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Similar question but with a twist: I’m about ready to clean out my deep litter coop and run for the first time. I’m also about ready to clean out my garden for overwintering. Can I put the deep litter directly on the empty garden over the winter? I know the rule is to compost it first, but...

I don’t know that there is a benefit to deep litter and hardware cloth floor. It’s just kind of where I’ve ended up, for now at least. Sounds like the two don’t mesh well. For now, we’ll try this and when I clean it out the first time, I’ll probably put a floor in. I do plan to deep litter the...

Ok so my 5 wk old chicks have been spending the last few days in their enclosed run. Temps are in the 80s but I’ve still been bringing them inside at night in their brooder box but had thought about letting them stay the night in the coop tonight since it’ll only go down to 60. However, we just...

Thanks all! Ok so I’m in Virginia. My coop is about 6x6’ and I’ve got 5 birds. So far, since I needed to get the coop ready for them before I had time to install a floor, I’ve put a thick layer of straw covered by a thick layer of hemp bedding. We will see how it goes, but I think it’s likely...

Thanks! There is plenty of other ventilation in the coop. So what I’m hearing is that there isn’t anything to potentially be gained by having the hardware cloth kind of ‘sift’ the broken down layers of litter into the ground below?

Hmm, interesting idea! It’s 1/2 inch hardware cloth now.

Oh, didn’t mention, no electricity or heat source in the coop yet.

My 5 chicks are 3.5-4.5 weeks old, nearly fully feathered, and have been inside under a heat source since birth. In the past few days, I’ve been putting them in the run during the day as it’s been in the 70s-90s. It’s still going down to 50 at night though. When can I stop bringing them in and...

hi all, just finished our coop and due to some conflicting advice, we ended up installing a hardware cloth floor inside the coop (coop is raised off the ground about 2 feet). However, I had wanted to use the deep litter method in the coop, and in fact just came home with a couple of bales of...