6 Ways to dispose of coop bedding

This time of year we go through a lot of bedding in our chicken coops! Not only is our population at its yearly peak but with summer rains we're often shoveling out clean coop litter simply because it's wet. We use wood shavings in some coops, but hay and straw in others. That can add up to a lot of stinky bedding to get rid of. 

The coop litter situation gets real bad in the spring when it's time to clean out the coops that use the deep litter method. Those only get cleaned out once a year, but that's a lot of dirty bedding! 

Add the smaller coops and brooders to that and you can see I have lots and lots of poopy coop litter to get rid of. 

So how do you get rid of all that chicken poop?

How to Dispose of Coop Litter

1) Compost dirty coop litter

Dispose of the chicken poop by putting it in the compost pile. It's full of both the browns (litter like wood shavings) and the greens (poop) you need to build a good compost, so into the compost bin it goes! With the right additions you'll have black gold in no time. 

Plus the chickens will start digging through for anything they missed and turn it for you.

Here's How to compost chicken poop from Hobby Farms.

2) Dispose of coop litter in the garbage can 

Be polite, bag it up so the retrieval guy doesn't get covered. For very small coops or flocks that live in the city, this litter disposal method might be the best option. Reuse your feed bags to bag up the litter for 2 reasons...

You already have them and don't have to buy garbage bags
Feed bags are really sturdy and can be really loaded up without ripping. 

3) Sell old coop litter/chicken manure 

Gardeners will pay for chicken fertilizer even if they have to compost it themselves. Believe it or not, lots of folks are doing it and boy was I surprised to find that out! Advertise it in local farm groups, online bulletin boards or hang signs on bulletin boards at garden centers. Stick it in empty feed bags and sell it by the bag.