Wood chips?

[Aji Dulce]

There shouldn’t be a problem with mold if bought fresh and they haven’t been wet. That is all I use on my coop floor and typically don’t keep water in my coop.

Great. Thanks.

 

[lazy gardener]

When we built the coop & run we first put down hardware cloth in the run and 2” sand. We want to put wood chips over that. The coop is elevated so chix can go under the coop and have more run area.
So perhaps the deep litter method is not best with woodchips and we can change it regularly if recommended.

How high is coop elevated? Are you talking about wood chips or shavings. Wood chips are shredded trees, including bark, wood, and leaves, like you would get from a tree service company. Shavings are the bagged or baled wood shavings (just wood, no bark leaves or other debris) like you would buy from a feed store. My preference for DLM in run would be wood CHIPS, and add spent litter from the coop, grass clippings, leaves, hay, garden debris. You can't go wrong in a run by using DLM as long as you have enough height to work with. With your coop being elevated, a lot depends on the size of it, height, and how densely it is populated. More info needed. Pics would be great.

 

[Aji Dulce]

How high is coop elevated? Are you talking about wood chips or shavings. Wood chips are shredded trees, including bark, wood, and leaves, like you would get from a tree service company. Shavings are the bagged or baled wood shavings (just wood, no bark leaves or other debris) like you would buy from a feed store. My preference for DLM in run would be wood CHIPS, and add spent litter from the coop, grass clippings, leaves, hay, garden debris. You can't go wrong in a run by using DLM as long as you have enough height to work with. With your coop being elevated, a lot depends on the size of it, height, and how densely it is populated. More info needed. Pics would be great.

Talking about wood chips, not shavings. The coop is 4 x 8 and elevated 2.5 ft. The run extends another 8 ft from the coop. I’ll see if I can post a pic tomorrow. I hope you folks can take me by the hand with this new endeavor, we have no chix yet, wait til you see how many questions I have! I hope this forum will be the helpful neighbor I can talk to, over the picket fence.

 

[Teila]

Great pepper.

There was a long thread a while back about someone who used wood chips and had some problems with mold. Maybe someone remembers and can link to that thread.

I remember that thread and was able to find it ..............

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/dying-chickens.1129854/

Edited to add from that thread:

Continuing to update.

From Dr. Clark today...


"Just got the info on fecal cultures from your birds, isolated from tissues and isolates from litter
No salmonella isolated. Aspergillus, rhizopus, mold and yeasts isolated."

All directly related to the wood chips per Dr. Clark. No other factors or issues involved.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I use wood chips taken from trees off my own lot (so I know the source/composition) that have been set aside since middle of last year to age out. I mix them with dried leaves and dried grass, and that's the floor of my run, over bare soil. It's been great for drainage (so there's very little smell), the birds enjoy digging through it, and it's free.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I remember that thread and was able to find it ..............
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/dying-chickens.1129854/

Wow you found it. That's it.

 

[lazy gardener]

Interesting discussion. I don't believe I ever saw that thread, or if I did, I don't remember it. However, after the video that Terry made (thank you Terry) I saw this post by my friend Beekissed. She has been using deep litter in her coop for years. Her coop is soil floor, has lots of ventilation, low stocking density, and her birds are never shut in. They free range 365 days/year, being well guarded by 2 LGD. She has decades of practical farming and poultry experience, and I tend to agree with 99% of what she says. So, here's a copy of her response.


Quote from Beekissed:
Yes, I've used them....never freshly chipped up piles, though. Too hot~literally...you can hold your hand over the pile and feel the heat coming off the pile~and too wet for use in a coop or run when they are fresh. I also didn't use just a layer of wood chips....I always stress to everyone to use a variety of materials for good deep litter...the more variety the better. Then these layers are built gradually, like lasagna gardening, by adding dry material as needed when top layers become too moist. If my coop is dry and not holding good humidity to the mass, I'll add wood chips to hold more moisture into the pack.

I've never had any illness nor even respiratory symptoms from using deep litter in the coop and didn't when I put wood chips in there either. Never heard of anyone reporting any issues about such things until now.

As I see it, this is a special set of circumstances....newly chopped chips, small area of confinement compared to stocking numbers, right weather conditions for high fungal growth and birds that are susceptible to disease or illness actually getting an illness and dying from it. The rest of the flock showed no signs of any Aspergillus, so one cannot blame the chips for chicken death exclusively....birds with weak immune systems will eventually die from one of the million and one fungi, bacteria, etc. that are and will be in their environment and that's not too uncommon at all. Happens all the time all over the world for various and sundry reasons.

This statement made earlier in the thread is quite apt....

Quote: Conditions were right, freshly chopped trees were used, which creates a heat and humidity to the materials~especially when piled or kept thickly layered~that would promote rapid fungal growth. Then a ground dwelling bird was placed on this hot, moist material filled with fungus and couldn't get off it...as that heat rose from the litter, so did the fungal spores. Then birds that already had compromised immune systems were present in that group of birds and died from the experience. Most lived and didn't have any evidence of the Aspergillus in their systems when swabbed...that tells me that, though the fungus was instrumental in their deaths, it wasn't the only cause or all the birds would have had it and sickened or died.

The thing with deep litter is knowing when to use what kind of materials....folks in arid climates can get by with adding moist, humid bedding to counteract the dry, arid conditions in their coops while folks living in humid, hot areas are better using naturally dry and more woody materials to combat the natural humidity in their coops and runs...that would include woody stems of plant matter, dry and cured out wood chips, pine shavings, dry leaves, twigs, corn stalks, hay, etc. Trying to avoid materials that are moist or hold their own moisture like hay, grass, fresh wood chip with the green (leaves)chipped in, etc.

I wouldn't take this one incident and tell folks that they shouldn't ever use wood chips in their runs for deep litter....but I will be telling them not to use freshly chipped trees as their only deep litter material and especially not in the summer months or during any humid weather conditions.

Last edited: Aug 30, 2016

 

[aart]

Quote from Beekissed:

Is that from Terry's thread?

Here's another of her posts:
... a great description of contents and how to manage organic 'bedding' in a run or coop...and there's a great video of what it looks like.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1037998/muddy-run-help-please#post_16017992

@RonP has a great setup too:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/disposing-of-old-shavings.1201566/page-2#post-19035555

Yes, to aged ramial wood chippings!!
Add other stuff too, mostly 'browns', of various size and shape.
The big stuff will last quite awhile, the smaller more easily broken down ingredients can be replenished as needed.
I don't do this in coop, but in the run it's excellent.

Started with this, power company chippings aged 6 months.

Add tall grass cut and dried ('hay') on occasion, dry leaves too.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

The quote in the post above makes a BIG assumption: that the birds that died had prior compromised immune systems. No evidence of that.

 

[debid]

I let a tree service dump about 10-12 loads in our field so I'd have free mulch.

I put some of those fresh chips in the run (dirt with wire enclosure, no solid roof) but only about 2" deep. They didn't cook like the piles did (and yes, the piles were so hot they literally steamed). I put some chips in the coop but hated that and moved those to the run. They were too chunky so they interfered with the door (super annoying) and I was nervous about the mold/fungus thing. The piles of chips in the field grew mushrooms and tree ears and something that looked like the yellow spray foam insulation... But, the run just looked like I'd mulched a bit. It was interesting. They have dry leaves right now as we have those in abundance seasonally but I will use chips from the piles again as needed. Just not inside the coop.