What bedding do you use?

[Ruralhideaway]

Wood shavings in the coop. Shavings plus pine needles, leaves, the occasional flake of hay in the run. I'll use way more leaves next year.

I recently grabbed a bag of chopped straw to make piles with for extra warmth and it's really nice stuff. Lightens up the packed shavings so they stir more, saving me a bit of work. Very nice combo I'll likely stick with, very fluffy. Depending on how they hold up I might get bales of straw from the horse hay guy and mow them next year.

I also crumble up some alfalfa cubes and throw that around now and then. I was soaking them but pointless in this cold.

 

[Chullicken]

*raises hand* what is the difference?

Hay and Straw are different plants. Straw isn't intended as a consumable product for livestock and I've never seen anything eat it. Its rigidity is much more noticeable. TSC and most hardware/lumber yards sell baled straw which as several commercial and non commercial uses for drainage, ground cover, gardening etc. While hay is a consumable of varying quality based on the cover used before harvesting. 1st cut hay being your prime, first of the year harvest and normally the cost is noticeably higher than your following 2nd, 3rd, 4th cuttings.

So the options at say TSC are various based on your intentions, budget, physical ability;

Straw Bale $5.50 - $25.00 (As nature intended, typical bale, wheat/wood pulp)

Straw Bale Compressed $11.20 (Often sold in plastic bags with a handle for travel purposes,
same as bale but without the twine, you'll see it on the ground in piles for years to come)

Chopped Straw $9.99 bag (Processed straw that has undergone a process to remove the most of the abrasive parts of the plant to include most stalks to create a silky texture that also includes seed bits, used for livestock bedding purposes, moderate break down for composting)

Wood Chips $5.99 (Sold in the bag, Pine Tree product, non consumable, doesn't break down as fast as other bedding material, bigger chips than sawdust, can actually buy this product pre sterilized)

Alfalfa/Timothy Grass Bales Compressed $13.99-$16.99 (For livestock roughage source, sometimes hydrated for travel purposes, green leafy with stalks, can also be bought as straight Timothy or Alfalfa bales, breaks down fairly easy for composting)

All Purpose Sand $5.30 (Brand specific used for general construction purposes and concrete mixtures, further processed to remove most of the large stone fragments from the grinding process, larger particulate so moisture is released at a faster rate, is absorbed by the ground moderately over the year)

Pool Filter Sand/Playground Sand $5.99-$8.99 (Very fine, smooth to the touch, fine particulate that tends to hold moisture more than All Purpose Sand, has no large chunks, more expensive than All Purpose Sand per bag)

Hope this helps. =)

 

[Ruralhideaway]

Lots of great info above.

However, first cut hay quality varies greatly depending on it's harvest date. Can be absolute garbage.

Second and third cutting typically costs twice as much in my area and can have 2x or even 3x the protein level of 1st cutting. Could be way different elsewhere but that's the deal in the north east.

 

[Mimiruu]

Dried leaves, with grass clippings, some garden debris, hay (mold never an issue). Deep litter. As a last resort, I'll use shavings when I run out of natural materials. Anything removed from the coop gets shoved out the clean out door into the run. DL there as well. As needed I harvest nice, dark, spongy, worm laden, fragrant compost from the run for the garden and orchard.

I honestly never thought about the natural materials all around me I could be using! It seems so obvious now that I have read it.

 

[TattooedChicks]

I use a layer of sand several inches thick mixed with a little lime as my base and I have straw on top. The sand keeps everything dry and smell free, plus it’s easy to scoop and works great as a dust bath. The straw collects most of the poop, keeps dust out of the air and composts well, plus my birds have loved digging through all the layers this winter.

 

[Liz Birdlover]

Inside the coop, I am using pine wood chips, add a bit of cedar chips, both purchased at Tractor Supply, inside the coop on the floor and their egg laying spots. I guess I have it about 5 inches thick but of course I fluff it up and then the chickens are always fluffing it up. My coop has a plywood floor that painted with polyurethane. I'm reading more, learning, and thinking of adding PDZ. I see that the Deep Litter way is usually meant for coops with dirt floors, but it works pretty good in my wooden floor coop, no odors or big messes. I also found that this is all relative to how many chickens you have per square foot, because when I rescued a dozen chickens a few months ago, I quickly found out that more chickens means more poo and more humidity, so if you find that you have wet or stinky litter, then you have too many chickens in that particular space. I now have the rescues in a larger shed, a former pigeon loft, but will be building them a new 12x24 coop in March, or when the snow clears. For my little coop, 4 hens and 1 ornery rooster work just fine, it stays pretty dry for the most part. The food is hanging from the ceiling, the water is elevated on bricks, they work better than the small pallets I tried before as bricks aren't going anywhere unless I move them. Cleaning is no big deal, I take 5 minutes and bring the 5 gallon poo bucket and a scooper, (actually bought a child's mini snow shovel at Lowe's for my pooper scooper), and the poo kind of clumps up easy in the wood chips, think of a golf ball sized coconut macaroon, and then the bucket of macaroon poo's will be taken to my compost heap and tilled in. I have 3 compost heaps at the furthest point of the lot, they're based on age, and I rototill them all, but the oldest heap (2 yrs old) will be used for this Spring's veggie garden. I have compost of veggie peels, Homing Pigeon poo and my Chicken's poo, with the wood chips, and as it is tilled and ages, it becomes the richest soil that produces the best garden veggies, it's a win win.

I do let my chickens free range when I am outside gardening, but we have so many predators here (hawks, falcon, raccoon, fox, coyote), we built protected outdoor pens, 10x20 and 10x15, dug 2 feet down since we have digging foxes, skunks, opossums, etc. Trying to keep clover or anything green growing in a protected area is impossible, even when you have 2 pens to rotate birds back and forth (yeah that was my bright idea, give 1 pen a chance to rest and grow, nope doesn't work so good, you just end up having 2 muddy pens). Anyway...I first tried the bales of straw/haw or whatever the Tractor Supply sells, and spread it all out. At 1st it was fun, my Roo would scratch and pile it all up in a heap, then play king of the mountain, crowing loud and proud, and it was dry...until it rained, and rain it did, for days! Ugh, what a darn mess. Long story short, I had to get that crap outta there before I had a moldy mess make my birds sick. To top it off, there were these nasty weeds growing afterwards, and let me tell ya, they were AWFUL, and they were EVERYWHERE!!! I was pulling this stuff up, it was grass but it had a ball for a root, I was calling it BALLGRASS, and we suddenly seemed to be cursed with it, in the pens and then outside the pens, extending outwards, good grief it was spreading! I found out, it is a type of Sedge Grass, and it is impossible to get rid of, so I will be digging that crap out of the ground all around the coops and pens from now til doomsday. Wherever that darn straw/hay was harvested, must have also been infested with that dreadful weed. So, I unwittingly bought it, and brought it home! Oh, and even the chickens hate it, they won't touch it, I have to dig it out while they watch me, waiting for bugs. LOL

Now, outside in their pens, I have been using big wood bark chip, the plain wood pine bark, largest pieces you can get, not small shredded mulch, and definitely not treated with any dye or weed chemicals. The bugs hide under the big bark chips, much to the delight of my flock, so they're always scratching and kicking them around. They don't seem to break down too fast, and they prevent the pen from becoming a mud hole. So far, so good.

I'm still in the learning process, so if anyone would like to make any suggestions here, feel free, but so far, this is what has been working for us. I live in Delaware, we have hot, humid summers and cold, snowy winters. Hope this helps!

 

[Chullicken]

I use a layer of sand several inches thick mixed with a little lime as my base and I have straw on top. The sand keeps everything dry and smell free, plus it’s easy to scoop and works great as a dust bath. The straw collects most of the poop, keeps dust out of the air and composts well, plus my birds have loved digging through all the layers this winter.

I really want to try adding lime this coming year, heard its great at adding acidity which in turn kills bad things in the bedding. And yes, I've never had a chicken that didn't love some sort of straw, they will dig through it for hours on end finding tid bits.

 

[aart]

So out of curiosity how soon can I be expecting usable compost from the poop / wood shavings? Please say by spring so I can get some nutrients into my poor veggie garden that has been desperately waiting for chooks for the last 2 years

Wood shavings take forever to break down. You don't want to mix them into your soil as they will suck up the nitrogen thus depriving the plants. Can use as mulch tho, some of the poop nitrogen will filter down into soil for plants to use.

*raises hand* what is the difference?

Straw is a byproduct of grain crops, it is the stalk of the plant left after grain is harvested, and used for bedding.
Hay is various 'grasses' grown for animal feed.

I use shavings on floor, and have been mixing in some straw that is rather chopped up, total change out goes into run once or twice a year.
Straw in nests.
Poop boards have PDZ, sifted daily into buckets which goes to friends compost.
Run is a mix of dry plant matter, a semi-deep litter per se..started with aged ramial wood chippings and I add more as available or needed.

I have a large walk in run and never 'clean' poops from the run,
and there is rarely any nasty odors. The bedding of a good mix of dry plant materials use facilitates this nicely, it's basically no maintenance other than adding more material from time to time. I was able to start with a big load of tree trimmings from the power company that had been aged(6 months) so I avoided the toxic molds that can bloom with fresh chippings. I collect dry leaves in the fall (stored in feed bags in a shed) and add them occasionally, and other garden trimmings. I let my grass grow tall, mow and spread it out with discharge pattern, leave it to dry a few day, then push it into rows with the mower discharge, rake it up and add to run.

 

[SueT]

*raises hand* what is the difference?

Straw is what is left after harvesting wheat or other grains. The stalks of the plant minus the seed head, it is primarily used as bedding. Hay is the entire cut grass plant....usually grasses grown specifically for hay, for feeding livestock.

 

[Chullicken]

Wood shavings take forever to break down. You don't want to mix them into your soil as they will suck up the nitrogen thus depriving the plants. Can use as mulch tho, some of the poop nitrogen will filter down into soil for plants to use.

Straw is a byproduct of grain crops, it is the stalk of the plant left after grain is harvested, and used for bedding.
Hay is various 'grasses' grown for animal feed.

I use shavings on floor, and have been mixing in some straw that is rather chopped up, total change out goes into run once or twice a year.
Straw in nests.
Poop boards have PDZ, sifted daily into buckets which goes to friends compost.
Run is a mix of dry plant matter, a semi-deep litter per se..started with aged ramial wood chippings and I add more as available or needed.

I have a large walk in run and never 'clean' poops from the run,
and there is rarely any nasty odors. The bedding of a good mix of dry plant materials use facilitates this nicely, it's basically no maintenance other than adding more material from time to time. I was able to start with a big load of tree trimmings from the power company that had been aged(6 months) so I avoided the toxic molds that can bloom with fresh chippings. I collect dry leaves in the fall (stored in feed bags in a shed) and add them occasionally, and other garden trimmings. I let my grass grow tall, mow and spread it out with discharge pattern, leave it to dry a few day, then push it into rows with the mower discharge, rake it up and add to run.

How hot does your compost pile get during the year? I've been reading up on some off gridders using 'hot composting' to heat their runs. Some have theirs up to 140 degrees. Handsome rooster you have there.