Cheap & Effective Bedding for Poultry

 

While this post is more so geared towards soon-to-be chicken owners and/or chicken owners, I hope some general information can be gleaned about how different types of bedding can affect the eggs you eat! 

The options for poultry bedding make up a fairly lengthy list. Pine shavings, straw, grass clippings, shredded corn cobs, rice hulls, cocoa hulls, corn straw..... to name a few. However, are some better than others? 

For chicks, small, fluffy bedding is ideal. My favorite for new chicks is pine shavings because the particle size is small, it is very absorbent, and has some antibacterial properties due to the presence of natural oils in the shavings. Pine shavings also compost nicely and have less of a tendency to get matted while in the chick (or chicken) house, as well as the compost pile; this makes the compost easier to mix. The one downside is that pine shavings are somewhat expensive, especially if a lot of bedding is needed on a regular basis. Dried grass clippings can be used for chicks, and if you have a lawn, these can be handy during the summer for bedding and extra green feed, however, grass clippings don't absorb moisture well (worse than straw), and they get matted easily, unfortunately. 

After the "chick stage" of a chicken's life (weeks 1-5), chicks are big enough to comfortably move around on larger materials, like straw. Some drawbacks to straw are that it isn't quite as absorbent as pine shavings, and has a tendency to get matted. One way to limit matting and maximize absorbency is to apply a new layer of straw every day, or however long it takes for the bedding to be used up. Straw is generally widely available, and for a cheap price. A typical small square bale of straw in Idaho is about $4-$5 for roughly 45 square feet of material (for a 70 lb bale). In contrast, pine shavings are about $5-$8 for 10 square feet. Another "benefit" of straw is that there are leftover grains of wheat, barley, or oats (depending on what the straw was taken from) that the combine left behind. Straw can provide a nice snack for the chickens, as well as just giving them something to rummage through. 

If you use a lot of straw, a more economical route would be to buy a big bale (1300-1500 lbs). The prices for these hover around the $55-$60 mark per bale. A big bale can save approximately $20-$30 in bedding costs, as well as take up significantly less space. I like having a mixture of both big bales and small bales on the farm because I don't always need to bed down large areas. 

The only catch with big bales of any kind is that you need equipment to either load or transport the bale(s), or have a way to unload it (or have a dedicated vehicle just for bedding). 

To answer the question posed on the cover picture for this post, yes, corn straw does work for poultry bedding! 

What's corn straw? 

Corn straw is the cobs, husks, stalks, and leaves of corn plants that are spit out of the combine during corn harvest, which is then raked up and baled. Corn straw isn't super popular in this area of the U.S, mostly because we have significantly more wheat, barley, and oats grown in the Pacific Northwest, which means a greater supply of cereal grain straw. However, the farther east you go, corn straw is used all over the place for cattle bedding and feed, mostly because there's a lot of corn being grown. 

Corn straw is only available (as far as I know) in big bales (about 1100-1200 lbs for corn straw) in the Treasure Valley. Corn straw ranges from $40-$50 per bale, and has a decent period of use before a new application needs to be made. I don't use corn straw inside the barn, but I prefer to use it outside in their covered run area. Corn straw provides a cheaper way to bed down the area that the chickens use the most, which also happens to be the largest indoor area that they have. I personally think ducks and chickens both like corn straw because of the loud noise it makes when they scratch and pick through the bedding; corn straw is also lighter, so the chickens can fling it farther while scratching. Maybe it makes them feel more powerful....?

Ultimately, what does bedding choice have to do with egg production/quality? In some regards, bedding doesn't directly affect egg quality or production. However, the management of the bedding does! Letting bedding of any type get over manured leads to a heightened bacterial presence, which increases the risk of disease, poor performance, as well as the risk of a higher bacteria presence in/on the eggs; hopefully you can see why more bacteria is a problem:)

 Picking a bedding (or several) to use in different seasons, or mixing several types together, can improve the absorbency and overall life of each bedding application, without sacrificing a healthy living environment for your animals (not just chickens). Using the right bedding for you applications can save you time and money, which can translate into more time to do other activities besides cleaning out the chicken coop on weekends. 

If I was to grade bedding like eggs are graded, the award of "Grade AA" would go to pine shavings because of it's longevity and absorbent properties. However, due to its price, "Grade A" (straw & corn straw) will do just fine for a bedding material that is just slightly inferior to the Grade AA bedding. "Grade B" would have to go to grass clippings. I like to think of the "B" as meaning "the backup option." Grass clippings are inferior in just about every aspect, and are only used as exactly that, a backup option. 

While there are many more bedding options available here and there, those listed above are the 3 (or 4) that are used commonly on the farm. A quick search on the internet can tell you just about all there is to know about cocoa hulls, peanut hulls, and other miscellaneous bedding products. Happy researching!