Cedar Wood Shavings For Chickens

I love to use shavings due to odor control and ease of cleaning.

Cedar wood shavings for chickens.

I had actually never considered giving my chickens pine needles in their nesting boxings or their coop until we moved to our new. Easy to clean shavings can be fluffed and forked up much easier than straw bedding. Well after doing some research it turns out that cedar shavings can be toxic for chicks. Cedar bedding is not safe for chickens due to the damaging effects of plicatic acid on chickens respiratory systems the damaging effects of terpene hydrocarbons and aromatic compounds on chickens livers and the carcinogenic nature of cedar dust.

It is much easier to clean shavings than it is to clean knotted wet straw. Great odor control. The most common kinds of shavings are pine and cedar although there is a lot of talk about the possibility of cedar being toxic to chickens. Not much oil or sap left at all.

Wood shavings are a really good option for chicken coop bedding. First of all many people use cedar shavings and have no problems but we use only pine shavings. Cedar shavings are incredibly toxic to chickens. But because cedar toxicity has been commonly accepted for at least decades this finding wasn t really that surprising to me.

See my article on why you should never use cedar in your coop for more information. This is not a myth it s backed up by very strong evidence. Go for large flake wood shavings over fine shavings too dusty and don t use sawdust way too dusty and damp. And even worse they don t even have to eat the the shavings or breathe the oil s fumes for it to hurt them.

We have used cedar shavings and pine shavings for laying boxes as well as scattered fairly thick on the floor for years and have never seen any signs that it affected the birds however most cedar and pine shavings are mostly dry anyway. By themselves they may not cause problems but they may affect the chickens respiratory system enough to stress them and make them more susceptible to other diseases that may be around. The oil from cedar can be absorbed through the feet of the chicks. Sun colored straw with its sweet earthy smell and springy texture is what many new chicken keepers reach for to line their.