AlbertaChickensEtc

I have found the chips aren't as absorbant but if you have a saw mill around they may have sawdust and shavings for cheap - ours here are free if we go and get them

I can also get oak saw dust from a furniture  workshop but decided they were too fine I could see problems with impacted crops etc. so passed. Chickens got into a storage area yesterday and husband said they ate a small sterofoam board still waiting to see what that will do. Hoping they will just pass it through like when a kid swallows a penny; Right?
Back to thread--- chips and shavings sound okay to me but not sawdust.

Last edited by Margret (2009-11-04 01:07:37)

We use the sawdust on the first layer of beeding for our ducks only - they have a inch or so of sawdust, 2-3 inches of shavings and then top off with straw that I keep adding to until it needs cleaning.  The sawdust and shaving absorb most of the wet and the ducks do so much better I find on the straw then just shavings and the ducks don't scratch like the hens so they never get even as far as the shavings here.

I read that a dirt floor speeds up the biological process of deep litter, concrete doesn't stop it. I would say if you wanted to be deep littering on concrete just don't clean and sterilize the floor completely. Keep a small amount of the old litter to act as a source for all the good bacteria and such that you need for decomp. Same idea as using yeast in bread or sourdough starter culture.

I like the idea of deep litter myself. The use of this in chicks makes sense to me. A slow natural exposure to microrganisms makes sense to me, as opposed to a sterile environment into a dirty one(from brooder to coop).

Back to the thread question though...

Marsha has a good idea there. The layering would help the ducks. At the same time with chickens I like the idea of having multiple sizes of material. One absorbs, the other helps air stay in the litter to aid in drying it.

Sounds good to me.

Our shaving here are $12 a bag in Cold Lake and $18 at Coop last time I checked.  My coops are wood floors and I disinfect them once a year for the main coops and deep litter everything but the quarintine pens.  I found the layering didn't work so well in the chickens as they scratched up so much that the sawdust could be a potential problem but it does work well with the ducks and geese and this year maybe better as I have gotten big rubber pans that I think it was Prarie Chick mentioned to put my waters in so the ducks don't soak the place.

klorinth wrote:

I would say if you wanted to be deep littering on concrete just don't clean and sterilize the floor completely.

Ha! No chance of that happening!  I am not a big believer in killing bacteria.  When you try to wipe out the bad stuff you end up taking out the good bacteria as well.  I may be opening myself up for a real lambasting here, but I have never sterilized anything chicken.  Cleaned with soap and water, yes.  Bleached out, no.  However, I have never had a major problem either that requires a good cleaning.  (Fingers crossed.)

When I moved the chickens into this barn I just threw down a little straw.  It had been used by cows the previous season and it was clean but not sterile.

Ok, let me have it!

Sue

FWIW, no more free shavings here in the BC interior.  Since many of the mills have put in co-generating plants, they can now recoup $ from burning their waste wood products and selling the power back to Hydro.  The hog fuel and shavings that one used to be able to get for free, can now be surprisingly costly, assuming that you can even get find places to get them from now.

Having said that, we were able to get a really good deal on shavings from a Vancouver based company who has a local branch and mill here in Kamloops: SBC Firemaster.  We set up an account with them down at the coast and then they give us a wholesale price since we are a farm.  About $3.50/bale of really nice shavings but one has to buy an entire pallet (36 or 42 bales) to get this price.

I have deep littered most of my chicken houses for years.  Have experimented with hay, straw and shavings and have pros and cons with all of them.  Have decided that I will never use hay again, as it tends to form a big mat if it gets damp and is a pain to pick out.  Straw breaks down surprisingly quickly into little slivers - again really hard to clean out.

Definitely like the shavings the best.  They are nice and dry and smell nice.  But have also found that that they too start breaking down fairly quickly and produce this kind of fine powdery dust which goes everywhere.  This stuff really sets me to coughing so I imagine that it isn't that great for the birds either, but am not sure how to get around it.  Has anyone else found this with their deep littering?  I am wondering if it is because it is so dry here in Kamloops humidity wise, that the stuff starts to physically break down before it actually begins to decompose.

This is the first year that we have tried deep littering on concrete (in our brand new, "chicken palace" that hubby built for me this spring ).  Other years I just had it on dirt.  So far I am happy with it, as I don't think that it is breaking down as quickly, and so I think that the dust being produced is less.  Also seems to smell fresher longer too.  Will see how it makes out over the winter.