Coop update. Need some advice

[Blooie]

The smell of shavings goes up, then it goes way down. My coop only smells if I fall behind on scraping stray droppings from the roosts and stirring the bedding. I added sand to my bedding last year and never will again!

x2 I also add dried leaves, lawn clippings, and yard and garden waste.

 

[pauleberly]

Well I won't be able to do any deep litter or anything like that.

So your saying if I add like shavings and stir it up every other day it shouldn't stink? Will it get moldy eventually?

 

[beccaWA]

Yeah I'd definitely not go with sand for coop or run. It gets hot on their feet (if in the sun) and from what I understand, just doesn't drain that well and is hard to clean.

I use pine shavings. In the winter deep litter with that. When I clean out the coop that all goes in the compost pile for a year to decompose/kill pathogens. Then I put it on the garden.

 

[pauleberly]

I don't think I would have enough depth in my coop to do a deep litter set up. I am mostly worried about smell, but I do not want to have to completely remove all shavings and add more.

I'm just trying to find the best bedding for my criteria.

 

[Leigti]

This is what I did. Maybe some of it will work for you. The coop is 8 x 4 with the roof going from 4 to 5 feet tall on the slant. 36 inch wide nest box with one petition equals two large boxes for six hens, eventually there will be 12 so may have to adjust to that.
I use deep Pineshade beans on the floor of the coop and P DZ on the poop bored I have 34 foot long roofs all at one level. I'm not a pro by any means but this seems to be working well.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I did not set mine up properly for true deep litter; my pop door is too low. My litter is only about 4-5" deep and some does get kicked out into the run but that's no big deal since occasionally I throw some of the old out into the run before adding fresh. I also throw weeds in there as well as in the run, and give it an occasional shovel full of dirt. Before I did a complete bedding change it had a nice earthy smell that reminded me of a stable but without a manure smell... Sort of hard to explain. I loved it. My current bedding is 3 months in and has no smell. It's very dry even though it's been rainy and humid, so that is partly why there is no smell, but I'm thinking of watering it down a little to get some decomposition going. The downside to having it too dry, it seems, is that while you have dried out odorless poop it doesn't decompose as fast so it will build up more. I've never had an issue with mildew or mold. I think those would only be a problem if, for instance, your roof leaked or something. The poo doesn't include enough moisture for that (assuming your coop is sized properly), since bird's excretory systems are designed to conserve water.

 

[pauleberly]

Well I am thinking I will only be able to have 4-5 inchs of shavings as well. It will stay very dry

Do I just keep adding more and more shavings on top of them and stir it all up?

 

[beccaWA]

If you use bagged pine shavings there will be no mold. It's been kiln dried and in my experience anyway, it just won't mold.

 

[pauleberly]

I just went down there and it was dry and didn't smell yet. Hopefully I'll only have to do a full cleaning every other month or so

 

[SunHwaKwon]

You don't even need to add every other day or clean it every other month. When I was doing partial change outs it was during the winter because they spent more time indoors so the droppings built up a bit faster. I did not do a full change from August (when the coop was finished) until either February or March. I only changed it out because I needed to add some bedding to my soppy run so I figured I'd go ahead and refresh the coop. I think from now on I will stick to just occasional partial cleanouts.

Make sure you stir it regularly in the winter/early spring, though; I had a mouse make a nest with babies deep in a corner of the coop when I went too long without stirring. I gave the babies to the chickens and guineas but I think next time I will kill them outright as the chickens really torture them before eating them!