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

[Sally PB]

Ah! I will try it as bedding when I give it another go. Thanks for the info.

 

[Iluveggers]

@gtaus What food scraps dont you give your chickens? My girls get all fruits & veggies, plus shrimp tails, burnt sides of scrambled eggs, and tuna.

I have a separate compost for avocado, banana, onion & potato peels, coffee grounds, citrus/citrus peels, and anything starting to mold. Is any of that ok for the chickens? I usually only have to dump the non-chicken compost at the very back edge of our property about once a week.

 

[saysfaa]

I'm not too worried about the amount they have eaten so far. And it is diamond cut rather than long strips so it should go through. I just don't want them eating very much.

I ended up not adding it yet. Instead, I distracting them by trimming their toenails and topping off their dust bath tub. By the time I finished with that, it was getting close enough to dark that they won't have time to do much before roosting.

I'll see what they do tomorrow before deciding.

I'm sure my chickens are weird and most would be fine. Mine don't necessarily think food and bedding are separate things. They've gotten a lot of grass clippings as snacks/bedding. They eat the "hay" when I fluff it up through the leaves. They don't eat the leaves or pine shavings, though, so maybe they will figure the paper shreds out.

 

[NatJ]

@gtaus What food scraps dont you give your chickens? My girls get all fruits & veggies, plus shrimp tails, burnt sides of scrambled eggs, and tuna.

I have a separate compost for avocado, banana, onion & potato peels, coffee grounds, citrus/citrus peels, and anything starting to mold. Is any of that ok for the chickens? I usually only have to dump the non-chicken compost at the very back edge of our property about once a week.

I'm not the one you asked, but banana (fruit and peel) seems to be fine for chickens. I've seen them eat the fruit, and pick the soft bits out of the inside of the peel, and the outermost part of the peel just gets composted.

For the other things you listed, I've probably put all of them in the chicken pen at one point or another. They end up composted with everything else, although the chickens mostly don't eat them. I've never seen a problem

Notes about specific items:
Onion, chickens may eat a little if it's cooked, or an occasional bite raw, but they mostly just scratch it into the bedding to compost. The dry, papery peels definitely get treated like bedding instead of food.

Potato peels, they scratch them around, but don't really eat them. Raw potato is toxic IF it is green (from exposure to light). But potato peels in a chicken pen are usually fine, because either they are buried (no light) or on the surface (thin little pieces dry out instead of turning green). And cooked potatoes are good chicken food, whether it's peels or the inside. Potato will not turn green after it has been cooked. [Technically, the green and the toxin are different things, but they both form in potatoes that have been exposed to light. So potato that has not turned green will usually not have the toxins either.]

Avocado, the chickens will pick the flesh off the pit and out of the peel, but they don't really eat the peel and they certainly don't eat the pit.

Citrus, they scratch it around too, and may eat some bits (like sections of an orange). It doesn't seem to cause them any trouble.

Coffee grounds, some people actually buy those to use as bedding. So I wouldn't worry about adding coffee grounds to the general coop/run litter. But I would probably not toss them right in the pile of other food scraps, where the chickens will get big bites of coffee grounds while trying to eat the other things.

Mold, there might be different molds in your kitchen than mine, so I cannot be positive whether your particular mold is safe or not, but giving the chickens anything with a little mold on it has worked fine for me. If the mold is on a block of cheese, I will give the moldy slice to the chickens and eat the not-moldy parts myself. (No ill effects so far.) I've also given them bread or produce with small amounts of mold. The few times I found something so moldy I couldn't tell what it used to be, I did throw that in the trash.

 

[Iluveggers]

I'm not the one you asked, but banana (fruit and peel) seems to be fine for chickens. I've seen them eat the fruit, and pick the soft bits out of the inside of the peel, and the outermost part of the peel just gets composted.

For the other things you listed, I've probably put all of them in the chicken pen at one point or another. They end up composted with everything else, although the chickens mostly don't eat them. I've never seen a problem

Notes about specific items:
Onion, chickens may eat a little if it's cooked, or an occasional bite raw, but they mostly just scratch it into the bedding to compost. The dry, papery peels definitely get treated like bedding instead of food.

Potato peels, they scratch them around, but don't really eat them. Raw potato is toxic IF it is green (from exposure to light). But potato peels in a chicken pen are usually fine, because either they are buried (no light) or on the surface (thin little pieces dry out instead of turning green). And cooked potatoes are good chicken food, whether it's peels or the inside. Potato will not turn green after it has been cooked. [Technically, the green and the toxin are different things, but they both form in potatoes that have been exposed to light. So potato that has not turned green will usually not have the toxins either.]

Avocado, the chickens will pick the flesh off the pit and out of the peel, but they don't really eat the peel and they certainly don't eat the pit.

Citrus, they scratch it around too, and may eat some bits (like sections of an orange). It doesn't seem to cause them any trouble.

Coffee grounds, some people actually buy those to use as bedding. So I wouldn't worry about adding coffee grounds to the general coop/run litter. But I would probably not toss them right in the pile of other food scraps, where the chickens will get big bites of coffee grounds while trying to eat the other things.

Mold, there might be different molds in your kitchen than mine, so I cannot be positive whether your particular mold is safe or not, but giving the chickens anything with a little mold on it has worked fine for me. If the mold is on a block of cheese, I will give the moldy slice to the chickens and eat the not-moldy parts myself. (No ill effects so far.) I've also given them bread or produce with small amounts of mold. The few times I found something so moldy I couldn't tell what it used to be, I did throw that in the trash.

Awesome thanks! I much prefer the short walk to the coop & run to dump scraps, then the long walk to the edge of the property!

Any old meat goes to the dogs…I am amazed at how little food waste we have!

 

[gtaus]

I've tried some paper and didn't like it in the nests because it stuck to the bloom on the new-laid eggs.

It was fine in the bedding.

Exactly where I ended up, too. I prefer pine shavings in the nest box because the fresh eggs come out really clean. With paper shreds, I always seem to get a few shreds stuck on the egg and then I have to clean them off. Not a big deal, but I still have over half a bale of pine shavings, so I'll use them up and then decided if I want to use paper shreds in the nest boxes at that point. Probably not.

 

[gtaus]

Awesome thanks! I much prefer the short walk to the coop & run to dump scraps, then the long walk to the edge of the property!

Any old meat goes to the dogs…I am amazed at how little food waste we have!

There are people who pick up restaurant scraps and just dump everything out for the chickens. They say they do not worry about the occasional food item that might be on the "no good to eat list" because the chickens have so much other food to choose from.

I suppose I'd give old meat to the dogs before my chickens, too. But chickens are omnivores and have no problem eating meat as well.

 

[gtaus]

I'm sure my chickens are weird and most would be fine. Mine don't necessarily think food and bedding are separate things. They've gotten a lot of grass clippings as snacks/bedding. They eat the "hay" when I fluff it up through the leaves. They don't eat the leaves or pine shavings, though, so maybe they will figure the paper shreds out.

Chickens have evolved to survive eating just about anything. I find the less I worry about them, the more I enjoy them. Obviously, I would not feed them something known to be poison to them, but that list is really small.

 

[Iluveggers]

There are people who pick up restaurant scraps and just dump everything out for the chickens. They say they do not worry about the occasional food item that might be on the "no good to eat list" because the chickens have so much other food to choose from.

I suppose I'd give old meat to the dogs before my chickens, too. But chickens are omnivores and have no problem eating meat as well.

I know the chickens can have meat, but the dogs are already jealous of the attention the ladies get! The girls get fruits, veggies, grains & seafood…boys (dogs) get meat. They share eggs if there are extra or get burned/crispy. Lol

 

[littlecoopnextdoor]

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