Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips?

[SkyAJK]

Well, I'm sure why your chickens would eat any of those litter materials. Crazy chickens? All I can say is that I start my days old chicks on shredded paper and continue using it my big coop as litter. I have never had a problem with my chicks, or chickens, eating litter instead of their food.

Sounds like you are putting a lot of work into your chickens that I don't have to do. I don't think I could get up at sunrise anymore even if I wanted to get up that early!



Keeping chickens should not be hard. I live in northern Minnesota, and we have long, cold winters, hitting -30F to -40F in the dead of winter for a week or two. That's bitter cold. When I first got my laying hens, I was somewhat concerned that some of them might not survive the extreme cold. But I had the attitude that if any of the chickens died because of the cold, that I would just not get that breed again. Fortunately, none of them died to cold weather. So, the breeds I got were proven cold hardy and my anxiety level went down a few notches.

in your case, considering how much effort you put into caring for the flock, I would suggest trying to find a litter resource that works best for you and letting the chickens figure it out that litter is not food. It sounds like your are working too hard, and that's no fun. Chickens should be fun. Well, most of the time anyways.

Of course, I would suggest using whatever free litter resources you have available. Although my current favorite litter resource is shredded paper, I have also successfully used free wood chips, dry leaves, and grass clippings from the yard. And I have mixed all of those together at the same time and that works as well. It's all natural and organic and makes great compost when I toss it out into the chicken run.

You are right, it is a lot of work..so much work. Yesterday evening as I was putting in new bedding in my chicken coops, I felt defeated on top of that exhaustion feeling and angry at myself for putting myself in this excessive work to no end. Not wise at all.

The endless wet weather is making things worse and worse each day. Personally I am at the point of a break down from this endless rain. If I have no chickens, I would be off somewhere sunshine for a week or a few days at least. But I can not and my chickens stupidly eating just about any bedding materials I give them, this compounded my difficulty.

The endless rain is causing muddiness, their feet are covered in mud, some pooped diahear, and so ....grrrrrr.

I have to keep this bedding materials the way it is for now, until...not sure when that might be....... the sun is out, and I am back to my usual self again, then I am able to think clearly of what next.

 

[BDutch]

In general, that is true. I have the most problem with newspaper as well. However, I have discovered that some paper shreds are just better at handling newspaper than other shredders. My solution is to shred some newspaper and follow it up with regular office paper to clean the rotating knives. That seems to work on all my shredders.



Yes, cleaning a paper shredder can take time. But I would suggest that you try my method of alternating between newspaper and regular office paper to clean the machine. I seldom ever have to clean out my shredders as long as I alternate shredding between newspaper and offic paper.

It would be a shame for me not to use all the newspaper we get at our house. But I worked out a system that allows me to shred that soft newspaper while at the same time using regular office paper to clean the knives.

Thanks for the tip.
But I decided to stop using paper bc lots of paper is recycled here. And maybe its contaminated with PFAS coated paper.
The PFAS level in the eggs of my chickens is too high. Many people with backyard chickens have too much PFAS in their eggs, its a real problem in my country. Im afraid using recycled paper or thin cardboard is not helping.

 

[SkyAJK]

Thanks for the tip.
But I decided to stop using paper bc lots of paper is recycled here. And maybe its contaminated with PFAS coated paper.
The PFAS level in the eggs of my chickens is too high. Many people with backyard chickens have too much PFAS in their eggs, its a real problem in my country. Im afraid using recycled paper or thin cardboard is not helping.

This is new to me........grrrrrrrrr

Awhile back over here it reported that backyard chicken eggs have high level of lead due to lead in the backyard soil....I was like...grrrrrrrrrrrrr isn't anything that is not poisonous in some ways?

We got a metal detector to pick up whatever metal in the soil..........I have not yet get my soil tested because......

 

[BDutch]

If you want to cut your cardbaord into ~2 inch wide strips, it should work fine in your shredder. It does in my shredders rated for 6 sheets. But if you hear the motor bog down, then it's probably not worth the effort.

I'm at an age where cutting cardboard by hand is a bit too much for my hands. For those living in the USA, you might want to check out the power cutter from Menards that will do all the cutting work for you. Since I got my power cutters, all my cardboard gets cut into strips and shredded in my machines at home.

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All the online companies that we order from use starch-based glues and are safe to compost. Both Amazon and QVC, where we get most of our online orders from, are proud to make compostable shipping boxes and packing material.

I have heard that if you put cardboard down on the bare ground, the worms will go crazy eating all that glue!



That's great to hear. I live in forest country. I knew a guy who worked at one of the local paper mills. They never used recycled paper because it was just cheaper to use pulp from trees. But we have lots of trees where I live. I imagine that calculation would be different depending on where you live.

At any rate, I reuse all our paper and cardboard as coop litter, then composting out in the chicken run, finally being added to the raised beds. 100% recycling effort!

I ‘bought’ an electric cordless scissor from saved points (air miles). That works great to cut cardboard too. I use the cardboard from boxes, to cover the poop board. The power scissors go through thin metal too.

 

[gtaus]

The main benefit of shredded paper is that it's free.

That is indeed one of the big benefits. But I like shredded paper also because it's much lighter than wood chips when I clean out the coop. Also, there is almost no dust with my paper shreds compared to wood chips, grass clippings, and especially leaves.

In the end, I advocate for any free resource that you can use as litter and probably save it from being used to fill a landfill somewhere.

 

[gtaus]

I ‘bought’ an electric cordless scissor from saved points (air miles). That works great to cut cardboard too. I use the cardboard from boxes, to cover the poop board. The power scissors go through thin metal too.

Those cordless scissors look nice. I don't have that type, but I imagine they both work great for cutting cardboard.

 

[gtaus]

You are right, it is a lot of work..so much work. Yesterday evening as I was putting in new bedding in my chicken coops, I felt defeated on top of that exhaustion feeling and angry at myself for putting myself in this excessive work to no end. Not wise at all.

The endless wet weather is making things worse and worse each day. Personally I am at the point of a break down from this endless rain. If I have no chickens, I would be off somewhere sunshine for a week or a few days at least. But I can not and my chickens stupidly eating just about any bedding materials I give them, this compounded my difficulty.

The endless rain is causing muddiness, their feet are covered in mud, some pooped diahear, and so ....grrrrrr.

I have to keep this bedding materials the way it is for now, until...not sure when that might be....... the sun is out, and I am back to my usual self again, then I am able to think clearly of what next.

Sounds like you are a little overwhelmed at present. I think many of us have been in similar situations at some point in our lives.

I don't know if you want any suggestions, or not, but I'll just let you know how I made having chickens easier and more fun for me. I already mentioned that converting to the dry deep bedding system with only semi-annual cleanouts was the biggest, most positive, change I made in keeping birds. I routinely spend less than 5 minutes per day with my flock, giving them some treats, checking the food and water, collecting eggs. But that's all I really have to do every day and it's not a problem for me.

I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system. After my chickens ate all the grass in the chicken run, and pulled everything up leaving only bare dirt, I had to make a decision how I would keep them out of the mud when it rained. My first solution was to dump a nice thick layer of free wood chips in the run. That worked fine, and I could have stopped there.

However, I got more and more into raised bed gardening and decided to start putting leaves and grass clippings in the chicken run, turning it into a composting in place system. All my coop litter from the semi-annual cleaning goes out into the chicken run as well. I get tons of Black Gold compost from my chicken run which was my main goal. One of the additional benefits from dumping all that organic material into my chicken run is that the level of leaves, grass clippings, etc.. in the chicken run is about 12 inches higher than the ground level outside the chicken run fence. No muddy feet or walking around in chicken poo for my girls.

Even better, my chicken run compost litter is full of juicy worms and tasty bugs to eat. My chickens stay outside all day digging into the run compost and finding good things to eat. My commercial feed bill goes down by about half when the chickens are outside finding things to eat in the run.

I can't read a chicken's mind, but they seem pretty happy digging in the chicken run compost and finding good things to eat all day long. It seems to keep them active and healthy.

I don't know if any of that is helpful to you, but you should know that there are a lot of us that don't put in nearly as much effort as you appear to do with your flock. I enjoy my backyard flock because I found a way to raise them that does not wear me down, or out. I hope you will consider some other methods that might be less stressful for you. Best wishes.