Mike Mcgrath of "You Bet Your Garden" and Organic Gardening Magazine fame feels strongly that you shouldn't use wood chips of any kind for mulch, only to line pathways. He says they are garbage, mostly chipped up pallets from China that are spray painted to get the various colors you see them in. Apparently there are problems with harboring various fungi in the wood chips. I've never noticed that problem, but I tend to use either shredded fall leaves or compost which slowly feed and add to the soil, whereas wood chips add very little. Wood chips would be better than nothing at all, but there are better options out there.

I think the problem with using cedar mulch particularly as bedding for chickens, is that the oils in the cedar can irritate the chickens. But i'm no chicken expert...just a city slicker.

-Matt

I quit using wood chips for mulch several years ago, after reading numerous article on how bad they are. Below is an article I found. It also talks specifically about cedar mulch.

The only thing I mulch with now is cotton burr compost. I love the stuff.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mulch - (Including Bark) Natures Way of Recycling

Buster,

The issue with cedar and chickens is two-fold. One problem is that cedar gives off compounds that make chickens more susceptible to certain bacterial infections. The other is that cedar sometimes harbors bacteria, fungi and mold that can harm the chickens. We don't use cedar, ever, in our chicken houses or chicken runs.

Cedar is a superlative mulch and I like it, despite anything Mike McGrath has said about wood chips or shredded wood or bark as mulch. (I like Mike and have a great appreciation for him. I love his Tomato book and felt that Organic Gardening magazine was the best ever when he was editor and it has been a huge disappointment ever since he left it.) Mike, though, gardens in a significantly different climate from ours and I find wood mulch very helpful in our climate where most other mulches break down exceptionally quickly.

Most types of wood are fine as a mulch in ornamental beds or in pathways. I use huge amounts of wood mulch. However, I try to find natural hardwood shredded bark or wood products, not shredded pallets which I'd prefer not to use on our land. There was a wood pallet recycling company here that offered mulch made from shredded pallets for either $5 or $10 a pickup truck load, and no one would buy it from them, including me. Who knows what those pallets had been treated with? I wouldn't buy and use the bagged, color-dyed wood mulches either (I think they are mostly the shredded pallets).

The use of any wood mulch in a veggie garden is controversial. I use it without any problems and have extremely high yields from all my veggies. Some folks swear by it while others hate it in the veggie garden. One key is to always use it on the surface of the soil although, truthfully, some kinds of finely shredded mulch can be rototilled right into hard, dense clay soil and wil improve it a great deal. I've done it. The key is that in our hot and humid climate, wood can break down really quickly. I prefer to use straw, hay, grass clippings and shredded or chopped leaves in the veggie garden, but I use wood too. I do not, however, use wood mulch on bare soil in a veggie garden. I put it on top of other mulch, cardboard, newspaper or a cloth mulch. I also don't use only wood...it is mixed with the other mulching materials. Most of my wood mulch breaks down in one year, but I do use only finely shredded stuff, not big chunks.

Dawn

I should have explained the situation behind my questions...

Our city started a new dump area just for trees and bushes and is shredding them. They give it away free right now, because they have so much from the ice storm I guess.

Anyway, the guy in charge of it said it contains some cedar. I don't know why he mentioned it (maybe the chicken thing).

There are no pallets or anything manufactured in it, just stuff from living plants, at least right now.

Thanks as always. Y'all are a big help. I think I am going to give it a shot. :-)

I would do the same! Even if you don't put it on your beds (though, clearly, I would), you can pile it up and let it decompose. Mulch makes great compost once it is fully decomposed.

Think about a woodland areas---all the leaves, twigs, limbs, dead trees, dead insects, dead animals, etc. lie on the ground and decompose and the end result is beautiful, brown, humusy, loamy, composty soil. That's the kind of soil I want in my garden....the same rich stuff we have in our ten acres of woods.

Check it out really well before you jump in. I took one load from our mulch pile and it was awful. I have sticks everywhere that I never had before. I am still trying to get them all raked up.

I would take it. But I didn't have to. When the electric company was clearing electric right of ways this past month, I told them I would be glad to have some chips and they brought me 6 dump truck loads--big dump trucks. I am thrilled. There's no cedar though and no pine--just hardwoods, and the stuff is heating already. We have already mulched the blueberries and a perrenial bed and will do the fruit trees next.

The only thing I have heard from people taking city chips is that it is best not to mulch right next to the house because of the possibility of giving termites a foothold. How likely that is I don't know.