deep litter and linoleum floor?

[McGoo]

Scatcatla,
Thanks for the compliment on the coop. Yours is great too!

As for the poop tray - honestly it will probably work better if it the whole thing is removable anyway since it'll be easier to clean the wire, etc. Good luck!

 

[cajungal]

Hi
I have linoleum on top of the wood floor to....I use plastic under my roost...All I do is drag it outside and hose it off, than let it dry and put it back..Work great~~

Love your set up McGoo..Nice!~
Blessing

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
A droppings board would only stink the place up if you did not clean it every morning. So, er, clean it

- it is real quick if you use a board rather than a wire pit, and put a dusting of floor litter on the board - you just scrape the poo off into a bucket.

If deep litter gets too dusty, either change it out for fresh litter at that point (trying to get a better grade of shavings this time if it's been less than 6-8 months) or dampen it lightly with water. If you coop is real dry then any litter can be dusty - sometimes you have to lightly mist horse stalls bedded in shavings in the driest part of the winter to handle dust. You just sprinkle a little water, fluff it in well, let it sit at least an hour or til the next day, then see if it's ok or if it needs more. It may seem off to*add* water but bedding really can get too dry! (You will not see this done as often as it should be in horse barns, but in very dry weather it is much much healthier for horses than breathing dust everytime they turn around in their stalls!)

JME,

Pat

 

[mjreller]

I concur. My winter coop has been dry most of the winter and then i had waterer leak for a few days before i figured out what was going on. POW! did that ever heat up the deep litter and do away with the dust! I am now a little concerned with the amt of heat produced as well as the NH3 letting off. Any comments?
My hens are still laying almost an egg/day so they dont seem affected. We are in the midst of a thaw here too so it seems quite warm out there. I stirred the deep litter up each day this week and it was steaming a coupl of the days!!!!! yikes!

 

[Dustoff79]

if you add Zeolite (can be found as "Sweet PDZ" at most feed stores) . Zeolites have special properties, namely, they absorb moisture (soak up like a sponge) and they adsorb gases (attract and keep gas molecules stuck to them). This means that ammonia, as well as other bad smelling gases, are trapped inside the Sweet PDZ to be harmlessly removed and placed on the compost pile. Zeolite is also great for the garden and compost pile, it is non-toxic, not hazardous to your chickens.

 

[meriruka]

My two cents: We have linoleum on top of a wood floor. In winter we just add shavings to freshen and spring, summer & fall we use just a thin layer of shavings & clean the whole thing out once a month. With lino, you can hose it down a bit & it dries quickly, wood under stays dry!
We were worried if the shavings were directly on the wood, if it got wet, it would rot......

 

[thechickonthehill]

I just wanted to let you all know that you are doing a great job of answering my questions before I even get the chance to ask them. You're like . . . Chicken Psychics, ooooh.

I do have one question though. Have any of you used the pelleted bedding that you can get for horse stalls as coop bedding? I notice a lot of you are horse owners (me too). I use the pelleted bedding for my horses and just wondered if it would work in the coop too.

 

[b'hamPeeps]

We have the litter over linoleum set up too. Because it doesn't really compost, I found the addition of DE to the whole deal to be really important. Now that we use it, we don't have any ammonia problem.

Also, I did try using horse bedding pellets, but they quickly turn into sawdust which I don't like as well as shavings. (too dusty!)

 

[chirpychickens]

How do you make a dropping box?

 

[aart]

How do you make a dropping box?

try this thread, lots of iterations
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/621363/poop-board-convert-warning-graphic-gross-poop-pictures