Getting mixed up...deep litter

[Sunny Day]

I guess maybe I'm confused (still) on this deep litter method. If I do things that way, does that apply to under the roosts too? Or do I need to shovel that mess out all the time? Do I just throw more litter down? Do I need to stir it up? Will it be smelly?

My little ones are only days old, but the coop is almost done. I'm hoping I planned well enough. I was thinking I'd lay a couple inches of bedding inside the house (including under the roost), stir and that's about it. Do I need to put anything on the ground outside? (It's that Georgia clay). I thought I could put the pine mulch I can get for free, if it doesn't hurt little feet. (That's fresh stuff, so maybe it won't be absorbent enough for indoors?)

Thanks for helping straighten out my thinking.

 

[Blooie]

This is an old thread, started in 2007. I don't usually like to add to older threads, since the OP is often long gone or has had his/her questions answered long since, but since it's been resurrected, I'll just jump in with my 2cent's worth.

DE and Stall Dry are not the same thing, although Stall Dry does contain DE. DE, or diatomacious earth, is composed of the fossils of tiny little critters called diatoms. It is basically silica and has many sharp sides and edges in each grain. It kills small, soft bodied creatures by puncturing their soft outsides and allowing their "juices" to run out. Many people use it and swear by it for mite and lice protection. I swore at it. I was a huge proponent for a long time, until one day I realized that I was out there adding it to my chickens' dust bath, wearing a bandanna over my face. Why? Because the bag cautions against using it without breathing protection. What it does to kill soft bodied insects it also does to bronchial tubes and lungs. Wait a minute - it's not safe for me, way up here, to breathe in this stuff but I'm putting it in here for my chickens to wallow around in and stir up? They are IN it all day and all night, they are closer to the harmful dust than I am and they have delicate respiratory systems. And the dust bath wasn't the only place I was using it...I sprinkled it on the floor of the coop, on the roosts, and in their nest boxes as well. What was I doing?? The bag of DE got regulated to what it was designed to do - kill aphids in my vegetables and flower beds, but never again did I subject the chickens to it. The second point about DE is that in true deep litter, those little organisms are really needed to help break down the materials used in there...why would I want to add a product that kills them?

Stall Dry contains a small amount of DE mixed with of calcium bentonite. A similar product is Sweet PDZ, which absorbs moisture and neutralizes orders using Zeolite.

If someone is contemplating using deep litter, the first thing that has to be understood is the difference between deep litter and deep bedding. When I did a clean out of my setup after a year, the golden pine shavings I'd started out using looked like, well, yellow and/or gray pine shavings. They didn't break down very well, still retained their shape even deep down in the litter, and although they worked very well to provide a soft surface that absorbed liquids and odors, they didn't truly break down. I had deep bedding going. It was working, but it wasn't what I wanted. During the clean out, I scooped out wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of old pine shavings, and they still LOOKED like pine shavings.

So with the advice of @Beekissed, who is a genius at this stuff, I decided to switch to dried leaves, chopped up straw, grass clippings, pulled weeds, garden refuse, pine needles, wood chips, and learned to watch that balance between greens and carbons. I left all the little twigs and such in the leaves when I raked and bagged them up. Those provided air spaces in the litter, as did the occasional handfuls of pine shavings I still tossed in periodically. I had to start sourcing leaves from other places besides my own yard. I have many huge trees, but they are all the same trees...which meant the leaves were all the same basic shape and size. So at first I had a matting issue with them, but once I added leaves of various sizes and shapes it was much better. The last lesson I had to learn was NOT to clean to the ground. I had to think of deep litter as sourdough starter - leave a little of the original stuff on the ground to kick start the new stuff.

I had no issues with flies, and any odors meant that I wasn't flipping (that's flipping, not stirring) the litter like I should be, the litter had gotten too wet (resolved by adding more dry stuff) or my carbon/green balance was off and I needed more leaves. I just dumped a bag of leaves or whatever in there and let the chickens do the rest. This is what my deep litter looked like when I did a clean-out after over a year - if I remember right it was probably closer to 2 years. As you can see the in the second shot, I didn't have to dig down very far to get to that good, rich stuff for my garden.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

We are getting ready to get chickens again, after not having them for a few years. We'll be using deep litter again, because it worked so well for us before.

I used pine shavings for litter. The roosts were just open over the litter. I kept a compressed bale of shavings in the corner of the coop, with a scoop. The coop didn't normally smell. Any time it ever had a faint odor of ammonia, I knew the litter was out of balance and needed more carbon, so I would sprinkle some shavings. Under the roosts, I sprinkled some shavings whenever it looked like it needed it. Once or twice a year I shoveled the litter out and took it to the garden.

I think one of the keys to the success or failure of the deep litter system, is how much space you've allowed per chicken. I've read, recently, that with 3 square feet per bird, you'll have a lot of caking of the droppings on the surface of the litter, which need to be broken up and stirred in. With 4, you'll get some caking and with 5, you shouldn't have any. I know that after subtracting for the feeder, waterer, oyster shell container, nest boxes and storage area, we were at 5 square feet per bird. I never had to manually stir the litter. Just the scratching of the chickens was enough. If a person has a more crowded coop, then I think they start needing to do more frequent chores, breaking up surface clumps, cleaning under the roosts, using a dropping pit or dropping board under the roosts, etc.

I hope this helps.

 

[RUNuts]

Not sure there is a single post. Short answer is start throwing stuff on the floor. A 2 year old can (and does) do it.

What is your most abundant source of brown, high carbon material? Leaves, woodchips, pine straw, hay, straw, charcoal, lawn clippings, branches, tree trunks or mummies? Add a layer. Free is best, but you can pay what you want. Dry is good, but that is self correcting. Open runs get rain fall. You may want to water yours if it's covered.

I have a county dump that grinds/chips yard waste. Fresh stuff in front and aged in the back. I prefer the aged. Free to county taxpayers. I have gotten bags of leaves too. Some people pick them up curbside on trash day.

Google Back to Eden (BTE) gardening. Deep Litter (DL) bedding.

Don't spread the piles out. The chickens EXCEL in doing that. If you must do something, stack up the litter when you feel the need. Nothing is really required. If it stinks, add more brown. If it is dusty, wait for rain. If it turns to moist, rich, black loamy material, Move the chickens (or the litter) and plant a garden.

Enjoy!

 

[chicknewbie01]

I'm wondering if I can use paper shavings in addition to the wood shavings...I use a paper shredder for my mail and usually recycle, but if I could use it for the chickens, I would...Thanks!

 

[stubbornhill]

Quote:
I tried shredder paper when my hens were chicks. They'd poo, it would stick to the paper, then they'd walk in it and they would have a big paper mache poop stuck to their feet! It wasn't even worth it to me.

 

[Yashar]

I use leaves both in my aviary and coop. I just add leaves every few weeks as they break down and clean it out completely once a year in the aviary and mare often in the coops.
I really like that method. I've been doing it for a couple years now. You have to have it pretty deep for it to work at the beginning, when your first adding leaves, because they will scratch around vigorously and move them to the sides of the coop.
It makes incredible compost.

 

[sweetater22]

Well said Blooie.

 

[AussieJen]

Sorry to add to an old thread, but RUNuts mentioned above about using chipped yard waste from a dump. I have my own small chipper and am hoping to process my backyard prunings plus leaves etc as deep litter in a covered suburban run, but am concerned about including plants deemed toxic such as wisteria. As well as the wisteria, there are plants in my garden i dont know the names of, so how do i know if they're toxic?

Using chipped materials from an outside source (dump or arborist delivering unwanted woodchips to site for free) you have no control over what's included in the deep litter, yet a number of people seem to have used this approach for years (eg Back to Eden) with no health effects for their birds. I've also read forums recommending using eucalyptus mulch as deep litter with chickens, when eucalyptus is known to be toxic. Maybe the chooks don't eat the chipped material as much as the bugs that makes their homes in the litter, meaning they will be ok.

Methinks I needn't stress and can use my wisteria trimmings as long as I don't concentrate it too much.

Opinions and experience from others on this forum would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Blooie]

All they’re going to is poop on it anyway, so I wouldn’t stress about it. It’s not like you’re trying to feed it to them.