What bedding do you use in your coop??

[Blooie]

I'm a better sounding board than helper, I'm afraid. It's always hard to tell someone else what to do when you're not sure yourself what the best answer is, so all I can do in that situation is toss out some suggestions and let you decide for yourself what will work for you. Good luck with it all.

 

[JanetS]

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.

This sounds great. I love the no odor idea but we live in the south where it's hot and humid. Would this be a good or bad thing for the deep litter method?

 

[Blooie]

People use DL all over the country, so it should work just fine where you are, In fact, you have more humidity than we do, so yours should work even better.....here we are in a high desert between 3 mountain ranges so I have to add moisture.

 

[JanetS]

Thank you for your replies. I was hoping for a few more options though.

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Thank you for your replies. I was hoping for a few more options though.

I don't know that there really are all that many options.

 

[Akrnaf2]

I use clean sand and above it I spread a thin layer of lime powder, and above it quite heavy layer of pine shavings. Pine shavings is the best bedding, pine have naturally oils and poly terpenes which have a strong anti -viral,anti -bacterial, anti -fungal and anti-helmintic qualities. Thous substances helps braking the cycle of infection of many pathogens within the flock.

 

[ErikaFord]

Can I use fabric scraps in their nesting boxes?

 

[Frindizzle]

I used to use straw, and cleaned the coop out every day. But we ran out of straw too quickly, so we switched to sand. The sand adsorbs wetness, and it isn't dusty. I still use straw in my nest boxes, because the chickens don't like to nest in sand. I still clean the coop everyday, but with sand, it takes a shorter amount of time.

 

[justplainbatty]

Can I use fabric scraps in their nesting boxes?

I think that would hold germs and moisture, how would you clean it? I guess you could use folded up bath towels and wash them every few days (no fabric softener) but that seems like a pain. I would say try shredded new paper but they will eat it. A bale of hay or straw is pretty cheap. If you only use it for nests it should last a long time. (keep it dry so it doesn't mold).

 

[Spartan22]

Can I use fabric scraps in their nesting boxes?

I used those scrap fabric w/ wood shavings before, they got nasty easy, went to straw & pine shavings