How does one make staw bedding?

Hi! I'm relatively new in my permaculture journey.

I have chickens, and have been purchasing straw bedding for them. In future, I'd like to make my own straw bedding. Do any of you do this?
How should I go about this? What are the requirements for something to be healthy, safe straw bedding for animals?

I have some open fields and lawn that have a relatively diverse mix of grass, alfalfa, clover, goldenrod, aster, etc. growing on them. And I have a mower and a brush hog on a tractor.
I figured I could use these to generate some kind of straw bedding. But I don't know if these plants are suitable, and how to dry them so I get straw suitable for animal bedding and not some mushy mulch, etc....

Thanks!
-Bing

You could make hay bedding from your fields, (Straw is only from cereal crop stems)

To make hay you simply need to cut the grass/weeds when you have a period of dry weather coming up and then turn them once or twice while they dry on the ground, then gather them up and store somewhere dry. A standard mower will not work as you want long uncut pieces for your hay, otherwise you will get something that compacts to easily and will become mushy as you fear. A scythe is of course perfect but a strimmer or a sickle bar mower will also work perfectly well.

Cool, thank you! I've always wanted a reaason to get a scythe.... now I have one

And how long should the pieces be? i.e. should I be waiting till things get about 2ft tall and scything them down? Or 1ft?

How long a period of dry weather are we talking about here? And how often do you turn them? Roughly how can you tell if it's ready to be gathered up and stored?

On the turning - Do you just use a pitchfork? Is there an ATV or compact tractor attachment that could also do it easily?