Bedding

[rosemarythyme]

I use wood chips (not shavings) in my coop (since my coop is elevated I can't do deep litter inside) and the chips get tossed into the run afterwards as part of the deep litter mix there. Shavings are not only costly but they tend to get soggy and not drain well so if you do have wet seasons I'd avoid adding a lot of shavings.

Don't dig down to start the litter. It's really just about layering stuff on top of each other and letting the chickens mix it around. If managed correctly the ground beneath should stay nice and healthy, there shouldn't be a noticeable smell, and water shouldn't pool up/should drain through well. Mine is primarily wood chips with dried leaves (I save bags of leaves in fall), some grass clippings and garden trimmings in spring and summer.

 

[feathermaid]

Poop trays are a life saver!
My coop is also raised, and inside I have sort of a loft where the roosts are... a tray below the roosts holds about an inch of granulated Sweet PDZ. The tray catches almost all droppings and I just scoop them out like cat litter. The floor of the coop is filled with pine shavings... I'm still using the same bag I purchased in May. Not deep litter, just deep"ish" litter, I keep adding fresh on top occasionally and still only need to replace it about once a year. My girls spend most of the time outside so there's very little poop on the coop floor.

If your run is exposed to the weather, definitely use larger wood chips... a lot of them. They drain better and don't get slippery. I shared my method here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-run-ground-cover.1291414/#post-20967092

*edited to add* Wood chips take a lot longer to break down than deep litter. So if you have good drainage and they're deep enough, they should last a few years.

 

[Kris5902]

Ours gets cleaned out mostly due to water spillage in the coop... and last winter they decided it needed more material... so my idiot brother in law literally dug into the piles of shavings where the woodcutting was done and put two large tractor buckets full of soggy wet shaving into the coop! It was awful, and made several other problems much worse.

Dry is key in my opinion inside the coop... so last summer I started drying and stockpiling the stuff in feed bags, way more work than buying shavings, but at $10 a bale here the owners aren’t going to pay for them. The shavings can hold a lot of moisture. Last summer with the severe drought we had here, the piles of shavings still had the moisture content of a soaked sponge an inch deep into the piles!

 

[Littlehouseonhansen]

Is this correct for deep litter??

And do I just keep adding new leaves(things from the yard) every morning?

 

[sdm111]

Wheat straw

 

[paneubert]

Is this correct for deep litter??

And do I just keep adding new leaves(things from the yard) every morning?

Yeah. Pretty much. The goal is to have items of varying size and thickness to ensure it does not compact into one solid layer. The chickens will help keep things stirred, especially if you toss some treats in there for them to dig around for.

 

[rosemarythyme]

And do I just keep adding new leaves(things from the yard) every morning?

You don't have to add stuff daily. I just add as I get stuff, like grass gets added after I cut the lawn, or when the litter is broken down enough that I feel it needs another layer. Wood chips are maybe twice a year, dried leaves I ration out so I'll add a bunch during fall, then some during winter, more during spring, and then clear out the bags in summer.