Growers believe that the quality of litter has decreased over the past 20 years, with water content being the greatest concern. Rodent and wild bird contamination can also be an issue for all litter types and some litter suppliers use rodent-proof (inside) storage to minimise this problem. This, however, adds to the cost of the bedding. Straw bales can also have dead animal contamination due to the process of baling.

Poor quality bedding and/or material with high initial water content can cause operational problems that require additional management practices. These include pre-treatment drying and turning to ensure meat chicken performance and health is not compromised. Growers indicated that it can be challenging to find other sources of bedding material if they have quality problems with their suppliers (Watson and Wiedemann, 2018). All growers surveyed had established management practices to address quality issues; however, these practices added significant cost to production. Many have found that they need to dry bedding if it is delivered wet by using gas heaters and ventilation after it is spread in sheds, which introduces further time and cost constraints.