Favorite bedding setup for poultry?

Sawdust

I have been utilizing bags of flake shavings from my local ag store from the start of my chicken tending days to now. We have utilized the principles of deep bedding with success. I'm now seeking other's opinions to see what they have found success doing in hopes of improving my hen's quality of life.

Some questions that might help stir a response...

Do you rely on purchasing your bedding material? Do you use additional materials to the bedding to get better performance? What do you utilize for chicken coop bedding? Do you use material in the run and is it different? (If applicable)

Thank you in advance, my hens and I appreciate it.

My litter generally looks like it does in this photo where my hens were so kind to make their own nesting spot instead of one of the four boxes I made especially for them.

Chicken coop litter

Hi Timothy,
While I prefer a mesh floor on a movable coop for the summer time... in the winter, I am stuck with the chickens in one place. I used a combination of straw and wood shavings. It seemed to work well.

I have not had a chance to try it, but I have heard that applying biochar to the bedding could help reduce the smell. They also say that including biochar in the food can help with the smell.

I always purchased mine. I much preferred straw but it comes a long way to get to Louisiana and wasn't always available. The pine we had access to had some little flying insects in it and they bothered the hens mightily. Winters of heavy  rain on clay soil just wasn't ideal for chickens, to be honest. I haven't seen a non-sloppy method this far South.  Something I never tried but would in theory, is pine needles. In our garden, the pine needles have a tough enough consistency that they don't fall apart like straw, also a pleasant smell. Good luck!

Suzette Thib wrote:I always purchased mine. I much preferred straw but it comes a long way to get to Louisiana and wasn't always available. The pine we had access to had some little flying insects in it and they bothered the hens mightily. Winters of heavy  rain on clay soil just wasn't ideal for chickens, to be honest. I haven't seen a non-sloppy method this far South.  Something I never tried but would in theory, is pine needles. In our garden, the pine needles have a tough enough consistency that they don't fall apart like straw, also a pleasant smell. Good luck!

I tried pine needles and didn't like them at all.  Like leaves, pine needles don't absorb anything and mat together.  They are also very hard to scoop up and get out of the coop once they mat together in a big clump.  I tried it, hated it, and when back to buying bags of pine shavings.  The only thing I have tried that I liked besides pine shavings was my own compost.  

Trace Oswald I tried pine needles and didn't like them at all.  Like leaves, pine needles don't absorb anything and mat together.  They are also very hard to scoop up and get out of the coop once they mat together in a big clump.

That was my worry utilizing leaves. I might use them as a component in pathways but I am careful to not have too many in one spot because they become slick as a mat. I wonder if shredding them would provide any additional benefit in the coop if they are mixed partially with pine shavings. That however requires additional handling and to be honest, I'm not one to take extra steps if I can help it.

I put a big deep layer down of arborist wood chips in the chicken yard and chicken run. I typically get them for free (or the cost of a small tip) from local tree services. The chickens love digging around in it and it turns into some wonderful compost. In the coop itself I will use fresh chips while they are dry, since I try to get them in before the wood chip pile gets rained on.

We use wood chips here and our chicken workers love them. We add crushed charcoal (biochar) to reduce odor and to get innoculated for when we pull out the debris for later use. Biochar is handy in winter when our chicken space is reduced in size. In the warmer months you can also spray a microorganism solution like JADAM's JMS occasionally or mix in Korean Natural Farming's IMO or LABs. Microrganisms will help break down the wood chips quicker and neutralize odors. Bukashi will do the same thing as the homemade Korean solutions, but costs money.

Timothy,

Great first name, BTW. I have 15 hens and 1 rooster in a 24x24 coop/run combo, along with 3-6 rabbit breeders (in elevated cages) depending on the time of the year. I bag 2 acres of grass and rake all the leaves to put in with them and it seems the seasons provide all the carbon material I need.

I use the composted material, after I screen through a 1/2" screen, for direct application on my gardens. Unbelievable stuff for fertilizing anything. I have a couple of junk hay round bales this year from a neighbor and I am going to see how how quickly it breaks down when I add it.

I have not needed to purchase anything to put down yet. I hope this helps!

I also wanted to mention that after reading some of the replies more closely, the leaves I add have never clumped up. We rake them when they fall, pile on a tarp, and pull right into the coop/run.

They will be so high that you literally cannot even see the chickens in there until you get close to the enclosure. They break them down to pieces and spread them around in no time at all.

I use arborist wood chips, largely from evergreens. It seems to work well on clay soil, and makes excellent compost.

Chainsaw shavings in the coop, with fine biochar sprinkled over every so often. Wood chip and old hay in the run, with biochar tossed in ad lib (this all gets eaten but comes out in the end). We also dump lots of weeds, greens and spent crops in the run and I turn the "pile" so that they can get access to all the wriggly things underneath.

Josh Hoffman wrote:I bag 2 acres of grass

Just a warning for those who are unaware - some chickens will eat a bunch of grass at once and end up with an impacted crop. Make sure they have free access to grit. If you regularly check on your chickens, especially in the morning, you'll be more likely to notice a problem before it gets serious. (An impacted crop will still be full and hard in the morning before the chicken eats anything. Normally the crop should empty overnight.)

I am actually writing this with a chicken on my lap, whom I am nursing back from the brink of death. It took me too long to notice her impacted crop - I've been overwhelmed with work - and she had already lost too much weight and was dehydrated. Cross your fingers I'm able to pull her through.

Juniper Zen wrote:

Josh Hoffman wrote:I bag 2 acres of grass

Just a warning for those who are unaware - some chickens will eat a bunch of grass at once and end up with an impacted crop. Make sure they have free access to grit. If you regularly check on your chickens, especially in the morning, you'll be more likely to notice a problem before it gets serious. (An impacted crop will still be full and hard in the morning before the chicken eats anything. Normally the crop should empty overnight.)

I am actually writing this with a chicken on my lap, whom I am nursing back from the brink of death. It took me too long to notice her impacted crop - I've been overwhelmed with work - and she had already lost too much weight and was dehydrated. Cross your fingers I'm able to pull her through.

This chicken you are referring to ate too much grass? In a coop or tractored or free range?

Dry atumn leaves.
I use them in the run and in the coop.
In the coop it sits on top of the mesh, and they shred its as time goes on.
It ends up in the trays beneath and I use it on beds or put it into the run.
The leaves in the run becomes compost.
They never get wet enough to be matted, but I never have more than 6 chickens at a time

Josh Hoffman wrote:This chicken you are referring to ate too much grass? In a coop or tractored or free range?

My chicken passed away today, and a necropsy showed that the underlying problem was that her gizzard was full of tumors. But while I was researching impacted crops, I came across stories of other people's chickens having eaten too much long grass and it getting twisted up and stuck in the crop. Obviously that doesn't usually happen, but I just wanted to let readers know about the possible risk so that they can watch out for it and intervene if they see a problem.

This is a great thread and full of neat ideas for chicken bedding.

Here in the south farmers grow lots of cotton.

Our daughter uses cotton seed hulls and deep litter bedding.

I like the idea of deep leaves on top of mesh floors. Although I don't keep chickens (yet) I worry that the wire would be hard on their feet. If that works well it seems like it could be a good solution for people with access to lots of leaves. I would have thought that the chickens would scratch up everything, rather than the layers compacting.
Spruce needles may work for me here. I've noticed that already I am getting a smothering layer under the trees, so would have a small but steady supply perhaps.

Nancy Reading wrote:I like the idea of deep leaves on top of mesh floors. Although I don't keep chickens (yet) I worry that the wire would be hard on their feet.

I just wanted to share that the mobile coop I built, had 2x2 perches running the full length with hardware cloth stapled underneath. The chickens would generally walk or scoot along the perch and only go on the hardware cloth on occasion. So I never really worried about it being hard on the feet.

I find that pine shavings work really well for the indoor components of housing chickens, ducks, and geese, but they are much less effective in the runs (we get a lot of rain here). I prefer dry oak leaves for that, but I also use pine needles and wood chips. Although pine shavings are effective under a roof, they're way too expensive if you have more than a couple birds. At this point, I use them only in the brooder with young birds for the first 2-3 weeks of their life, and in the duck house, where they are better for keeping eggs clean. In the goose stall, I use dry grass. The geese and ducks can really mat down their bedding material, but if I put a few chickens in there, they'll stir it up well in short order. Sometimes it helps to break the surface of the leaves so the chickens can get a taste. Overall, oak leaves work well, are free, and the good people of my area routinely rake them, bag them, and set them on the curb for me. The birds also find a bit of food in these bags of leaves, which they do not get from the pine shavings.

Inspired from this thread, I have put together a thread specifically looking at the common options of Pine Shavings that can be found by homesteaders.

I took inspiration from local big-box stores and their selection and tried to determine my thoughts on the bedding based off my experience with my chickens.

I throw in everything that doesn't cost money or too much labor. Weeds from the veggie garden, hay from the forest, wood shavings if I can get them, woodchips, leftover grain shells from the neighbouring farm, biochar, ash...

Everything gets turned when it starts to pack up, but chickens are pretty effective rototillers.

I am actually quite proud that the henhouse always smells good, even though the substrate is there all winter.

Juniper Zen wrote:

Josh Hoffman wrote:This chicken you are referring to ate too much grass? In a coop or tractored or free range?

My chicken passed away today, and a necropsy showed that the underlying problem was that her gizzard was full of tumors. But while I was researching impacted crops, I came across stories of other people's chickens having eaten too much long grass and it getting twisted up and stuck in the crop. Obviously that doesn't usually happen, but I just wanted to let readers know about the possible risk so that they can watch out for it and intervene if they see a problem.

This happened to one of my birds a couple of years ago. Identified by necropsy. She got into some grass clippings.

Wood chips for the deep litter on the floor. We get them free from a local tree surgeon. More than we can ever use.

Clean pine shavings for the nest boxes. About once every two weeks I replace the shavings. I just scoop them out onto the floor and put fresh in. They get incorporated into the deep litter with 24 hours and you can notice them.

I love the deep litter. It is completely forgiving of a bit of benign neglect. If i have a busy week or so you wouldn't notice because the chickens are forever turning the top layer over. The only time it wasn't so effective was when I just had a small number of birds in the large coop. They were crapping from their roost bars but not doing enough digging and scratching to consistently turn the top layer over before it dried together in a cake.

I have replenished my flock recently and all is operating smoothly again.

Well rotted deep litter has been fantastic for the garden, particularly the rhubarb plants as a thick winter mulch.