Amonia smell - deep litter method in Iowa

[cmom]

I use pine shavings. I add some to my coops weekly with some Food Grade DE and good ventilation. No smell or moisture. I have a poop pit under my roosts where the majority of poop accumulates. I sprinkle the DE over the poop too.

 

[Akane]

You probably needed to add at least 1" of shavings to your coop a couple weeks ago. When the snow melts things get really wet here in Iowa. My horse stalls require twice as much bedding. Also the moisture level in the manure freezes while the weather is cold and keeps it from breaking down. Warm weather thaws it releasing the moisture and causing the manure to start breaking down in over drive because the freezing has already broken it apart for the bacteria and micro bugs to get to work on it. If you want to do deep litter method then at the first sign of a thaw your going to have run out and grab some more bedding to be ready to counter the sudden moisture increase.


Personally I don't like the deep litter method. I might use it if I had a dirt floor but I have 170sq ft of coop with a nice wood floor. I bed fairly deep, 8bags, in the fall and it lasts until spring with just the odd addition of a bag under the roosts. Then strip in the spring, pile it all on a garden plot to turn into compost, and refill with about 4-5bags. Clean as needed all spring-fall. Then strip down and bed heavy for winter. I do similar with the horses. Maintain light bedding from spring-fall doing moderate cleaning as needed. Complete strip downs before and after winter and bed deep during Dec so it lasts over the winter.

 

[newchickmom]

My coop is 8X16 and I use 4 bags of shavings for clean start from bare floor.

 

[PortageGirl]

Quote:
LOL guess what? You ARE doing a version of deep litter! It's about the closest you can do it with a wood floor IMO. It's the way our grandfathers and grandmothers did it, I know that because I got to help with the spring/fall clean out! It wasn't my own grandparents, but a grandpa/ma of that same generation! Them old folks weren't so dumb after all!!

 

[ChanceRider]

The best thing I did in my coop was to install poop trays under the roost. I put up a couple of shelf brackets and mounted a shelf made of thin plywood to the brackets. On the shelf I placed plastic, under the bed type storage bins that I put a thin layer of shavings and DE in. The trays catch the majority of the poop, and during the week I can add a few handfuls of shavings and more DE, then dump the whole thing when necessary. It works great and I don't have to get in every day to scrape off a poop board.

Here's a pic of my nest boxes, but you can see the poop trays above the boxes....

 

[Akane]

Over the winter maybe but from march to october I do more of a monthly clean out. It's just not possible to really do major cleaning here from the time the snow flies without a 4wheel drive atv or similar to get through the snow. Plus it's darn cold dec-feb. I'd rather not spend hours scooping out my coop and getting frostbite. Been there, done that with horse stalls, frostbite is really painful. That's how the major spring and fall cleaning gets started. In the fall you get ready to leave things sit for 3-4months and in the spring you clean out all the bedding and poop that's stacked up while you tried to stretch things until the weather warmed up. Just think about the compost pile I will have this year when I dig out those 10" of poop and shavings.

 

[stephhassler]

Akane - where in Iowa are you - just generally? I figured my problem had something to do with the weather because things were just fine until we had that warm spell. I think the weather in Iowa is crazy and it's really nice to have feedback from someone who understands that. Also, when you clean out the coop in the spring, do you put that stuff on a garden plot that you intend to plant the same spring? I've read so many posts on what to do with chicken manure it makes my head spin. Some say it is too hot to go on a garden unless it sits for a year. Others say it is just fine. Again, since you are in Iowa I would love to hear what you think about proper application of chicken poo to the garden. Thanks!

 

[Akane]

I'm just east of Iowa City.

The varied thoughts on using chicken manure probably comes from the different amounts and garden sizes. If you don't have much chicken manure or a large garden you could till it in and probably plant that year but since I'm working with a fairly large amount I rotate my plantings. I pile all the manure on one plot, throw black plastic over it to cook, and then mix it in and plant that section the next spring while piling the next coop cleaning on to a plot I used last year. This works well for a large yard that you can rotate planting areas. For a smaller garden I would pile it nearby and at least over winter cover it with black plastic or a tarp. It will hold in the heat and continue to compost over winter instead of freezing the outside of the pile. The reason I tarp areas in the summer is it bakes any weed seeds and blocks the light so when I do get ready to plant the next year there are no weeds on that plot. I don't have to do any weeding until they start to grow again in fall and by then I'm about ready to harvest and tarp that section for the next year. When you live somewhere that has so much greenery every square inch of ground gets covered by something you have to learn low effort ways to kill weeds without dumping chemicals on your garden constantly.

 

[stephhassler]

Thanks very much - I think I may use this years poo to start a new garden plot for next year. I'll do like you say, place the poo down and cover it with black plastic. I would think by next year that area would be ready to go. Thanks again.