Country Lore: Leaves for Chicken Bedding and Compost
Use dry leaves for bedding in your chicken coop.
August/September 2008
By Kellie Gardner
In the fall, my husband and I take advantage of all the autumn leaves and use them as winter bedding in our chicken coop.
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When the leaves are dry, we use the leaf vacuum, bag them up and store them in the barn. The chickens love the leaves because they’re bulky and the hens can scratch around in them.
We shovel the used bedding onto the compost heap. The leaves are easy to shovel because the chickens break them into tiny pieces. We have happy chickens and great compost.
Kellie Gardner
New Ipswich, New Hampshire