Wood shavings or straw

[Sassylas1]

Dealing with lots of moisture in Washington state. I use the white shavings in my coop/hen house but wondering which would absorb the moisture better. Straw or shavings or both?

 

[DobieLover]

Dealing with lots of moisture in Washington state. I use the white shavings in my coop/hen house but wondering which would absorb the moisture better. Straw or shavings or both?

Shavings.
Straw tends to get moldy.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I agree with @DobieLover , straw isn't very absorbent until it starts to break down a bit. Pine shavings are definitely more absorbent. I also use a product called Sweet PDZ, it's a natural stall refresher that is safe for chickens, it absorbs moisture as well as ammonia reducing the smell from chicken poo which seems to be much worse when it's wet.

 

[Fluffyflufffluff]

Dealing with lots of moisture in Washington state. I use the white shavings in my coop/hen house but wondering which would absorb the moisture better. Straw or shavings or both?

Hmmm. I would try... Both first. well, for me to figure out which one is better... Ill resort on trying both. but what I really want is straw.

 

[aart]

Pine shavings will absorb more than straw.
But you'll never get it drier inside the coop than it is outside the coop.
Measure humidity both inside and outside, if it's within ~10% don't worry about it.
If it's significantly more humid inside the coop then you need more ventilation.

 

[perkolator]

Shavings.
Around my area the bigger shavings bale is only like $5-6 and the cheapest bale of straw is over $10 the last time I bought one

 

[AkChris]

I'm in SE Alaska which is even wetter than Washington. Straw doesn't absorb much moisture and does tend to mold quickly. Wood shaving are much better for that. I use mostly wood shavings in the coop, under the roost areas so it can absorb the poop moisture. Straw does have it's place in my coop. It's a better insulator so I pile up heaps of it when we get cold spells. Usually I have a mix of wood shaving and straw in the winter. I have a three sided, covered run area a do a deep litter style floor. It's usually pretty damp because of the climate here but works ok. I like to have larger material in here straw, wood chips, leaves, maybe some shavings but they tend to disappear in here pretty quickly so I don't use them as much. And finally the hens have a much bigger uncovered, fenced area they can roam during the day. When this area gets snow I'll shovel and throw out some straw in the area around the door and pathway. The girls are more likely to come out more if they don't have to walk on the snow.

 

[Acre4Me]

In addition to the above suggestions, some like to add the stall pellets often used for horses. These are essentially compressed sawdust. Some swear by it to dry out the more wet areas.

I’ve never used the stall pellets. We are often wet or humid in western Ohio, even in the winter. So, sometimes the ambient humidity hangs out around 85+ percent. We use wood shavings in the coop-we like very large wood shavings as they don’t compress as easily. The other thing we did was to raise the coop 2.5’ above the ground. So no ground moisture. Once we had an intense rainstorm that dumped several inches of rain over a short period of time in early 2019. Part of the run became flooded and the mixed material in the run was washed away, leaving mud. This included under the coop, so we were glad the coop was elevated! Since then, the drainage has been fixed, but the ambient humidity is what it is.