when do you switch bedding to hay/straw

[the simple life]

Hangin,
You should be able to get pine shavings pretty cheap at your local feed store.I bought 2 huge sacks of it yesterday for only $6.00 each .2 of those size bags should enough to cover your floor.I would call around and see.
Thank you to everyone else for your advice.I really like the shavings too so I am glad I can continue to use them indefinitely.Just wondering why some like to use shavings for everywhere but the nest boxes and use hay for those,is there something else I should know?

 

[CoyoteMagic]

The thing with pine bedding is to keep it stirred up. Every week or so, I go in with some DE and the shuffle hoe and stir it up and dry it out. I only clean my coop twice a year. Stir, throw down some DE, stir, throw on some more pine bedding if needed.

Shovel it all out in the fall and spring

 

[GallowayFarms]

I lot of people use straw/hay for nesting boxes bc the chickens can fluff it up to make a round nest in the box. i have ply-wood nesting boxes that i use a little pine shavings in the bottom to pad it with straw on top to give them something to make the nest out of. I just change it out every so often. When I put fresh in I just shove a good bit in the box and the chickens do all the rest.

I hope this helps. Just remember to keep the bedding dry and it won't matter really what you use. Just somethings stay dryer/fluffier than others.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Someone asked how many chickens and how big of an area...well, the coop is 8 foot by 8 foot and we will have 20-25 chickens at the most. 18-20 at the most will be in the coop..the others are Seramas and they will have a different coop.
I asked my hubby about pine shaving and he said...unless we can get them for 2 bucks a bag were using straw lol...SO I will have to see how it goes and try to keep it as dry and clean as I can. It may mean changing more often (he doesn't think so) but I will be sure to use DE to help dry things out too.

 

[Bawkadoodledoo]

i use a small amount of hay in my brooder because of a severe shortage of shavings.

 

[raindrop]

I use straw. I like it. It is cheaper than pine shavings and I love the smell of a freshly cleaned coop full of fluffy straw.

 

[Dixiedoodle]

The straw will compost much quicker than the shavings.

 

[Crunchie]

If you really don't want to use the straw, I might do some more investigation to find the best price on shavings. A 5.5 cubic foot (expanded; 3 cu ft bagged) bag of shavings is something like $14 at the local pet stores, but just over $5 a bag at my Southern States. So if you haven't checked your feed stores, I would do that (though no, you're not going to find them for $2, unfortunately!)

The other thing to consider is if you are going to have to change the straw quite often, you might go through it so quickly that it won't cost less because you'll be using so much of it. With the shavings, you can use the deep litter method and only really have to change/refill a few times per year. 1 bag will put a nice deep layer on one of my 4 X 8 breeding runs (so you could expect to put 2 down if you're run is 8 X 8). Then all I have to do is periodically throw a bit down to "freshen up." Maybe 1/3 of a bag here and there.

Last time I put totally new shavings down in my runs was either December or January, which was when we built them. My runs are nice and dry and don't smell, I just throw down a layer when things start to look a little messy. I think I've used maybe 4, 5 max bags in 2 of those 4 X 8 runs all year--and that includes the 2 bags I used to put the initial layer down. So you might want to figure out how quickly you're going to go through that straw....it might not be as cost effective as you think.