Wood Shavings For Chicken Coop

Straw is another common bedding.

Wood shavings for chicken coop.

Scattering corn on the coop floor encourages them. Go for large flake wood shavings over fine shavings too dusty and don t use sawdust way too dusty and damp. Wood chips are a good bedding material for your chicken coop. Sawdust also works well but is dusty.

However pine shavings contain dangerous toxins that may cause serious harm to your chickens. What are the popular choices for chicken coop bedding in the different areas of my coop. I ve read that straw can be too slippery for developing legs to walk on although i haven t honestly looked further into this. Wood chips are great in absorbing those odors.

So here s the rundown on some common choices for coop bedding. What makes them an excellent material is the fact that they are mainly carbon. Whichever you select remember to keep it dry and ensure that the chickens aren t suffering from any respiratory issues. Shavings shavings are a favorite among chicken owners and this type of bedding comes in different forms of wood.

Chickens stir it up and dust settles on anything in the coop. They re loved for their absorbency cheap cost insulating properties and composting ease. We always use pine shavings for baby chicks. Some prefer hay or straw and change it frequently.

I prefer it especially with the deep litter method after a long winter of adding extra bedding. For the aspect of cleaning the coop i prefer pine shavings. The high nitrogen chicken poop is the green simply add enough shavings to keep the floor composting nicely and the chickens do the aeration for you with their scratching behavior. They re used in both brooders and chicken coops.

Pine shavings are commonly used for chicken coops as they re more absorbent than most other materials have insulating properties are low in cost and widely available and can be used for the deep litter method and composting. By far the most commonly used litter is wood shavings sold in feed stores or scrounged from woodworkers. The most common kinds of shavings are pine and cedar although there is a lot of talk about the possibility of cedar being toxic to chickens. Pine shavings are one of the most used chicken bedding materials in the united states.

So what is my favorite chicken bedding. Pine shavings are touted as safe for chickens health and many packages even have pictures of chickens on them. Like a compost pile you begin with a layer of pine shavings or other organic matter in the browns category. You absolutely need pine wood shavings and not cedar shavings cedar oils and scent can be toxic to chickens.

Cedar is too aromatic and the oils have been proven to be harmful and even toxic to chickens. I love to use shavings due to odor control and ease of cleaning. If you do choose to use shavings try and get the larger chips versus smaller shavings and never use sawdust. Also only use pine shavings never cedar.

Wood shavings have a pleasant smell are amazingly absorbent and don t pack down.