Loading…
27
Vent: switched my girls from pine shavings to sand and I'm kicking myself for waiting 2 years
I kept reading about sand in the coop but figured it was just hype from people with fancy setups, so I stuck with pine shavings for almost two years. Big mistake. Every week I was scraping out clumps of poop stuck to the shavings and the smell in July was straight up nasty, I'm talking holding my breath while I raked. Three months ago I finally dumped 4 bags of washed construction sand in there (about $30 total from the lumber yard in town) and the difference is night and day. The droppings just sit on top and I scoop them with a kitty litter scoop in like 5 minutes, no smell, no wet bedding, nothing. My 6 hens also stopped getting that crusty gunk on their feet and the coop stays way drier after rain. I only need to do a full change maybe once a year now instead of every month, so I'm saving money on shavings too. Anyone else make this switch and notice their egg shells got harder, or is that just me imagining things? Also how often do you all sift yours, daily or every couple days?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
richardcoleman6d ago
Made the switch about 4 years ago and had the same reaction, kicking myself for all those wasted hours hunched over with a pitchfork. One thing I learned the hard way, get the coarse washed sand not the fine play sand, the fine stuff turns into basically concrete when it gets wet. I sift mine every morning while I'm out there anyway for eggs, takes 5 minutes tops with a scoop and a bucket, and I do a quick rake maybe twice a week. As for the egg shells, I noticed mine got harder too but I also started giving them crushed oyster shell around the same time so I can't say for sure it was the sand. The dryness factor is the real winner for me, my coop used to get that ammonia smell something awful in summer and now it just smells like dirt.
7