What bedding do you use in your coop??

[HighStreetCoop]

Rice hulls and PDZ. Clean it out fully every other week (which takes about 5 minutes, as my coop is only 4'x5').

 

[JanetS]

Rice hulls and PDZ. Clean it out fully every other week (which takes about 5 minutes, as my coop is only 4'x5').

Rice hulls? Where do you get those? Do you have any pictures? That sounds interesting.

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

Pine shavings here, but I recently met someone who uses rice hulls and was saying how great they are. Would like to know more about that.

 

[MandalaMaMa]

I used rice hulls in my little 4x4 until my supplier ran out. So I changed to pine shavings. We are currently making an new coop 8x10 and I'm consideringgoing back to the rice hulls. Very easy to keep clean and the girls love to scratch it when I first put it in. Looking for the bits of rice. I use rice hulls in my brooder with my chicks. No poopy butts. I like the pine shaving for my nest boxes however.

 

[justplainbatty]

I am happy with mine. We are using the deep litter method in both the run and the coop. Before I figured out that I needed to add other material, I was using pine shavings only and like you I couldn't see much advantage to it. The shavings didn't seem to breaking down. Now ours consists of pine shavings, leaves, grass clippings in summer, weeds and garden trimmings, chicken poop, and whatever is at hand to toss in there. I don't worry about cleaning it out regularly. I am very happy with the deep litter method, even though I have recently learned that I haven't been taking full advantage of the decomposition aspect of it. But I still have no odor, no pests, and healthy chickens.

@Blooie
Just wondering, I have a run with a water problem right now. (built in a hurry, early winter,after dog died, grading not finished). Since the ground is still wet and/or frozen here, I only can get my hands on dead leaves, tree branches and twigs in various states of decay and of course pooped up pine shavings. Lots of grass clippings will be available in a month or two. I am looking to add sand, our property is mixed, clay and sand. Will take some work to locate the sand areas. The one area I know has sand is being used by resident fox, hence the run. I am working on trapping and killing fox but meantime, chickens are in mud up to their ankles! I have a "wandering" compost pile where I can get old chicken bedding, rain and snow washed, with less nitrogen, better for the birds? Have to clean bedding on wooden coop floor every few days right now, not sure I want to put what is that dirty, out in the run directly. What do you recommend?

 

[nolson]

They sell them in 50lb bags at the feedstore. I love it. It doesn't clump or compact or retain water.

Is your PDZ in the powder or sand form?

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Quote:
Sand. I didn't even know it came in another form until I saw someone on here talking about having to go to the doctor because she's inhaled it and was having lung issues!

 

[Blooie]

@Blooie
Just wondering, I have a run with a water problem right now. (built in a hurry, early winter,after dog died, grading not finished). Since the ground is still wet and/or frozen here, I only can get my hands on dead leaves, tree branches and twigs in various states of decay and of course pooped up pine shavings. Lots of grass clippings will be available in a month or two. I am looking to add sand, our property is mixed, clay and sand. Will take some work to locate the sand areas. The one area I know has sand is being used by resident fox, hence the run. I am working on trapping and killing fox but meantime, chickens are in mud up to their ankles! I have a "wandering" compost pile where I can get old chicken bedding, rain and snow washed, with less nitrogen, better for the birds? Have to clean bedding on wooden coop floor every few days right now, not sure I want to put what is that dirty, out in the run directly. What do you recommend?

I only ran into a wet run situation once. My daughter-in-law was watching the house and chickens while we took her daughter out of town with us (her daughter Katie is my regular chicken sitter) and Jenny started the lawn watering tractor going. You know what I'm talking about...those tractors that water the lawn as they follow the "track" of the hose. Anyway, she started the water, then went home to get her stuff done. The tractor jumped the track and came to rest on the side of the run, spewing water for about 5 hours before Jen remembered it was going. We pulled up just as she was in full panic mode. Everything in the run was absolutely saturated - standing water in the feeder, the dust bath had turned into a running over swimming pool, and the bedding was a total disaster. I added dry pine shavings to it and tried to turn them in to absorb the water, but by the second day the ammonia was detectable from down the street. Oh oh.

So in that case I was left with no option. I had to remove the top 5 or 6 inches of wet litter and replace it with dry pine shavings. It took a bag and a half to start with. I didn't turn it under, I just left the remainder of the damp stuff under it, after I sprinkled on about half a bag of Sweet PDZ, and let the shavings do their job. I also had no grass clippings or dried leaves to add so it was up to the shavings. It took a day or two, and stirring it up a bit from time to time, before the smell finally eased up and the summer winds and sun helped dry it out. Had I had access to more varied litter I would have added everything on hand.

I don't see that you have many options if what you can get your hands on is already wet and/or dirty. While I've learned that plain old pine shavings alone do not a good deep litter make, thanks to some smarter folks than me, there are times when you just do whatever you have to do to provide a drier environment for the chickens. While a little wetness won't kill them, I don't imagine trying to get through every day with their feet constantly wet is really good for them either. You have the added problem of the ground not having thawed yet, which is going to make it even wetter. So I'd say to bite the bullet, scrape off as much as you can, and put a good, thick layer of pine shavings down. You could also put a layer of Sweet PDZ to absorb a lot of that ground water, but not knowing the size of your run and your budget that might be prohibitive. If you have good ventilation - if your run is open to the elements - then some of it might dry up naturally if you give it something to absorb the majority of it. After that your monumental job is going to be to find a way to keep it relatively dry.

I don't know if I've been much help. I'm new to all of this myself and had to turn to my buddies for help when it happened to me. So if anyone out there has better ideas, my feelings won't be one bit hurt and I'll learn something, too. Good luck!

 

[jsevcheck]

Speaking of wet coop, my nesting box lid leaks where it meets the actual coop( small gap). Is this an issue? I know the goal is to keep the coop as dry as possible. Any suggestions on how to avoid leakage and still allow the nesting box lid to open and close?

 

[justplainbatty]

@Blooie thanks for your reply. My run is 14x30. That's a lot of bags of pine shavings! Since everything is wet, maybe the 2 year old shavings in the wandering pile would be better than clay mud.(so much for adding it into my garden this year) My chickens and I are getting strong legs from pulling feet out of the suction created. If chickens wore boots, they'd all be lost by now! Maybe a few bales of straw topped with leaves and dead weeds with the old chips. I'll add grass clippings as soon as there is something worth mowing! It is going to snow here on Fri. I am so over winter, so much cold and snow, I don't think we need a rainy spring! (wishful thinking). I've been wrecking the side yard digging up chunks of grass that is just greening up, the chunks are so wet and heavy that I pull the piece high up on the shovel and drag it over 200 yards to the run. All so they can have a snack and something to stand on for 5 minutes.