What material works well for litter in outdoor runs?

[mgard99]

I live on a heavily wooded property so I have been using finely ground up leaves in a layer 3-4 inches thick. I also use them in some of my gardens for mulch. The chickens love to scratch in them to find bugs. I add new ones every few weeks. It works well for me and is free, except for the time spent shredding them.

 

[Peeper7]

When you say "woodchips" are we talking about hard bark mulch or chipped branches?

 

[Bring]

I just bought some wood chips from the feed store. I bought two bags. My coup is 32 sq feet. Turns out I only needed one bag. It was more than enough for the coop and the nesting boxes. It was only $6.50 a bag. I was suprised at how soft the wood shavings are. It's made for horse stalls and horse trailers. It smells nice too.

 

[chookchick]

Woodchip is what you have when you chip up tree branches and shrubs, and not just the bark. It could be softwood (cedar, etc..) or hardwood (maple, etc...) I don't really care what it is made out of as long as there is NO holly. Cedar is fine for a run with air circulation, just don't use it inside. I imagine bark would work well also, it is just a lot more expensive, especially by the bag!

 

[lavacaw]

I have been trying leaves this year and the chickens love it. I have raked bags and bags of live oak leaves and putting a bag or two at a time in the run. They are staying dry (of course everything here is staying dry this year due to a severe lack of rain) and the chickens are going after all the bugs, seeds, etc. I am not shredding them, just dumping them in there and letting the chickens spread them. They get pretty well broken up by the chickens and I will rake them out and add them to the compost.

 

[Big C]

In our area we buy large round bales of dried bermuda hay. Its sort of like what is used in evaporative cooler pads. Moisture is evaporated quickly and which creates a cooling effect.
Breaks down much easier than wood chips when composted (wood chips require nitrogen to compost effectively) and is a lot cheaper per sq ft area.

 

[Sammimom]

We LOVE the sand. So easy to clean and dries quickly.

 

[chickiedoodle]

We also live in a wooded area and use pine needles and all the leaves we can find. I don't always shred mine, they seem to work fine either way, though if you live in an area with a lot of rain, shredding them might keep them from matting. We live in Sunny CA and don't have that problem

 

[Kansaseq]

My runs are in a heavily shaded area, so when it rains, it stays wet for a while. When the runs are yucky, I take shavings from the coop and sprinkle them on the run with some Stall Dri. When the run dries out, or just needs to be raked, I take the shavings and put them out to compost. Kind of like getting triple duty out of them.

 

[consdrs]

Wow that is one of the easiest questions!! SAND! Hands down. I have 2 coops one of them has shavings in the coop and sand in the run. the other has sand in the coop and in the run both. when its time to change the shavings it will be sand all the way!!

Connie