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Thanks! Sheesh, it only took all summer! :rolleyes: It's officially finished as of yesterday! It took 4 weekends to get it ready for the chicks to move into - but then we've been slowly putting the finishing touches on since then: nesting boxes, PVC feeders, tin roof, window, and finally...

Haha, you could have been describing my set-up! I also find that my pine shavings in the coop stay clean for a long time; between the poop boards (with PDZ) and the chickens spending only their sleeping time in there, there is basically no poop in the shavings. When it is finally time to change...

Thanks for your input! So what do I need to do differently to make the the "delicious 'deep litter' micro climate teeming with organisms"? (love that description!) Is it just depth that is lacking? The level is currently as high as it can go without starting to go up against the hardware cloth.

Here is what it looks like now

I read through the whole thread last night - very interesting! After doing a lot more reading, I have decided to make a complete change from sand. I have removed the sand from the coop and replaced it with pine shavings. Because I have poop boards, it stays clean and dry for a long time. As for...

Thank you!!

Thanks for sharing that! Are you speaking of your run only? What do you use in your coop? I have sand in both currently. Other than noticing some discomfort in your chickens, were there other factors that lead you to switch away from sand and back to a carbon-based litter?

Okay, thanks so much for explaining that! :)

The sand isn't very deep, only about 3". How often you pull material out of your run?

So I noticed one of my chickens standing on one leg in the run this morning... And that's a vote against sand. And I have to admit, I'm already getting a bit tired of scooping poops, and am not looking forward to doing it in the winter! So here's a question: if I decide to switch back to...

Thanks for that suggestion! I was actually thinking I'd do that - we have lots of poly plastic, so I was planning to wrap three sides of the run under the coop, and maybe put straw bales up against the plastic. Although I'm not sure how much that will help, if the fourth side, into the run, will...

We're planning to put a window in the short end of the coop to take advantage of morning sunshine, but I'm not sure how much difference that will make in regards to inside temp

Here's a few pictures of our coop

Hi everyone! I have a 4x8 raised coop, with an 8x10 covered run, inhabited by 6 lovely girls who are just starting to lay. All summer, we used pine shavings in the coop, and left the run as bare dirt. When I cleaned out the coop every month or so (it stayed pretty clean since I have poop boards...