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

[gtaus]

I've started chicks in the brooder (s) on shredded paper/junk mail/cardboard. Besides keeping the feeders full, I m pulling dandelions with dirt & putting in brooders. Provides natural grit. They do taste the shred, the I see them spit it out.

When I first got chicks for eggs, there was an elderly lady at the store who told me to add some sand, or fine grit, in with the chicks. I asked why that was needed because chicken starter feed does not need any grit. She told me that chick starter feed does not need grit, but those chicks sometimes pick up and eat some of their brooder litter - whatever litter you use - and having some sand or fine grit for the chicks just helps them prevent getting stuffed up.

I also pull dandelions or clumps of grass with dirt on them and put them into the brooder. I think it helps them to get used to what they will be exposed to when they leave the brooder and go outside. If they eat some of the dirt, all the better. But I live on a lake, so I always have some sand from the beach in the brooder for them as well.

 

[Intuit]

This is great information. I'm new to raising chickens and I did think about using shredded paper for the coupe, so i'm gonna start saving up and doing just that.Thanks ladies for all your comments

 

[BDutch]

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.

I had a muddy run too after a lot of rain many years ago.
This is what i did:

• Make deep holes in the ground with a tool to dig holes for poles to make a fence. The holes were 80cm-90cm deep and went through a clay layer that caused stagnating of the water. Filled the holes with pebbles (river stones). The pattern is 1 hole every meter.
• I also planted a few bushes in the run. 4 bushes (different berries and a laurel) on 15 m2. I need to cut down the bushes every year.
• Add shredded wood chips from pruning and autumn leaves to keep the soil healthy.

I have no problems anymore in rainy weather anymore after I made the pebble holes.

 

[BDutch]

where we don't have any commercial industries dumping chemical waste into the water or environment.

They don’t tell you. Its the government who needs to protect us and needs to monitor.
It’s not possible to burn it like plastic. If you try to, it gets in the air.
So if someone/factories burn waste it gets in the air. If the fire-brigade stops heavy fires or oil from burning they use PFAS extinguishers. If someone/factories clean with chemicals it gets in the water. If factories produce something like oven paper, tefal pans, special outdoor clothing, fire extinguishers special foils, it always leaks it into the environment.

 

[gtaus]

They don’t tell you. Its the government who needs to protect us and needs to monitor.

Actually, there are a number of public and private agencies that test and monitor for PFAS in my home state of Minnesota. They have a listing of results online to check for your area. There was nothing listed where I live.

Also, in Minnesota, we have over 10,000 lakes. Our fish get tested for PFAS because fishing is a big recreational sport for my state. People want to be safe. Again, no PFAS detected in my surrounding lakes.

 

[SkyAJK]

It might not be anything to worry about. My chickens eat shredded paper (and before that, straw and wood shavings) all the time. They have a cecum for digesting cellulose, and a bit of fiber is actually good for them.

Did your pullet with the hard crop become impacted, or did it go away by itself?

My pullet ate shred paper....It did not become an impacted crop, I think this is because I checked her crop that day and found it was like a tennis ball and I massage her crop many times that day. Might be it was impacted. The next day it was not there anymore and I removed all the shred paper bedding that same day I found her enjoying it.

She was not having a bit of it, she was having a buffet of shred paper....terrible chicken!

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.

Thank you! I love your advice and sharing your experience.

That is fact that there is so much work keeping my chickens!

Our soil is clay, and there is no free mulch available so I buy them all. I had in the past put load of sugarcane mulch, I do mean like 10+ bales and more whenever it rains. What happened was I got lice/mites infestation and so I stopped using sugarcane mulch, I use pine bark now and load of it. I also throw into my chicken runs garden trimming/cutting like you. Load of it. But I guess the clay soil and the excessive continuous rain just out do it all.

I will continue to add cutting/trimming I have in my garden to the chicken runs. Whenever pine bark is on sale, I get bags and bags of it. I do feel that I am burning my hard earn money buying so much of it....I throw in all my garden cutting to reduce this cost.

My chicken bedding materials.........I just put hemp material in my bantam coop, they are so busy eating it this morning, I just wait to see ....... if they stop eating at some stage, then I can keep hemp bedding, save me the work of cleaning their coop every morning and putting in new newspaper late in the evening.

I have plenty of advertisement papers, newspapers that I can shred, they eat so much of it that I can not do it.

My goal is like your, use whatever freely available. I have access to free cardboard, newspaper and product advertising paper. If only my chickens not have a buffet of these, keeping chickens would be so much easier and cost effective.

 

[ChaosMom]

Now that you have a lot of organic matter in your run (or coop), consider periodically working up that heavy clay soil to allow the bark and trimmings and whatnot to integrate with your native soil.

Clay soil is actually very fertile (lots of ions, general minerals, etc.), but its texture (“tilth”, etc.) is so heavy that it’s tough for plant roots to pull in the nutrients, water, and oxygen that they need. If you are willing to aerate the litter/soil every month or so, you’re gonna get some wonderful compost in the end!

 

[SkyAJK]

I had a muddy run too after a lot of rain many years ago.
This is what i did:

• Make deep holes in the ground with a tool to dig holes for poles to make a fence. The holes were 80cm-90cm deep and went through a clay layer that caused stagnating of the water. Filled the holes with pebbles (river stones). The pattern is 1 hole every meter.
• I also planted a few bushes in the run. 4 bushes (different berries and a laurel) on 15 m2. I need to cut down the bushes every year.
• Add shredded wood chips from pruning and autumn leaves to keep the soil healthy.

I have no problems anymore in rainy weather anymore after I made the pebble holes.

Thank you. I have not done the pebble holes before, I will give this a try.

My chicken runs are in is also where I buried all my dead chickens, lots of tree roots - big mango tree, and Jasmine trees. There is no room left to bury dead chickens in the future as the tree roots are everywhere, hard to dig through. I will look for a pot to do the pebble.