decided to use my shredded paper I had saved in some big bags. So far, I have so say, I am very pleased with my results.

First of all, I try to minimize garbage we haul to the landfill. I came across a used 12 sheet paper shredder at our local thrift store for $5.00. A new model of that brand costs about $80. I had smaller shredders at home, about 5-8 sheets, but thought that a 12 sheet shredder for $5.00 was a good deal and would allow me to shred more and heavier types of paper. Previously, I have been shredding most of our paper at home and throwing it in compost piles with greens. But now that I have chickens, I was wondering if I could use shredded paper in the coop as litter.

I find that normal office paper and most junk mail shreds up fine. But you have to be sure to remove any plastic windows and staples. I don't want my chickens eating that stuff, or eventually adding plastic or staples mixed into my garden as compost. I also shred all our light cardboard boxes, like cereal boxes, and find that mixing that light cardboard along with normal office paper makes a better litter mix. I can also shred normal box cardboard with my 12 sheet shredder, but I have to cut the heavy cardboard into strips and feed it down the "credit card" slot on the shredder. But my 12 sheet shredder eats up the normal cardboard boxes we get from Amazon shipments.

I also shred our old newspapers, but I find the quality of newspapers to be very low compared to the other papers. It comes out all stringy and wraps around the shredder rollers. It seems to mat down more easily than the other types of shredded paper. I would not recommend using only shredded newspaper, but it works OK in the mix with all the other types of shredded paper.

I have a normal sized 13 gallon kitchen waste basket that I fill up with shredded paper maybe every 2 weeks. This is just the right amount for me to dump on top of the older shredded paper in the coop. I just dump it in a pile and let the chickens spread it out. Seems to work good for me. I have sometimes dumped the pile underneath their roost, as that is mainly where all the chicken poo accumulates, but I don't know if that is necessary. My goal is to always let the chickens do most of the work. They seem to like it, and I don't mind less work to do for myself. Sometimes I'll throw some chicken scratch into an area that I want the chickens to turn over the litter. As they scratch and peck for the chicken scratch, they turn over and mix up the shredded paper. The heavier, soiled paper works it way down to the bottom leaving the fresher paper on top.

So far, for about 2 months, I have not been able to detect any smell in the coop. So, from that aspect, I think the shredded paper is working as good as my wood chips I used the past 2 years. We will see how well it holds up as our winter is just getting started. I probably won't really know if this was a success or not until next spring, when the poo thaws out....

Well, I wanted to post this thread as something to consider as coop litter for those who do not have access to free wood chips. One thing I know is that come spring, when I clean out the shredded paper and dump it into my chicken run composting system, is that the shredded paper will turn into compost much, much, faster than my wood chips. What a better way to get rid of all that junk mail and old bills than to shred them up, let the chickens poo on them, and then bury them in the garden to grow some good people food?

Would love to hear any comments, pro or con, on using shredded paper with your chickens. Also, would really like to hear if there is a better way to shred old newspapers. I really don't like the way the newspapers can muck up the rollers on my shredder. Thanks.

Timely post as I was about to ask about shredded paper as litter/bedding.
In the open paper might clump to a nasty paste that is hard to remove (think paper mache)
I might have to look out for a good shredder!

 

[gtaus]

UPDATE: End of Winter Cleanout 21 May 2022

Well, I made it through the winter using nothing but homemade paper shreds in the chicken coop as deep bedding. I started off with about 2 inches of paper shreds sometime last October, added maybe a bag or two of paper shreds every 2-3 weeks, and over the course of the winter, the paper shreds got to be about 10 inches deep under the roosting bar and about 6 inches deep in the rest of the coop.

Here's a couple pictures of the cleanout followed by my thoughts on using paper shreds.

In this picture, I had dropped the back cleanout panel. I was able to then just push/broom out all the old paper shreds. The only heavy part was under the roosting bar because that is where the bulk of the chicken poo landed. I used my plastic grain shovel to get the stuff under the roosting bar out.

I have been saying that there was no smell from having paper shreds in the coop this winter, and that was true, until the temps started hitting the 60's this past week. Then I started to notice some ammonia smell. Not too bad, and pretty much the same as I experienced with using wood chips the previous two winters. Just like when I used wood chips, as I got down to the lowest layers of the deep bedding, it did smell bad due to the concentration of chicken poo.

I found the paper sheds to be less dusty this year compared to using wood chips the previous two winters. I used my highly sensitive nose detector and my razor-sharp memory recall to make the comparisons on the dustiness of this year's paper shreds bedding versus the wood chip deep bedding used the prior two winters. After a long winter (October 2021-mid May 2022), there was plenty of dust in the coop, but not as bad as previous years. However, this winter I only had 7 chickens in the coop whereas the previous two winters there were 10 chickens. (I lost 3 chickens last summer) That reduction in the number of chickens alone could have accounted for the difference.

In the above picture, you can see that I have a large blue 18 gallon muck bucket on the lower right side of the picture. In the past cleanouts, I would just fill up those muck buckets inside the coop and dump them into the chicken run for composting. That worked fine, but it takes time to fill up each much bucket and carry it out. This year, I decided just to drop the back cleanout panel and dump everything on the ground first. Then put it into muck buckets. I think I cut my labor about in half doing it that way.

I ended up filling about 20 muck buckets (at 18 gallons each) of this spent paper shreds bedding. That is a lot of buckets, but the paper shreds are a whole lot lighter to carry than wood chips. So, that was a benefit in using paper shreds.

After I removed all the paper shreds from the back of the coop with my pitch fork, I still had some shreds on the ground. Not a problem for me as I just ran it over with my riding lawn mower and sucked up all the remaining paper shreds into the grass collection bins.

Because I had so many paper shreds - 20 muck buckets - I decided to just dump everything into a section of the chicken run as it was. It did smell bad that first day, like concentrated chicken poo kept over winter would smell. The second day it smelled much less worse. The third day I was able to mow parts of my lawn and I dumped the grass clippings on the paper shreds and that completely covered up the smell.

My original idea was to dig a big hole in the chicken run compost, fill it with the paper shreds, and then cover it back up with the compost. But, as we all know, other things came up and I had to rethink my plans. I take great pride in having a chicken run composting system that does not smell, and for a couple days with fresh coop paper shreds sitting on top of everything, my composting system did smell. But, covering it all with fresh grass clippings did block the smell and now everything is back to composting in place and no smell at all.

These pictures were taken from the back of the coop looking forward. The roosting bar is at the very forward end of the coop. After I cleaned out all the paper shreds from the winter, I started dumping in wood chips that I had chipped up from yard cleanup this past week. I had lots of broken branches fall down over the winter, and those have to be picked up before I can mow the lawn. I have a couple garden carts full of branches to chip up. Anyways, I had already chipped up 4 muck buckets of chips from those dead fallen branches and started dumping them into the coop under the roosting bar. I still have at least a couple of carts of branches to chip up, and all that will go into the coop to be used as deep bedding this summer.

My current plan is to use whatever free material I have available for deep bedding. Once I chip up all the fallen branches from the winter drop, I'll probably start adding paper sheds to the mix in the coop. It's all good to me. It's all free, it's all organic, and it will all make good compost. Having said that, chipping up wood takes a lot longer than making paper shreds. But, in my case, I have to clean up all that fallen winter wood before I can mow the lawn (I have 3 acres), so making wood chips for the chickens is a better use of my time and material than just burning the branches.

Well, that pretty much concludes my experiment using paper shreds as deep bedding instead of wood chips for this past winter. I consider using paper shreds a complete success and am planning on doing the same this coming winter. The paper shreds absorbed the smell just as well as the wood chips, lasted the entire winter, were easier (lighter) to clean out, and should compost much faster in the chicken run composting system as compared to wood chips.

If you made it this far, thanks for your interest in this thread.

 

[3KillerBs]

A great experiment.

You should turn it into an article to help people learn about this cost-saving, eco-friendly option.

 

[RoyalChick]

A great experiment.

You should turn it into an article to help people learn about this cost-saving, eco-friendly option.

I agree. An article would be great. I think I posted earlier that I use shredded paper but I also use leaves and some pine shavings for the nest boxes. I also have a dirt floor so it is a different situation. What I can say is that I can no longer identify the paper in all the other stuff on the coop floor!

 

[gtaus]

After reading the early parts of this thread I told DH to stop shredding the envelopes along with the bills/credit card application junk mail so that there wouldn't be bits on plastic in the bin.

It took months, but yesterday I dumped a full bin into the coop under the roosts.

I just remove the plastic windows from my junk mail, and then shred it. It takes a little more time, but I do it almost every day so it's never a big chore for me. I don't want plastic shreds in my coop or in the compost. Having said that, I really don't know if a few plastic shreds would do harm to either my chickens or the garden. I just prefer not to have any plastics in either.

With our normal paper usage, for just Dear Wife and myself, I can shred about a kitchen sized garbage bag full of shreds every 2 weeks. I'm surprised to hear that it takes you months. If all I did was shred our newspapers, I'd have more than enough for my coop. But everything paper that fits into the shredder gets worked over, including empty toilet paper rolls, empty paper towel rolls, cereal and food boxes, and even some cardboard boxes (I have to cut them down to credit card width and put them through the credit card slot).

I keep one shredder by my office desk, and when I open all the mail and junk mail, it immediately goes into the shredder if not needed. Little bit every day makes the job a lot easier and before you know it, I have a full kitchen bag of shreds for the chickens.