Why bedding does more than keep things tidy

Coop bedding is doing three jobs at once: soaking up droppings, cushioning feet and eggs, and keeping the air inside the coop dry enough that ammonia doesn't sting your eyes when you open the pop hole. Get it right and you'll muck out less often, use less bedding, and keep hens in better condition. Get it wrong and you're looking at a whiffy coop, mud-streaked eggs and the sort of permanently damp litter that leads to bumblefoot and respiratory trouble. There's no single best choice. The right bedding depends on how often you clean, how many hens you keep, and what you can buy locally without paying a delivery charge that doubles the cost.

Straw: cheap, traditional, best used in nest boxes

A bale of wheat or barley straw is usually the cheapest option going, often £4 to £7 from a farm shop or equestrian supplier, and it looks the part. The catch is absorbency. Straw is a hollow tube, so liquid runs along the inside rather than soaking in, and a coop floor of straw quickly becomes a damp mat on top with droppings sitting underneath. That said, straw is excellent in nest boxes: chopped straw in particular makes a soft, springy cup that hens settle into and eggs roll into rather than crack against. If you use long straw, break it up a bit by hand so it doesn't tangle around legs.

• Best for: nest boxes, and coops with a droppings board you clear daily
• Watch out for: hollow stems can harbour red mite, and damp straw goes mouldy fast
• Composting: slow, but excellent for bulking out a compost heap

Wood shavings: the reliable all-rounder

Kiln-dried, dust-extracted shavings are the default for good reason. They're absorbent, they don't mat down like straw, they compost reasonably quickly, and a bale lasts ages in a small coop. Expect to pay £7 to £11 for a large bale. Always choose dust-extracted shavings and avoid anything from treated timber, sawdust from a workshop, or cheap mixed bags that smell resinous — fine dust irritates hens' respiratory tracts and is a genuine welfare issue in a small, poorly ventilated coop. A 10–15cm layer on the coop floor, turned over with a rake every few days and topped up as needed, gives you a working deep-litter system that stays dry for weeks.

Shredded paper: free, if you don't mind the faff

If you already shred bank statements and junk mail, you've got bedding for nothing. Cross-cut shreds are far better than long strips, which clump awkwardly. Newspaper and plain office paper are fine; skip glossy magazines, laminated card and anything with heavy coloured ink, as it doesn't break down well and isn't ideal if your hens peck at it. Paper is surprisingly absorbent, but it compacts into a soggy slab once it's wet, so it needs changing more often than shavings and it blows about in a breeze. Great as a thin layer in nest boxes, or as an emergency top-up, less good as your only floor bedding through a wet British winter.

Hemp: the premium option that often works out cheapest

Hemp bedding costs more per bale — roughly £15 to £22 for a 20kg bag or bale — but it holds several times its own weight in moisture, dries out quickly, and stays loose rather than caking. In practice, many keepers find they use so much less of it that the cost per month is comparable to shavings. It composts fast, which matters if you're filling a hot bin or adding to a veg patch, and it's noticeably less dusty than shavings. If you keep hens in a small garden where smells matter and neighbours are close, hemp is the bedding that earns its keep.

Matching bedding to your cleaning routine

Be honest about how often you'll actually clean, then choose accordingly.

• Daily spot-clean, weekly full change: shavings or hemp on the floor, chopped straw in the nest boxes. Simple and forgiving.
• Deep litter, turned twice a week, full clear-out twice a year: shavings or hemp only. Straw and paper both fail here because they compact and stay wet.
• Weekend-only keeper with a small coop: hemp is worth the extra. It gives you a bigger margin for error than anything else.
• Budget-first: shavings on the floor, free shredded paper in the nest boxes. You'll change the paper more often, but the cost is close to nothing.

Whichever you pick, the golden rules stay the same. Keep the layer deep enough to absorb a night's droppings, replace anything that's visibly wet rather than just stirring it in, and don't let bedding sit above the level of the nest box lip or eggs will roll out. In nest boxes, a generous handful per box is plenty — hens will rearrange it themselves. And if you ever find your bedding damp within a day of changing it, the problem isn't the bedding: it's ventilation, and that's the next thing to fix.