Causes for concern?

[Kusanar]

First off, Welcome to BYC!

Looks like your other questions have been answered, so I will tackle the deep litter one. You need a mix of stuff for the litter, not just pine shavings, in fact, the pine shavings are one of the HARDER to break down materials due to the sap that is in them and kind of waterproofs each shaving. Good materials are things like fallen (dry) leaves off of trees, pine needles, dry grass clippings from mowing, sparing use of pine shavings, sawdust, twigs, wood chips, people have even tossed in entire logs and stumps which break down over time but give the chickens something to play with until that happens.

Basically, if you research composting, you want to have your bedding be the Carbon elements because your chicken poop is the Nitrogen part of it. Deep litter should smell like dirt or potting soil when done correctly, if it smells badly like chicken poop, you have too much poop for your amount of carbon (bedding) which is an easy fix, just toss some more on top! The longer the deep litter goes, the stronger your colony of bacterias and stuff that breaks everything down will get and the better and better it will work.

With your floor being solid (not dirt) what I would do is get your good mix of bedding materials in there (leave the shavings, just add more other stuff to it), then you just turn it every few days (until it gets started, once it's going good you don't turn it anymore) and add more "stuff" as needed to keep the smell down. Since the floor is solid, the bedding can't break down and sink into the ground like it will on a dirt floor, so you WILL have to remove some every now and then, I would simply shovel some of it out of the coup and into the run where it will actually break down faster due to the higher amount of moisture (compost loves moisture), in the run, it will sink into the ground and vanish.

If you DO want to use some on your garden, peel back the top layers of the stuff in the coup (once it's been going a while, probably close to a year), and remove some of the stuff from the bottom, it should be brown, crumbly, and smell like dirt under there. If it is all nice and smoothly crumbly and dirt smelling on the bottom, you don't need to compost it further, you can put it straight into the garden, if you're really worried about it, you can till it into the ground in the fall after you harvest and let it rot down into the ground over the winter and it will be safe in the spring for planting.

 

[DeutschHühner]

1. You're asking really great questions!

2. That's your old rickety shed??!!!

3. Can you move the chickens to the garage? I'd live in that shed in a heartbeat!!!

I know... it's a pretty sweet shed. Just the window is rickety.

 

[DeutschHühner]

That is one sweet building! (SCOFFS - rickety old shed -SMH)

Are your soffits(under eaves) open?
Those and some gable vents will provide the best air movement for ventilation.

We are very lucky that my pop-in-law was willing to let us use it. It's just the window is a bit wonky but I think it's good enough. Regarding the ventilation, the stains on the windows threw me into a worry (thinking it was condensation) but I think it's okay now. Still, I'll check out your link and do some research on proper venitlation. I want them to be comfortable and above all, healthy in there.

 

[DeutschHühner]

First off, Welcome to BYC!

Looks like your other questions have been answered, so I will tackle the deep litter one. You need a mix of stuff for the litter, not just pine shavings, in fact, the pine shavings are one of the HARDER to break down materials due to the sap that is in them and kind of waterproofs each shaving. Good materials are things like fallen (dry) leaves off of trees, pine needles, dry grass clippings from mowing, sparing use of pine shavings, sawdust, twigs, wood chips, people have even tossed in entire logs and stumps which break down over time but give the chickens something to play with until that happens.

Basically, if you research composting, you want to have your bedding be the Carbon elements because your chicken poop is the Nitrogen part of it. Deep litter should smell like dirt or potting soil when done correctly, if it smells badly like chicken poop, you have too much poop for your amount of carbon (bedding) which is an easy fix, just toss some more on top! The longer the deep litter goes, the stronger your colony of bacterias and stuff that breaks everything down will get and the better and better it will work.

With your floor being solid (not dirt) what I would do is get your good mix of bedding materials in there (leave the shavings, just add more other stuff to it), then you just turn it every few days (until it gets started, once it's going good you don't turn it anymore) and add more "stuff" as needed to keep the smell down. Since the floor is solid, the bedding can't break down and sink into the ground like it will on a dirt floor, so you WILL have to remove some every now and then, I would simply shovel some of it out of the coup and into the run where it will actually break down faster due to the higher amount of moisture (compost loves moisture), in the run, it will sink into the ground and vanish.

If you DO want to use some on your garden, peel back the top layers of the stuff in the coup (once it's been going a while, probably close to a year), and remove some of the stuff from the bottom, it should be brown, crumbly, and smell like dirt under there. If it is all nice and smoothly crumbly and dirt smelling on the bottom, you don't need to compost it further, you can put it straight into the garden, if you're really worried about it, you can till it into the ground in the fall after you harvest and let it rot down into the ground over the winter and it will be safe in the spring for planting.

That's great information! Thanks heaps! It looks like I may have to make some more trips into the woods for supplies! I already have some old tree branches I was going to use for roosts in the run. I've since decided they are too narrow so I'll toss them in the coop for the girls to peck at and play with.

 

[RollTideChicken]

Your goal is not to give them a warm place to stay. Your goal is to give them a place they can keep themselves warm...

Never heard that put any better.

 

[aart]

Regarding the ventilation, the stains on the windows threw me into a worry (thinking it was condensation) but I think it's okay now.

More likely to see condensation early in fall/winter,
before things even out between inside and outside the coop.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Kusanar covered it well but I’ll give a bit of a different perspective. Think of your bedding as a diaper. Its job is to soak up moisture and keep things dry. A wet coop stinks, that’s because the poop breaks down using anaerobic action. If you can keep it dry enough that the bugs breaking it down stay aerobic, it will not stink. Wet is also unhealthy. If poop builds up too think it will not dry out, that is not good.

If you keep the bedding too dry the bedding will not break down into compost. The microbes and bugs that eat the materials need enough moisture to live and reproduce. The stuff will break down into a powder but that’s mostly from the chickens scratching, not microbial action. If you want to compost in the coop or anywhere else the target moisture is to take a wet sponge and squeeze out all the moisture you can. That is the optimum moisture level, but of course there is tolerance on either side of optimum.

If the floor of your coop is wood, a true deep litter method including it turning into compost will rot the floor. Many people protect the floor by special paint, putting linoleum down, or maybe something else. If moisture can get to the wood it will rot.

I do not use the deep litter method in the coop because my litter stays too dry. It never composts. I add wood shavings as it gets scratched to bits. I also use a droppings board under my roosts to catch pure poop. That keeps the poop load down enough to keep the poop from building up to the point is stays wet. Chickens poop all the time, day and night. Since they are not moving around at night the poop can build up under the roosts or where they are sleeping. With your fairly low chicken density you can help keep the poop from building up by scattering some treats under the roosts or where they are sleeping so they scatter it around with their scratching. Or you can rake it in.

That pure poop goes straight into my compost pile. I’ve gone as long as four years between cleaning the bedding out of my coop. I don’t have to do it then, but I want that stuff on my garden. By putting that stuff on my garden in the fall and tilling it in, it has broken down by the time I’m ready to plant. You don’t want to put pure poop on plants in the garden, I’ve burned tomato plants doing that. The poop and the bedding materials need time to break down into forms the plants can use them.

There are all kinds of different ways to compost if you take the bedding out of the coop to compost it. You may have a barrel composter, a bin of some type, or just pile it up. The more often you turn it the faster it will break down. I use a bin but only turn it once or twice at most, I’m pretty relaxed about the process. The closer you get to the right greens (nitrogen) to browns (carbon) ratio the faster it breaks down. Getting the right ratio is pretty complicated, you can research that online if you wish, but I quickly gave up. I just approximate it and it works. The poop is considered a green even though it contains some browns. The bedding is pretty much pure browns. A common problem for people that clean out their coops often and take it to a compost bin is that there is a lot more browns and less greens than they need for efficient composting. Some materials break down faster than others. Wood shavings are considered pretty slow but if they are ground down fairly fine and have sufficient moisture and greens it doesn’t take that long. Wood chips take a lot longer. And what variety of tree the shaving come from makes a difference.

You can get as complicated as you wish about composting and really refine the process or be really relaxed about it. It’s a natural process, it’s going on in every forest and grassland around the world. By turning it, keeping the moisture right, and having close to the right mixture of greens and browns you can speed up the process.