Loving the Easibed

[ilovemyhens]

Just started using easibed in the coop due to all the cold, damp weather.

It's really great and I wish I'd discovered it months ago.

The hens love it and spend their days messing about in the coop when it's raining instead of just standing in their own poop looking sorry for themselves.

What is it?

It's sort of very fine wood bits. It doesn't blow around like woodshavings and is more absorbent than woodchips. It's mainly used for horses, but I'm finding it's great for the chicken coop. It coats the poo, so that you can just remove the piles easily and without getting dirty.

It smells nice and fresh too.

I shall look out for some then - I asked for horse bedding last week and was told they are not allowed to sell it to people who want to use it for chickens

Did they explain why? I know lots of chicken keepers who use it.

Thats what I thought. They didn't say why and I was in a hurry so didn't bother to ask

Perhaps they're not allowed to sell stuff that's manufactured/licensed for one species for use in another species. Health and safety or something.

I've just done a general search about its use with chickens and everybody seems to use it. I did read a post by somebody that mentioned chicks eating it, but not grown chickens and the other posters hadn't heard anything like that.

All you can do is try it and see what happens.

I had a budgie once that systematically stripped all the paint of its painted cage Its crop filled up with paint chips and it died two days later. Birds can be pretty stupid, but most have enough intelligence to remain safe.

Yeah, it sounds like good stuff. I'll look at my feed merchants instead of the local chain-they might be better. The chain asked me if the layers pellets I was buying was for chickens that would enter the food chain. I've never been asked that before either and when I asked why they wanted to know, they said they had to ask but didn't know what the consequence would be if I said yes.

Sorry, but I at the budgie

yeah, the budgie sure was daft. I bought it plenty of toys 'n' stuff, but it was determined to strip the cage

I think there must be lots of legislation for animal products just like for humans I suppose, but they take it too far sometimes.

That sounds really good.
Can you use it in their run? Ours is open at the sides but covered at the top. Or do you just put it in the coop?

I just put it in their coop. My run is partly paved and the rest has woodchips over the soil so it doesn't get all muddy. I clear these out every few weeks and just put fresh down. It seems to work okay.