Deep litter advice for small run

[ananova]

Hi y'all! I've spent far too much time on google and not gotten very far, so I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. I came across a post asking something similar and I didn't want to derail that so here I am.

I am in Brisbane, Australia
It's meant to be a subtropical climate, but it's expected to be hot and dry because of el nino.
I currently have 3 chickens, my local council allows up to 6 for my small land size.

I bought a prefab coop and run so I wouldn't waste time I don't have (working full time, single mum), but it's just far too small. I planned to free range my chickens but there is at least one cat that has come in to my yard and attacked my girls TWICE!

They are only about 7 weeks now and are staying in the run by choice (I am leaving the doors open).

I have repurposed old kids swings for some extra shade. I will eventually secure it with farm mesh or something and use something better than a cheap tarp.

I like the idea of the deep litter method, but I am wondering what would be the minimum area for that to work? This run is 84cm x 103cm. Is it possible to do deep litter?

For now I think I'm okay with cleaning the poop from the sleeping area daily, but I don't know what I want to do about the run.

I want to raise the coop and extend the run to also include under the coop. A tiny, uncovered run is useless. I thought I would just use it when I needed to contain them for whatever reason, but they are happy spending time there. Otherwise I don't know how to keep it clean .

I have plenty of dead grass I don't mind putting deep litter on. I can figure out something for shade.

I'm spending too much time stressing and thinking and looking at all these amazing DIY coops and runs ... but realistically I don't have the capacity for that.

How can I save my sanity?

What would you do??

And if I were to try to deep litter with the prefab run, should I raise it so the depth of the composting litter is enclosed in something that isn't cedar and wire? Or dig in to the ground, even??

I have been reading about the need to keep it moist, not wet. So it would need to be covered... but any tips or advice would be welcome.

I also kept reading roosting bars should be high, and much wider than these ones. So I will eventually be doing that too. But figure it's not the end of the world right now. Shade and a bit of protection from the surprise rain yesterday was a higher priority.

How do you raise a coop? What do you use to put the existing legs on? I'm thinking of getting an old outdoor table, and securing underneath. It would certainly be bigger than this current run!

Thank you for reading if you got this far.

One more newbie question. How much time should they be spending in the house?? They seem to like going back in there during the day. I've only just put them outside though. This is day 3.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Deep litter will work anywhere, Its only a problem when the number of chickens greatly exceeds the size of the available area - because the chickens can then provide hot/green (their droppings) faster than the dry/brown (the leaf litter) can balance it out. That will shift you from cold composting (deep litter) to hot composting (conventional), and if sufficiently imbalanced, become a wet stinking mass (anaerobic, dangerous, unsightly and pungent).

Good news. You have few chickens. and a "run" of 3' x 4', or 12 sq ft.

I really don't consider that a run -its very small (though better than nothing), but three chickens won't generate enough "stuff" to overwhelm a couple inches of dry in a deep litter system of that size.

 

[tlcmurphy]

You can put chicken wire, or better yet hardware cloth over that play set, then they’d be protected when they aren’t free ranging.

 

[tlcmurphy]

Also for that run I’d just use sand not deep litter, too small. We have 3 Chickens in a similar coop with a 20X5 run and sand works well for the run

 

[rosemarythyme]

Deep litter does require a certain volume and moisture to compost. Otherwise it's just deep litter materials that you'd still need to clean out like any other form of litter. With a small set up like what you have you're likely going to have to clean regularly and may need to do full cleanouts regularly which normally isn't required with deep litter.

You mentioned wanting to roof or cover over it. I think sand might be an option for you if you go that route, provided you don't have drainage issues at that location. True deep litter is actually a way to help deal with mud and rain, so there's no need to cover a deep litter run.

But what I'd advise is to replace the current run with something larger that they can use all day, such as a dog kennel, maybe with shade cloth to help provide shade, for the times when you can't free range, which may be more frequent than you'd think. Just put the coop inside it. A larger run would allow you to do deep litter more effectively as well.