Deep Litter method questions~

[geareduplyn]

This is not new. I used this type of manure management in commercial squab production also. Check out Wendell Levi's The Pigeon for a discussion of this.

 

[CityChook]

Quote:
heh heh!

 

[gjoyner]

wait...so the deep litter method is NOT a thing? I htought it was a better than cleaning it out once a week thing. so..no to the fake deep litter method? Im so confused now. What is stall dri??
sorry people.
ok..IS or is not the deep litter an actual thing.
HOW do you do it?
what do you need?
When do you need to clean?

 

[Bluemoon420]

It's an actual method, but it various on how people do it. Some folks use DE, some don't. Some folks clean out their areas once a week, others do it once/twice a year. There is no scientific method to it. It just goes by what it LOOKS like, and what materials you use, etc.

In mine, I use pine shavings, stall dri ( Stall dri is DE and a small amount of volcanic ash) It keeps flies, and smells down. Some folks use straw. Some folks don't use DE, but use Lime instead. I have a friend who uses peat moss instead of pine shavings.

Whatever method you use for Deep Litter, the result is pretty much the same. I use this method because it's what I know. My grandparents did it the same way. They recycled what they cleaned out twice a year for their gardens as fertilizer. There is NO wrong way to do DLM, and there is no specific recipe to it either

Hope that gives you a better explanation.

Bluemoon

 

[patandchickens]

Look, all I'm saying is that people on BYC seem to act like "The Deep Litter Method" is some specific protocol.

It is not. There are a whole suite of things that go under this name, all of which shade into each other. Different ones have different pros and cons.

It is not a fakey or cheaty thing at all... there are REAL MERITS to most of the possible ways of using deep litter. Different merits to different versions though. Some versions have been used for probably millenia, certainly centuries, to good effect.

You just can't assume that the pros/cons of doing it one way will have much to do with what happens when you do it a different way. Is all I'm trying to say.

Pat

 

[gjoyner]

aaah! I see. sorry Im so confused. But...the deep litter method doesnt stink if you do it right?

 

[Bluemoon420]

No it doesn't stink. My grandparents have done it that way, and probably their parents too. I'm sure they learned it from them. Never, not once have I had it smell in a bad way.
Like pat said ( I think it was Pat) If you have an ammonia smell ( not animal smell) then your coop needs ventilation. Also like Pat said, you don't have to use DE. You could use Lime and it works just as well. I've got a friend who uses peat moss. It's all about what your personal preference is.
Either way, there is no right or wrong way to do it. It is what works for you best.
Experiment a little, and you'll find whatever works best for you.
Bluemoon

 

[sangel4you]

ok gjoyner...let me try to answer your question since I'm sure that is what you are really interested in

First of all, I am a somewhat of a newbie too, and am just finishing up my coop, but I have had my chicks for 2 months now and have been doing deep litter in my brooder with no problems and am planning the same thing in my coop.
I have a raised coop with a particle board wood floor and have sticky vinyl squares on it to keep the wood a bit more protected and easier to clean when I DO clean it out.
I prefer wood pellets over shavings only because I've had less dust/smell with them than the shavings, but as a warnign they are more expensive. I think I pay 6.95 for a 40lb bag and I will probably use two bags in my 5x6' coop...tho I have a few shavings left over from when I did use them and will probably mix them in to make my pellets last a little longer. Anyway...
I am going to put a sprinkling down of daitomaceaous earth-food grade...you will most likely have to order it off line unless you can find stallDri somewhere but I didn't have any luck so I ordered 4- 5lb tubs of it with shipping I think it was around $30. (as an fyi I also mix that in their feed to help with worming) but I will sprinkle that down for mite and flea control. Then I will sprinkle a layer of shavings, like you would in your brooder.
Then I will put another layer od DE, and top it off with my pellets which will break down to dust when wet and will hopefully help compost the shavings a bit. Then as it's needed if things get stinky or dirty looking I will add another layer of DE and pellets and or shavings as I see fit and mix it around. I plan to clean my coop out 3-4 times a year.
For under my roosts, I have a poop board that is the same particle board with vinyl topped and I put shavings and de on that about a1/2 inch thick. My roosts and poop board are removable and I will probably take that out weekly and dump it. And that's it!
That's all you should have to do...of course you don't HAVE to do all of that...simply put for deep litter you just have to put down a layer, stir and add occaisionally as needed, and clean out very periodically. Good luck!

 

[patandchickens]

No, if deep litter is stinking up your coop then you're doing something wrong.

(Although I will say that letting a deep litter pack build up in a cow or horse barn/shed, then cleaning it out after a winter or a whole year, can produce some real nose-hair-and-lung-dissolving stench when you dig down to the bottommost part of it. Yowza! Although in those cases the bedding was perfectly FINE in normal use, really truly.... no stink came out til you dug very deeply into it. Dunno how easily this could happen with chicken bedding. Honestly with the way chickens scratch and how short they are I do not think I'd intentionally try letting it get this way in a coop, though.)

My understanding is that deep damp composting heating-up litter tends not to harbor coccidial spores/cysts/whatever; and back before poultry nutrition was as well understood and commercial rations as well formulated, that sort of old timey hot deep-litter pack was beneficial for the flock by providing one of the B vitamins that chickens tended to be deficient in otherwise. (Which nowadays is totally irrelevant, but, still)

Pat

 

[cmjust0]

Here's my plan for the 'deep litter method': I'm going to put a bunch of shavings on the floor of the coop...then I'm going to put the chickens in the coop...then, when the chicken smell gets to be a little too pervasive in the barn, I'm going to add more shavings until the coop smells like pine again...and I'm going to repeat that process until I look in there one day and go "ughhh...I can't just keep adding shavings," at which point I'll probably continue to add shavings every now and then for about another two months...sometime after that, the day will come when I'll look in the coop and be truly ashamed of myself for letting it get so far out of hand...at that point, I'll probably stop looking in the coop so much to avoid the sense of guilt that goes with it, and in the meantime, I'll procrastinate and find other projects to work on for a minimum of one week -- preferably two...that's when I'll bite the bullet, spend the better part of a day mucking it out, and I'll start the whole process over again.

That's the plan, at least. If my math is right, I think it's about a six-month cycle.