If you are looking for a completely free way to keep your coop clean and cozy this winter, raked leaves might be the best resource hiding in your own backyard Using leaves as chicken bedding is one of the simplest, most budget-friendly tricks in backyard poultry keeping, and fall gives you an endless supply of it for the cost of a little raking With feed and bedding prices climbing, more flock owners are skipping the store and turning to the leaf pile instead Best of all, your chickens will absolutely love it
Litter – A Versatile Word and Odd One in Chicken Vocabulary
“Bedding” means soft wood chips or straw in a horse or cow’s stall But if the same material is in a chicken coop it’s “litter” That seems weird
When applied to chickens the word “litter” has nothing to do with trash scattered along a road The word is derived from the ancient Latin lectos which meant “bed” and was used to describe a flat platform carried by husky men with the emperor riding on top The French changed the word to litiere and used it differently French linguist, Mark Norlander, translated it to mean, “a bed of soft and insulating
