Which bedding is BEST for chickens? IT DEPENDS...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ส.ค. 2024
- Comparing three different types of chicken bedding - highlighting the one I used to use, the one I currently use, and the one I am testing and why.
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I started using spagnum peat moss because of this video and its the best idea since sliced bread! My coop has zero oder, its easy to clean, adding DE to it is easy ....it mixes so nicly... the hens LOVE it! and when I clean it out completely I can throw it in my garden! My plants have NEVER been happier! Thank you!
Pine shavings can cause crop compaction especially if the chicks eat it.Ordinary construction "river" sand is safe and won't cause compaction.Easy to find, cheap to buy and can be sifted to keep clean. Doesn't cause compaction and produces a nice dry surface for the chicks to walk on.Peat moss is dusty and harbors bacteria and fungi .It can also cause respiratory problems in chicks and chickens.
“Supply of tractor co”
i hadn't thought of using peat moss. our coop is open bottomed and in the summer it moves around chicken tractor style. in the winter its set on a deep layer of wood chips in the greenhouse, we get down to -30/-40 sometimes, and just feed them right there. we feed kitchen scraps but also home made silage. the silage that the chickens don't eat ends up as bedding. also we get the shredded paper from my work to use in the nesting boxes and when those get cleaned the paper ends up on the ground as well. so far i havent had to pay for bedding directly but we only have five chickens. im hoping to expand to thirty or so in the next couple of years and expect to have to buy bedding for a stationary coop. looking forward to seeing how the peat moss works out.
I've had great luck using straw! I've been using it for 10 years now. If it gets soiled, I just add another layer on top. I think Harvey Ussery called it the "deep litter" method. I clean out the coop area twice a year and put it on my growing areas. There are no odor or insect issues
I have tried that and it worked OK. My issue is cost of a bale out here and keeping it dry. I don't have the space to store it.
Peat moss is not a renewable resource and environmentalists discourage the usage. My dad was a commercial greenhouse chrysanthemum grower and he used peat moss all the time for propagation. I do have a bale of peat moss for my lovable loo that I use during power outages during which my toilet doesn't flush!
I have used peat successfully when raising peeps. I liked it for them because there was no worry of them ingesting fine particles of sawdust or chips which can cause problems in the little ones. For the adults, I use chips. In the winter I put quite a lot of spent potting soil from my micro greens in the coop. They like it and in the spring, it can all go out in the growing beds.
I use Alfalfa, Live Oak leaves, small amounts of cut grass, and wood chips (Don't Use Cedar.)
I've been raising chickens for over 10 years now... never tried peat moss. It's readily available here (we have peat moss factories in my area) so I can get it cheap. I"m looking forward to your thoughts on your experiment. If it all goes well, I may try it too.
Diego these videos are really helping me out man, hope the ROI with the time spent filming these doesn't make the youtube obsolete. We use the fine shavings too but for the horses. Btw, I can't help but lmao when you say "The Supply of Tractor Co." man I can only imagine the reaction from the workers at my local tractor supply if I came in saying that to these country folk lol
Tumba supply of tractor! haha! I laughed too.
Problem is that peat moss takes up to 1000 years to be created. Most of the world is trying hard to reduce use of peat as it's part of the problem with causing more Co2 into the environment. Peat prevents erosion and flooding. Taking it out of the ground increases flooding. It's a bit of a bad thing to use for the whole world. I'm hoping that your experiment shows that it's not great and that you can promote another kind of bedding. :)
My dad told me of using grain straw, grain an all. The chickens scratch the straw breaking it up and eating the grain that worked good for him in the old days. I use the pine shavings with a deep bed style that is ok but I have a lot of dust. My chickens have a large indoor barn floor n never go outside. There is cross ventalation in the barn plus there is bad winters here and no place to roam in the summer.
I have not used peat as bedding. I also don't have issue with my girls pushing the bedding into the run as that is where I put it to decompose further before putting it into the garden. I do love the"supply of tractor company" quote. Haven't heard that one before. I buy most of my supplies at my local feed stores. Good video, I'm curious to see how it works.
I am with you on having it break down further. I was just getting too much end up in the run and under the coop where it was filling up too fast.
Diego, Thank you for another E & I video - I think you should be on PBS !!!
QUESTION: What about you making a video comparing Coco Coir to peat and the other bedding materials available? Thank you again.
05/13/2021
Plus pine has an odor that causes respiratory problems in chickens
Source?
I use a mixture as well, freshly fallen leafs if available pine chips/ shreddes
I am trying card board with my wood chips to try and get more carbon in the soil I have a big chicken ran 12x80 and a big coop I just use wood in the coop but the chickens make a mess if I don’t keep the run dry and break the card board when it rains to mix it in and feed the worms what ones the chickens don’t get the cardboard is free
Interesting concept. I am curious if it could cause any kind of respiratory issues? I know when putting it in my garden beds that I hate working on windy days. When it's dry, it's so light and airy it becomes airborne very easy. Think they could inhale it when scratching around?
For those of us who live in towns where plastic bags have have been banned, I have put a paper shredder in my kitchen.. I shred paper bags to add to my bedding
I use peatmoss in my deep bedding and nest boxes. Its used in composting toilets 1:1 with wood shavings to break our wast down so why not chickens. I only scater thinly though not 1:1 so goes a very long way.
I hate straw it brought in mites my chickens whezed and moisture went strait to the bottom and rots and molds out the wood flooring.
Peatmoss absorbs a lot of moister as well as digesting manure.
I dont know if DE would kill peatmoss. So might cancel each others benifits out.
So im using mostly woodshavings with a little peatmoss as the main deep bedding and nesting material.
In the nesting boxes i found wood shavings to wet on there own if an egg brakes etc. So still looking for a top layer product that acts like straw. Or like dispoable nappies. Drawing moister away form the surface to the woodchip/paetmoss layer that absobs and digests it. While protecting the nesting boxes etc.
Im about to try hemp for this.
As for losing so much out of your coop. Do you have a lip on the floor at the door to keep it in? Just a bord you step over would do. One you can lift out when cleaning.
Hey Diego, greetings from Fallbrook! We're enjoying your videos! We especially like it when you talk about your mistakes - it makes us feel better since we have made so very many, ha. Re the peat, I vaguely remember reading that you're supposed to wear a mask when you work with it as it can do damage to your lungs.. . .something about pathogens or particulate from the bogs where it is harvested becoming airborne and being damaging. Do you suppose it could damage the chickens' lungs? May want to watch for this.
As a landscaper, of many years, I can assure you that is potting soil you are thing of. Sphagnum Peat Moss contains nothing that is harmful to humans or anything else.iit is simply accumulated biomatter that has been accumulated over years and years. However, Potting soil can cause Legionnairs' disease.
I looked for sphagnum moss last fall (2019) to try and root some bonsai. Never found any and was busy with other work on the new place. I went through all of the nearby nurseries but was past the season. One of them mentioned to me to wear a mask and look up a chronic lung infection that is carried in sphagnum moss. She said she knew of a few people, that were in the industry, that had died and many whose life was very compromised by it. She said it can kill you but the worst part is that it saps your strength and just hangs on like gillians bray (sp?) or its meaner cousin Mono. 3rd hand ? yes? but protect yourself and research it online some
Thanks for sharing. I use mulch and it works well. Now I have to try moss
Thanks
Not sure if you use this method still, one of things you might want to think about is wood is a sustainable resource while peat moss is not. Which is why it’s so expensive.
No, I don't use peat on my scale. I have actually switched to using shredded scrap paper and generate all of our own bedding from business paperwork and junk mail.
How is the shredded paper working? Seems to make sense to use it. I'm going to experiment with this and add dried leaves and grasses from my garden/ local area.
I actually use about 2:1 fine: flake pine and really like it after the chickens work on it a few days.
This is very curious though. I'm wondering if coco coir would work the same. I may have to try it out!
What are you using for bedding now?
Peat moss and coco coir and hemp I use it’s mixed
Like to see how Peat works ~ price may turn out to be worthwhile in your application (!!)
Great comparison, thanks for the info.
Interesting to see how the peat turns out for you mate, especially when your applying directly to the soil as you do. How about Coir next time to see how well it performs against the Peat? I know chickens sure love having dust bath in Coir.
I find hay or straw keeps the manure damp which can ends up getting maggots in from flys, as well smelling more. Wood chippings work much better than those. Even better than that is Elephant Grass but i find it very dusty so bad for your lungs. The best thing I've found is hemp core, its not very dusty and is extremely absortant. I find its the best when going for the deep bed method where you pick off manure every few days and lightly top up.
My thing is I can get wood chippings for free so I want an extra component for my home made compost so hemp core fits that bill, so like more than one use same as your thinking with the peat.
I would love to use coir, but there's no way to get it near me without buying it by the pallet. I can't buy small economical quantities. So I would love to use it for a variety of things, but can't get it.
People use coir for snakes and horse bedding.. I want to use it for my quails.
+Diego your reasoning seems sound thinking of the bedding as not just bedding but the first step to good soil
How often do you change the bedding ?
I have read about deep bed liter where more dry bedding material was added to the wet messy parts of a coop generally under the roosting bars there by building the bedding so the chickens are always on dry bedding once a year or so they take out the bedding to put on garden if I recall Carolina Coops has some vids about it they beleave enough in deep bedding that They design they coops with it in mind
I probably change out the bedding 4x per year. Not that often. Using the finer bedding allows it to get deep in the coop.
Is there a feedback for peat moss?
It's a great idea in theory - but if you read the warnings on the label of peat moss, it warns against breathing it in and handling it with gloves. I used 1/3 sand, moderate sprinkles of de, 1/3 peat & 1/3 soil to make my birds dust baths a few times - it does make alot of dust but for the dust bath it seems to be ok in a ventilated area. Problem for me is trying to keep dust down in a coop is important to respiratory health. I went with straw bedding successfully with my birds they love it. Since we live in a cold climate it works perfect for deep bedding if kept dry. Straw clean outs break down fairly fast if you place in areas for rain to hit it - if not you have to water it in like other compost. In my mind, any material that has health warnings on it for humans should not be used for bedding material even though I love peat mixed in with sand & top soil for my potting mix. My birds hated the change to pine shavings (med-large flake)...but it's what they have to live with for now til I get my truck fixed for straw pickups. Thanks for the video.
Fair point. I think everything has a health warning on it nowadays though. The birds are breathing in dust, so I am not sure peat dust is much worse, but that is just my guess.
Diego, what do you know about industrial hemp? I ran across that looking at a Carolina Coops video. It looked interesting.
+David Moyer Nothing. Had someone approach me about a podcast on it once, but never advanced anywhere.
Interesting video 🙂
have you tried dry leaves?
I don't have access to leaves.
so hows the peat working out for u?
how did this go?
A 3 cubic foot compressed bale of sphagnum peat moss shouldn't be more than $13 a bale anything more than that is a rip-off
newbie here. what's wrong with grass clippings?
isnt the point of the bedding to keep moisture out?
Supply of Tractor.. haha! :) Thats great.
It's tractor Supply co.
😆
so how well did it work?
Yes, it has been 6 years. We need an update!!!
❤🌱Thank you!🐓❤
who in their right mind would watch chicken videos at work? @ 2:00PM
People who aren't watching cat videos at work at 2PM.
@@DiegoFooter Touche'
This is based
This made me think. 😏🤗
Are peat!
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Can I use sawdust for chicken bedding?
Sure
No!!! They WILL get respiratory problems!!!! & mites love it
perhaps try a bag of sawdust from a local woodworker. Probably get it for free and eliminate something from the waste stream
I have heard, but I haven't tried it, that saw dust is too fine. It clumps really bad.
INDUSTRIAL HEMP!
It's too expensive to ship to where I live. I would try it if I could.
I agree man I started with the fine first and it worked good but when I need to change it out all the supply of tractors had was the corse so I tried it and I have the same problem