ooh, that is tough to deal with. Have you tried wood pellets? I add those to my paper shreds when we get flooded around here. They absorb moisture better than anything else I've tried. The pellets disintegrate into sawdust when wet.
If you are also shredding newspaper, consider that the ink may be toxic to the chickens.
I don't think we have wood pellets over here. The bedding materials at the produce shops here are just the usual pine shaving, hays, hemp.
i buy mine from hardware stores, and sometimes walmart. They're used for wood stoves, and usually a lot cheaper than livestock bedding.
I just found an online pet shop here stock that. 7kg for $22. I will check out if they have a smaller bag so that I can test it out, hopefully my chickens do not eat it like the other bedding materials.
are you in the US? Home Depot is $5.98 for 40 lbs with free delivery in my area.
Oh! hey, i lived in Sydney for several years; it was frustrating to look for basic stuff that I could find everywhere in the States. I don't know if wood stoves are common in Australia, but you can also use BBQ pellets! it's the same thing, but more expensive cuz it's for food. that should be easy to find since everyone in Oz has a BBQ, heh.
That should also happen if a chicken eats the pellets in their original state: the moisture inside the chicken should make the pellets fall apart into little bits of sawdust. They do expand at that point, so her crop would feel extra-full, but I think the pieces should be able to go on through the digestive system without trouble.
