deep liter method or sand method?????

[proud mama m&L]

i am VERY new to this and am figuring this out as i go it seems. i have wanted chickens for a VERY long time and one day just went out and got them. they are now a little over 3 weeks old and we just got the coop built outside. (we have 6) i am trying to decide wether to do the deep litter method or the sand method. We currently have 2 children; a 20 mo old and an 8 mo old so i want something that is not going to consume even more of my time. i have read about the DLM and my concern with that is on our plywood floor the poop will not compost. i saw people with lynolum(sp) but they said it did not break down well on that type of floor either. i dont want the flys and i dont want the smell. i did read that the DLM will help heelp the coop warm in the winter though. the sand i do not know too much about. i want the best thing which im am sure its all preferance but i still dont know what to do. Please help!!!!

 

[Hypnotist_Collectr]

Hi,
I do the deep litter method with some Stall Dry sprinkled at the bottom. Our chickens are a year old now, and it's been really nice.
I clean out the coop once every 3-4 months... just toss new wood shavings in there every so often... So far, it has been no problem.
When I clean it out, I just toss the shavings and poo into my garden cart, and then dump it into a future garden bed. I left it for 3 months, and went to turn it and it was perfect, crumbly, and crawling with worms.

I was thinking about sand, too, though... we put it in the run, and it seemed to really dry up the poo, and made it super easy to pooper scooper it out... Of course, with as much as they scratch, you can't tell there was even sand in there, anymore.

 

[Elite Silkies]

I just put sand in my Australorp pen and I love it! They love it too.

 

[teach1rusl]

I've never heard of sand in the housing of a coop??? Are you meaning in the run?? Lots of folks use sand outside in the run/pen area because it's easy to clean and it helps drain. I only have five hens. I use dropping boards, and it literally takes 1 minute a day to scrape the daily droppings into a bucket. I've had virtually NO poop down in the floor bedding, therefore I may or may not do a bedding toss come late Fall. I did do a bedding toss just a few weeks ago, because the girls spent a lot more time indoors over winter. Especially with the small number of birds you have, a dropping board would make your bedding last a LONG time... Just a suggestion.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

i have read about the DLM and my concern with that is on our plywood floor the poop will not compost.

It's not supposed to compost inside the coop.
Composting requires lots of moisture, and the coop should be dry inside.

Deep litter allows you to go longer between cleanings than sand, and allows you to compost it OUTSIDE when you do clean the coop​

 

[WoodlandWoman]

With deep litter, it is supposed to compost in the coop.

It isn't that you won't get any composting if you have a floor in your coop, it's just that it won't be fully composted. It usually needs to go into a compost pile to finish. It kind of depends on how you manage it. You shouldn't have a problem with smell in the coop with deep litter, no matter which version you are doing, unless something is wrong.

Litter that is too wet is stinky. Litter that is too dry is dusty. A little moisture is not a bad thing. Too much moisture is what is bad. The main reason people talk about moisture control all the time is because when people do something that causes a problem, it tends to be putting too many chickens in too small of a space, not managing the litter well or building a coop without enough ventilation. Those things lead to litter that is too wet, coops that smell and/or air that is too humid.

Not many people complain about a coop being dusty or having extra room in the coop or not needing to do as much work in the coop.

I have no experience or information on using sand in a coop with a floor. Any moisture from the chicken poop that didn't evaporate would eventually drain down onto your wood floor. Has anyone else used this method and for how long? I'd be interested to know. I have heard of people using sand in a dirt floor coop. That works. Or having sand under the roost and scooping it regularly, like a kitty litter box. That's an area that has a lot of poop that doesn't get trampled into the litter as much as the rest of the coop.

You won't go wrong just painting your coop floor and tossing a layer of pine shavings in, to start.

Edited to add that I do use sand in the run. I usually clean out deep litter coops once a year, in the spring. Some people do it more often, some less often.

 

[Elite Silkies]

Quote:
Yes, it's in the run. I use Pine Shavings in the coops.

 

[backdoorchicken]

i use deep litter(with linoleum tiled floors) in the coop and sand in the run.

 

[proud mama m&L]

Thank you for all of your suggestions! i guess i was really confused about the entire thing. like i said i am VERY new to this and am learning as i go. what is a dropping board? is it just a 2x4 that you put under the roost? another question; i didn t know that you were suppose to put sand in the run. i guess it is not a must from the sounds of it but it sounds like it helps with cleaning out the run to? is that rite? i guess i thought it would make it hard for them to scratch and actualy find bugs and whatnot. maybe i am wrong.

 

[teach1rusl]

proudmama...a dropping board is a plank (around 16 inches wide usually, although mine is wider) placed several inches below the roost. Chickens do most of the their pooping in the coop at night time, while they are roosting. If you have a dropping board, it collects there. So it's very quick to scrape it off for compost (w/a putty knife or something into a bucket). Some use a bare board, some cover the plank in scrap vinyl (for easy cleaning), some put trays like cafeteria trays on it... I have a thin sheet of masonite board on mine.

If your run is small, they will probably eat it down very quickly, and it soon becomes a muddy mess when it rains. That's why some folks put sand in their runs. If you have a large run, and your chickens are able to be out of it sometimes, you might keep grass in your run, and that's great. The sand if for people who weren't able to keep grass in their run area.