Deep litter method

[goodb]

"cedar I would stay from tho."

X2

 

[Latestarter]

In my experience, if you're smelling ammonia, then it's too wet... add some fresh dry shavings/leaf litter/etc. The wood chips take longer to soak up the water, but with adequate ventilation, everything should stabilize in a couple of days time. If it's too dry you end up with powdered poo (dust) and wood shavings/chips. If the moisture has been right, you end up with what looks and feels like good garden soil/loam, or what you get out of a good compost pile. Everything should break down from microbial action. If you are lucky enough to find garden worms in the deepest levels, then you KNOW you got it right!

Since my coops are raised (~24 inches above ground) I sealed the inside floors and up the walls a ways with liquid rubber roofing material and added regular dirt along with leaves, pine chips, grass clippings, straw (they pull out of the nest boxes) and just about anything else that is carbon based. If it gets real dusty (and I never had a clue how much dust chickens make! it simply amazes me!) I bring the hose inside the coop and add a little moisture. The key word there is "LITTLE" I add more pine chips about every other month or so. I expect I'll clean out about 75% of the litter once or maybe twice a year.

Good luck with it. I love the no work involved method

 

[Mtn Laurel]

I've been doing deep litter in my current coop and run for the past 18 months, when the coop was built. We've been improving the run this weekend and I was stunned when we moved one paddock wall and exposed where the deep litter had been accumulating for the past 18 months. We've used straw, leaves, mulched grass, and debris from the garden. This is the run so it gets both sun and rain. The picture below shows what has built up in the pen during that time. The straw on top was placed there within the past 2 weeks as we had a heavy rain.



That's several inches of the most beautiful black compost that I've ever seen under that straw. I'm in the clay-belt of Virginia and the picture below is where my husband threw a hunk of our regular soil that he pulled up with his post-hole digger and threw it on top of the composted litter that is under the straw for comparison.



I'll be pulling this compost out of the run and putting it where our tomatoes will go next year and will then begin the deep litter in the run again. No more buying bagged compost or hauling horse manure for us!

 

[Leahs Mom]

I'll be pulling this compost out of the run and putting it where our tomatoes will go next year and will then begin the deep litter in the run again. No more buying bagged compost or hauling horse manure for us!

We did the same thing this spring. I throw all the litter from the inside out into the deep litter kennel run which only gets used when I have to have a safe place. The kennel run gets wood chips in addition to the litter from the inside.

This spring 2 of my daughters dug out pickup truck loads of beautiful soil just under the top layer to take to their gardens. One of them did a built up garden on top of the gorund and planted in that dirt only. It was the best garden she's ever had! That soil was full of worms and smelled wonderful.

And the best part is is makes a wonderfully healthy place for the birds all year round. No muddy,slimy, impacted dirt in my run! They dig through it when they're in there (this is about a 20x20 space) and find worms and other wonderful things to eat!

 

[heiditam]

I am deep litering! YAY! So far, it smells like....PINE. Way less work than sand, smells better too. I have a Q though!

What do you do about feathers? Hens are going through a little juvenile mini-molt. Do you just leave feathers in there, mix them in, or try to remove what you can(impossible to find and remove all though!).

Thanks!

 

[iawoodchip]

I leave them there unless I see one I really like the looks of.

 

[r-dale]

I grind all the chicken and duck feathers and mix that into the hog feed. Still some protien in them. Also egg shells are ground into the feed for the gestating sows. The moms need their calcium. I never feed the same animal to the same animal, so when we dress hogs all the blood and hair is mixed into the chicken feed. I know everyone on this forum loves their chickens as much as I do and you don't see these cute animals as vampires, but when their feed is mixed with alittle blood you have a chicken riot on your hands. The only bigger riots are for mealworms or if I smash a termite nest into one of the runs, then everyone loose their mind and go nuts on the feeding frenzy.

 

[goodb]

I am deep litering! YAY! So far, it smells like....PINE. Way less work than sand, smells better too. I have a Q though!

What do you do about feathers? Hens are going through a little juvenile mini-molt. Do you just leave feathers in there, mix them in, or try to remove what you can(impossible to find and remove all though!).

Thanks!

I leave mine in...

 

[Lacy Blues]

Regarding feathers in the deep litter... those who leave them in, do the big ones break down well? I'm just wondering, if I can ever get a functioning deep litter, when it comes time for the birds to molt every fall... if the big feathers (wing and tail) don't break down, if it would be better to try and rake them off? Hopefully, after I finish the roof on my barn, I can get some deep litter going in there.

 

[Blooie]

I leave them and when the girls scratch around the feathers get worked down into the litter. It creates little air pockets down in the litter and air is essential to help with the litter breaking down.