Results from First Year with Deep Litter Method

[Beekissed]

I use pine shavings bedding. I think maybe part of the problem is that I have been using sweet PDZ which is keeping it very dry.

I'd say both of these are contributing. I didn't get good composting either until I moved away from using so much pine shavings...wood takes a long time to decompose. When I started using leaves and other yard debris and mixing in green stuff from weeding the garden, canning waste, the occasional hay from cleaning out the nest boxes...basically a wider variety of particle sizes and composting rates on bedding materials....I started seeing more composting action.

I also stopped encouraging the birds to dig through the bedding under the roosts and I stopped trying to flip it too deeply too....I found that released too much moisture from the depths of the litter that I really needed for composting the materials under the surface.

Now I just flip the top layer lightly under or throw dry material from another area of the coop onto the nightly fecal deposits to cover them, trap their moisture and smell under the top layer of bedding, and to encourage bugs to come up and work on that manure...they won't do it when they can't hide under the bedding.

Ever since making those changes, I've not had a problem with it composting too slowly but rather too quickly most of the year....when that starts happening I'll finally throw a little pine shavings or wood chips in the deepest part under the roosts to slow down my composting a tad.

Right now is the perfect time to get away from wood shavings for bedding as there are free bags of leaves on nearly every corner in town. I'll be collecting truck loads for storing out here for winter and spring bedding.

I'd move away from the PDZ...it has no real purpose in composting litter as you want it to be a little moist under the top layer.

 

[Kathy Ray]

I toss all kinds of stuff in the coop. Right now the girls are "processing" sweet potato vines. They ate all the leaves and are pooping on the vines. They get corn cobs after we eat supper, they get corn shucks, pea hulls, all kinds of garden plants, grass clippings, leaves and sawdust. They also get kitchen scraps, including meat scraps. Today they got shrimp heads and shells. When I clean out the coop, I get lots of crumbly, dark rich compost.

After cleaning the coop, it is smelly and attracts gnats because it is damp. I lime the floor, not with hydrated, and rake it in. I let the floor (dirt) dry a few days before putting more litter in. For the gnats that appear, whether from the coop or just generally wet conditions sometimes, I spray the girls with vanilla.

I was heading to the coop with a sausage that stayed too long in the refrigerator and my DH protested on behalf of the dogs. I told him, "Give a chicken a sausage, you get an egg. Give a dog a sausage, you get a turd."

I didn't think you should I've processed, and or cooked food to chickens??

 

[Kathy Ray]

I didn't think you should I've processed, and or cooked food to chickens??

give processed, sorry!

 

[Beekissed]

You can give a chicken anything you'd eat and they will choose to eat it or not...if they eat it, it's fine for them to eat.

 

[9blessings]

You can give a chicken anything you'd eat and they will choose to eat it or not...if they eat it, it's fine for them to eat.

Bekissed, I wanted to thank you for all that you contributed to this thread. I read every page and am going to work on getting deep litter established in my coop (coastal Maine, old rehabbed coop with concrete floors, 8 week old chicks. I've been composting for most of my adult life and it's a perfect fit. Called the tree company up the street and they're bringing a load of chipped/shredded material next time they come this way for free! And I have some well-aged compost (horse manure, straw and bedding--over a year old and gorgeous) to help seed the littler....so excited!

 

[RonP]

I pile deep, shredded leaves in the fall, like 3+ feet deep.

Now, early spring, the depth is around 2 1/2 feet compacted.

I have plenty more in reserve...

I will add mostly greens including but not limited to lawn clippings, weeds, and of course chicken manure droppings, throughout the year.

Actually, I will add anything biodegradable and nontoxic throughout the year, including the deep bedding pine shavings from the coop, as the run IS my compost pile.



The above picture shows a first spring cutting of a collected lawn, from a contributor, as I mulch my cuttings back into the lawn

.

I dump the grass in a large pile. The girls have it nicely distributed in less than a day.

The 1/2 inch hardware cloth retains the litter.

Once worked and composted in the run, the fine finished compost gets tossed out through the hardware cloth, where I collect it.



My girls will produce 5 to 6, 50 gallon barrels of the most desirable compost imaginable per year, "black gold" to gardeners.



They do most of the work, mixing, shredding, digging, tossing, pooping, all day long...

My run is mud, bug, and odor free - smells like a forest floor after a good rain, except when I dump a cut lawn as in the first picture.

It then will smell like fresh cut grass for a day or so...

 

[9blessings]

I pile deep, shredded leaves in the fall, like 3+ feet deep.

Now, early spring, the depth is around 2 1/2 feet compacted.

I have plenty more in reserve...

I will add mostly greens including but not limited to lawn clippings, weeds, and of course chicken manure droppings, throughout the year.

Actually, I will add anything biodegradable and nontoxic throughout the year, including the deep bedding pine shavings from the coop, as the run IS my compost pile.



The above picture shows a first spring cutting of a collected lawn, from a contributor, as I mulch my cuttings back into the lawn

.

I dump the grass in a large pile. The girls have it nicely distributed in less than a day.

The 1/2 inch hardware cloth retains the litter.

Once worked and composted in the run, the fine finished compost gets tossed out through the hardware cloth, where I collect it.



My girls will produce 5 to 6, 50 gallon barrels of the most desirable compost imaginable per year, "black gold" to gardeners.



They do most of the work, mixing, shredding, digging, tossing, pooping, all day long...

My run is mud, bug, and odor free - smells like a forest floor after a good rain, except when I dump a cut lawn as in the first picture.

It then will smell like fresh cut grass for a day or so...

Love this!!

 

[9blessings]

Ronp, I should have asked....is your run covered? I'm debating covering mine for the snow in winter....there are a lot of days the girls could get out as far as temps but the snow sure does stick around here for a while.

Here's was their coop/part of run after our last big snow storm this year...that's a 6' fence on the right (with virginia creeper on it).

 

[9blessings]

Oh I should say that my girls were not in there yet, LOL. They are only 8 weeks old and lived inside until last week!

 

[Molpet]

Ronp, I should have asked....is your run covered? I'm debating covering mine for the snow in winter....there are a lot of days the girls could get out as far as temps but the snow sure does stick around here for a while.

Here's was their coop/part of run after our last big snow storm this year...that's a 6' fence on the right (with virginia creeper on it).

you would need something substantial for the snow load.. I use cattle panel hoops for coops, but for a unsecure run you could skip the hardware cloth and just tarp them.. the snow tends to slide off if not wet snow