With cautious variety and appropriate use, recycled or reclaimed wood shavings is usually a excellent choice for eco-acutely aware chicken keepers.

Pine is harmful to humans, and thus deemed important to research. Some woodworkers and sawmill employees subjected to pine dust get severe respiratory challenges, plus some get most cancers (more on this beneath). 

On the other hand, hardwoods like oak and maple are generally viewed as safer on your flock, but They could not offer the same level of pest Management.

Once i had pine in my coop, a few of my hens even insisted on dust bathing in it. They only couldn’t help themselves. It doesn’t matter they had exceptional dust bathing spots proper outside the house the coop.

Shavings are a superb decision of chicken bedding for a little flock, or for someone who doesn’t brain cleaning the coop usually.

Why are pine shavings unsafe in your chickens?  Pine bedding is unsafe for chickens as a result of harming consequences of abietic acid to the respiratory program, the detrimental outcomes of terpene hydrocarbons and aromatic compounds on liver function, and the carcinogenic character of pine dust. 

When compared with straw and sand, pine shavings are better. Straw is nice for nesting containers, but not as bedding. Sand won't take up moisture or give consolation. Cedar is unsafe to chickens; that's why pine is safer.

 Whether or not all of us encourage only one person, that’s many chickens who gained’t be needlessly harmed.

Normal routine maintenance is important for retaining your chickens’ wood shavings clean up and balanced, Which is the reason we’ve outlined critical schedules to abide by. Critique these rules for just a worry-no cost coop administration regime.

Previous practices die tough—it’s a indicating to get a motive. When methods are ingrained in a lifestyle or establishment, like utilizing pine shavings for bedding, it may be very hard to vary Those people approaches, even every Find Out time they have already been established to generally be hazardous.

Each and every chicken keeper has their top rated choice and stand firmly powering their determination. Though it’s a bit Peculiar that folks get so up-in-arms around whatever they select for their chickens to poop throughout, it’s continue to an important choice for your overall health of the flock.

UPDATE: Ahead of reading this submit any even further, you should very first check out my More moderen posting, Pine shavings within the coop: The key chicken killer?

Experimentation on little mammals is finished to progress human health care science, so experts have to be Unquestionably specific that administration factors, like bedding toxicity, aren’t impacting their results.

There are many Disadvantages to working with pine shavings while in the coop that I’ve listed underneath. Pine shavings are: