what do all u cold climate chicken owners use for bedding in your coop

I use pine shavings over a linoleum covered wood floor. It absorbs moisture and since I don't have poop boards I just go in and pick up the poop with a baggie. It also insulates well. Straw doesn't absorb as much, hay is pricey unless you get the moldy kind and that's bad for the birds and I found that the big wood chips are too difficult to clean.

However, I'm in Colorado with a relative humidity of around 15% (and that's high sometimes). I pick out the piles and only change out the entire shebang every three or four months.

I also sprinkle a little food grade DE in the bedding.

Mary

 

I use shavings and stall dry, keep the moisture down and comferable in the coop with the wood floor, deep litter

 

Quote:what is stall dry?... I went into the TSC and asked for it, the look I got from the guy... you would have thought I had 2 heads... I told him its to keep horse stalls dry he told me to just use shavings or straw.... this was also the guy who told me there was only one kind of DE too... and it was poison... would not listen to me when i told him there was a food grade one...

 

I have a wood floor in the chicken house, with about 6-8 inches of pine shavings. I rake it, usually every day, keep the Stall Dry (try a feed store, they know what it is) on it to keep the odor/flies down, which of course isn't a problem this time of year. I usually take some out every month or so, put it out around the apple trees, etc, just spread it out away from the trunk.

The pine shavings are easy to work with. I usually sprinkle a little 5% Sevin dust around the edges. So far, I have had no mites in the hen house or the nests, and the chickens are fine.

Straw does hold moisture, and will clump up, hay molds. The pine shaving will stay much dryer.

Chickens, like children, do require a little attention.

DonnaBelle

 

I use pine shavings..i would use straw also, but since the birds roost..I dont think the straw would help keep them warm..

 

I use hay on a wood floor, and enough to provide good insulation on the floor - about 6 inches to start with after I've cleaned it out in the fall ( I try to do that as late as I can because it won't happen again til spring!). I do pick up poop under the roosts about once a week or so, and I add hay through the winter. On high wind chill days (-20 to -40 below), the chickens usually stay inside so I sprinkle scratch to keep them occupied, and fresh hay - they pick at the greener bits and seeds in the hay.

I've never had a problem with hay molding - even after occasionally slopping a bit of water when I refill the waterer. In the garden, yes, hay molds, but then it is exposed to lots of rain, etc.

 

If you use straw I suggest DE because since straw is hollow its super easy for mites to hide out.

 

I use Aspen shavings over a wood floor.

Suzy

 

I find straw too messy. They remove it from the boxes anyway. So its pine shavings, stall dry and deep litter method for me.