Results from First Year with Deep Litter Method

[Bridebeliever]

Hehehe, I'm already a fan! I've watched the video!

 

[Wonky Woods]

I'm loving the deep litter method. So far my coop is nice and dry with a mix of leaves, grass clippings and pine shavings. I have leaves and straw in the run about 8 inches thick and the girls are nice and dry and love to scratch through it. Tonight we scored 7 bundles of hay/straw from the curbside. I'm thinking between the leaf bags I've scrounged from the neighbors and what we got tonight should hold us through the winter in keeping the girls nice and dry as well as warm.. Also scoured 15 pumpkins uncarved and in perfect shape.

 

[Beekissed]

Excellent scores!!!!

You'll be amazed at how content and occupied your chickens will seem this winter with something to do and those pumpkins add some much needed fiber and sugar when they are missing their greens the most.

Kudos on the straw and hay....they can add some much needed texture and air spaces in both places when placed thinly among the leaves, so you've been blessed with getting your hands on such wonderful, FREE stuff.

 

[ducks4you]

I wanted to post about this, because I think a lot of people believe that you can build/buy and coop with a wooden floor and then just turn bedding and keep adding additional bedding and not clean until the winter is over. With a dirt floor I believe that creating compost and constantly turning chicken manure into it all winter Could work, as long as you keep up your end of the work.
Doing this with a wooden floor won't work and is a fallacy.
I keep horses that are stalled only during the winter, rubber mats on top of a cement floor, and then, mostly, at night, and I keep chickens, two groups, both have coops with a floor. I have only had a rooster get frostbite when I kept the flock in a 12 x 16 ft area, now become a 10 x 12 ft stall (with round pen panels), next to the other stalls in the (wooden) barn. It was difficult to keep it dry and so, it goes.
Now, with my 7 layers in one coop, and my 14 meatbird roosters (3 month olds) in another, the best thing I can do for the floor of their coops is to keep them clean and dry and to spot clean, just as I do for my 3 horses. I am a big fan of Equine Fresh (super dried pine pellets) as the bottom layer, and then fluffier (medium) pine shavings. When it gets bitter, I also use straw. You get to understand your animals and use the right bedding in the Right Places for your animals. There is no need for the Equine Fresh on the floor of the coop except under the roosts, and the shavings go right on top, with the straw for the area in between that and the nest boxes. Straw is an Excellent way for your animals to radiate their own heat back onto their bodies.
A wooden floor needs to be kept dry to prevent rot. Fortunately with chickens, when it's frozen their manure freezes, too, and is easy to pick up and remove with just a pair of rawhide gloves. I bought my layer's coop several months ago, and took the time last summer to paint the interior before I added the birds.
BTW, I will be butchering all but three of the roosters, who will move with the hens by mid February.

 

[Beekissed]

Most folks doing DL on a wooden floor have managed to protect it in some way to prevent moisture damage. Still not sure why you feel a person can't compost on a surface that isn't dirt...folks use composters all the time that are made of plastic. Managed well and with the right materials, the litter will indeed start to break down and finally compost. I can lay a sheet of plastic under a shelter and compost right on top of it without any problems at all, just by allowing moisture into the materials and not disturbing the lower layers much. Rot can happen just about anywhere there is plant matter and continual damp.

Jump starting it with some microbial life from the soil helps to begin the process and making sure to preserve moisture in the under layers of the litter pack can also enhance the composting action. Using pine shavings and other materials of pine, all one particle size, is one way of getting nowhere fast on composting in a coop setting...no air in the pack, using materials that are slow to compost. The pack needs moisture and it needs air....only way of doing that without having to stir it up or adding extra moisture is to use different materials and particle sizes and holding back on disturbing the lower layers of the litter as much as possible.

It's not a fallacy just because you can't seem to manage it. It is possible and there are quite a few folks out there doing it.

 

[RonP]

I wanted to post about this, because I think a lot of people believe that you can build/buy and coop with a wooden floor and then just turn bedding and keep adding additional bedding and not clean until the winter is over. With a dirt floor I believe that creating compost and constantly turning chicken manure into it all winter Could work, as long as you keep up your end of the work.
Doing this with a wooden floor won't work and is a fallacy.

A wooden floor needs to be kept dry to prevent rot.

I think you will find that keeping "Deep Bedding" works VERY WELL with wood floors.

Keeping pine shavings 6-10 inches deep does not allow moisture to reach my 40+ year old wood floor.

I do not clean my floors but once a year, removing the bedding and placing in my deep litter outdoor run to complete the composting process.

Many on this list do the same with similar excellent low maintenance results.

 

[ducks4you]

I live in a wet climate. To keep my birds dry, I need the bedding to stay dry, too. I also, garden, and those microbes are emitting humidity, too.
Just wanted to comment. I think that newbies start thinking that you don't have to clean up after your birds, and then also wonder why their birds get frostbite during the winter.

 

[Beekissed]

We are really stressing extra ventilation with this DL on this thread, so they should be getting it...if they don't, they aren't listening. I live where it's wet too, but I intentionally let it into my coop just to get the benefit of it. With the right ventilation, that's not a problem and frost bite shouldn't occur. That warm humidity from the DL is actually keeping my coop 10 degrees warmer at the roost level at night than the outside temps. It travels upward, past the birds and out the top of the coop....no humidity settling on them to cause frost bite.

 

[DeansMill]

I read somewhere that cobwebs are a sure sign of poor ventilation... is this true? My coop doesn't smell, but suddenly is all cobwebs, everywhere!! I have ventilation under the eaves and was about to put up insulation in the rafters, but I obviously need another vent. Right?

 

[Beekissed]

I read somewhere that cobwebs are a sure sign of poor ventilation... is this true? My coop doesn't smell, but suddenly is all cobwebs, everywhere!! I have ventilation under the eaves and was about to put up insulation in the rafters, but I obviously need another vent. Right?

I've never heard that and I doubt the accuracy of that, as when my coop is completely open air it's still festooned with funnel spider's webs.

Yes, I'd open up all the ventilation you possibly can at all levels...the thing about ventilation is it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. You can always close any vents that aren't currently needed~as the needs for ventilation change with the weather and seasons~but it's hard to get additional ventilation in a hurry when you don't have those options already built in.