Wood chips in the run?

[Hen Pen Jem]

Greetings Katt47, Welcome to BYC!

 

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[Katt47]

Thanks for all the great comments and welcomes!
It sounds like drying them out for a while is a good idea and I'm only using them in the run. If they break down quickly, I guess I can compost them and throw in more.
I also wonder if I threw down some sweet PDZ on newer chips that it may help dry them out faster. We are taking down roughly 10 trees so I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in wood chips for a while.
I think I may use some to line some pathways around the property too.

 

[Kusanar]

Thanks for all the great comments and welcomes!
It sounds like drying them out for a while is a good idea and I'm only using them in the run. If they break down quickly, I guess I can compost them and throw in more.
I also wonder if I threw down some sweet PDZ on newer chips that it may help dry them out faster. We are taking down roughly 10 trees so I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in wood chips for a while.
I think I may use some to line some pathways around the property too.

Have you checked out the Deep Litter threads? If not, might be something you would enjoy reading. Basically, you set up your coop or run to compost the bedding in place. You can put down a deep layer of wood chips, about 4-6 inches deep in the run, then add dry leaves, grass clippings, weeds from the garden, small amounts of hay and/or straw, sticks, etc. Pretty much anything that is a "brown" in composting, the chickens will scratch through it (turning it) and will supply the "green" material (chicken poop) to make it break down. Starting with a deep base of wood chips will make sure that if you get monsoon rains and your run ends up in a swamp, that your chickens will be high and dry up on their wood platform. Plus, think of all the bugs that will live in there that the birds will enjoy digging up and eating.

 

[Joeschooks]

Hello and welcome to BYC!

I have tried various different coverings in my runs and woodchip is the choice I’ve been most pleased with. Try to separate out the hardwood if you can and use that, eg oak chips. And be very careful that you don’t have anything poisonous to chickens eg cedar. If you have some spare keep it dry or it’ll go mouldy and begin to compost if left in a damp heap. I get mine from my tree surgeon (also a farmer with lots of chickens so he saves me decent stuff) in the winter when there are no leaves on the trees which I personally prefer. I save half so I can change it all out in the summer.

 

[007Sean]

Howdy Katt Happy to have you join the family. Enjoy your time here at BYC!

 

[lazy gardener]

I do not buy packaged wood chips from the farm supply store, I get them from other sources. They are not "seasoned" or kiln dried or any of that.

Just to clarify, Wood chips are trees that have been chipped. Including bark, wood and leaves (if there are any). Versus shavings, which can be bought by the bag or bale at the feed store, or sometimes gotten from a saw mill or other business that planes wood. Shavings are only wood. No bark, no leaves. They take forever to decompose.

Wood chips make a great addition to deep litter in either coop or run. However, there is risk from using fresh wood chips. Within the last year, a BYC member put fresh chips in their run. Those chips got wet, and a perfect sequence of events resulted in the birds becoming very sick and dying one at a time from a fungal infection. I believe it was aspergillis that was the offensive organism. Some of the contributing factors: the FRESH chips were the only material used, and they were layered in very thickly. The birds were also confined to coop/run, so there was no escaping the mold.

To use wood chips safely, they should be piled up and left to decompose. Let the weather and micro/macro organisms work on them. It may take a year to properly season wood chips. When much of the interior of the pile is blackened, when it's more spongy, and when there are worms living in the pile, it is ripe and perfect to add to the run, coop, garden, or orchard.

 

[PirateGirl]

Just to clarify, Wood chips are trees that have been chipped. Including bark, wood and leaves (if there are any). Versus shavings, which can be bought by the bag or bale at the feed store, or sometimes gotten from a saw mill or other business that planes wood.

Wood chips make a great addition to deep litter in either coop or run. However, there is risk from using fresh wood chips. Within the last year, a BYC member put fresh chips in their run. Those chips got wet, and a perfect sequence of events resulted in the birds becoming very sick and dying one at a time from a fungal infection. I believe it was aspergillis that was the offensive organism.

To use wood chips safely, they should be piled up and left to decompose. Let the weather and micro/macro organisms work on them. It may take a year to properly season wood chips. When much of the interior of the pile is blackened, when it's more spongy, and when there are worms living in the pile, it is ripe and perfect to add to the run, coop, garden, or orchard.

This is good info. I have also wondered (and could not find great info online) about the safety of using beetlekill pine. That is primarily what is available here as the pine beetles have invaded and destroyed our forests. Homeowners are required to remove dead trees as well as brush in attempts to mitigate/prevent fast spreading wildfires in the area. The government funds the removal and chipping of the trees and slash. What has me most curious is that the reason the invasive pine beetles kill the trees is that a fungus is introduced into their bores and it is actually the fungus that kills the trees. I do not know if this fungus is dangerous in anyway to people, chickens, other animals, when it becomes airborne like that and is no longer locked up inside the tree.

 

[lazy gardener]

Until someone says otherwise, I would not have an issue with composting those chipped trees and using them. I'm guessing that by the time the tree is dead, the beetles have moved on to infest healthy trees. If the beetles remain, they would be tasty additions to the bird's diet. All of the spruce and pine trees are dying around me. I'm guessing from the same cause.

Also, the composting process gets quite hot. My town dump has a compost area. The piles of chips are often 8 to 10' tall. I back my truck up to the piles and start shoveling. When I get into a vein of older stuff, the steam comes rolling out of the pile!

 

[PirateGirl]

Until someone says otherwise, I would not have an issue with composting those chipped trees and using them. I'm guessing that by the time the tree is dead, the beetles have moved on to infest healthy trees. If the beetles remain, they would be tasty additions to the bird's diet. All of the spruce and pine trees are dying around me. I'm guessing from the same cause.

Also, the composting process gets quite hot. My town dump has a compost area. The piles of chips are often 8 to 10' tall. I back my truck up to the piles and start shoveling. When I get into a vein of older stuff, the steam comes rolling out of the pile!

It's the mold I worry about, not so much the actual beetles.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_pine_beetle