This weekend I cleaned out all three of our bird buildings. We’ve also moved the ducks and geese to summer/spring “housing” over the past few weeks too. But I digress. I cleaned out the bird buildings and was left with the question of what to use as the bedding material. In the past we have used straw and wood chip. And I think once or twice grass hay. Our remaining straw from last years baling has picked up too much moisture to be used as bedding. And I’m not all that fond of wood chips. So I decided to try peat moss in our buildings for an experiment.
In one shed I put it in the nest boxes and on the floor. After 24 hours I can say in the nest boxes is probably not going to happen again. The peat sticks to the eggs and makes cleaning them more time consuming.
On the floors the chicken seem to really like it. And I’ve caught several dusting themselves. I also have noted a more earthy smell versus wood (wood chips) or grassy (straw) smells. I personally think the earthy smell is nice but I’ll be curious to see how long it lasts as the chickens leave their droppings. LOL
