A coop has two problems — ammonia and red mite — and bedding is involved in both. Hemp helps with the first directly and with the second by being the one thing in the coop that is easy to strip out completely.
Chicken droppings are high in nitrogen and a closed coop concentrates it. Ammonia damages the respiratory lining before you can smell it clearly — if it is obvious at head height, it has been a problem at bird height for a while.
Hemp locks it in as it absorbsLives in the structure, not the birds, and comes out at night to feed. Bedding does not cause it, but bedding that is hard to remove completely gives it cover during a treatment.
Hemp strips out cleanWet litter is where coccidiosis and bumblefoot start. Absorbency is the property that matters most, and hemp holds around four times its weight.
Deeper beats more frequentA method rather than a product. Done right it means cleaning the coop twice a year instead of weekly, and it produces the best compost on the plot.
Not on bare damp earth or on a floor that gets rain in. The system only works if the material starts and stays dry enough to compost aerobically.
Scattering a handful of grain on the litter makes the chickens turn it for you, which is both the traditional method and the easiest one.
Add a few handfuls whenever it looks compacted or damp. The bed builds up over months and starts to compost in place, which generates a little warmth in winter.
Most of the muck lands under the perch overnight. A board or tray there, scraped each morning, takes out the majority of the nitrogen and keeps the litter working.
Spring and autumn. Everything out, the coop cleaned and treated for mite, fresh bedding in. The old bed goes on the compost heap and is ready within months.
Litter on the floor is about absorbency; a nest box is about keeping eggs clean and unbroken. Hemp works well because it stays put and does not tangle, where straw gets kicked out and shavings scatter. Line boxes 5–8 cm deep and change them more often than the floor — a soiled nest box is how a clean egg becomes a dirty one.
Straw specifically is worth avoiding in nest boxes in damp weather: it holds moisture against the shell and is a favoured harbour for mite.
No. Mite lives in cracks in the structure, and no bedding prevents it. What hemp does is come out cleanly and completely, so a treatment reaches the surfaces it needs to. Diatomaceous earth in the litter and in the crevices is the usual companion.
They will peck at it and it does them no harm, but it has no feed value. If birds are eating bedding in quantity, look at whether they have enough to do and enough grit and forage.
A working deep litter bed smells earthy, like a compost heap. If it smells of ammonia it is too wet or not being turned, and the fix is more dry material and a fork, not a full strip.
Not straight on — chicken manure is hot and will scorch. Compost it for three to six months first, which hemp does quickly, and it becomes one of the best soil improvers you can make.