Deep litter method

[gilcamp4]

Well said! Will do

I also put hay and wood pine chips in our coop, smells nice I do clean it once a year right down to the floor, the chickens love the new clean coop, I have done this for 3 years, we have a 28 feet long camper redone it to coop works great.

 

[lawatt]

Amazingly I have been following this thread for about 7 months and just recently realized i should NOT be turning my DL....there is alot of , ummm....."different ways of doing it".....I don't want to call anybody "wrong"! I am now "letting it work"!

We have dry spells, and the litter can get dusty, dust is horrible for chickens, In the summer I do spray the coop down to keep the dust away. As well there are a couple of ledges that catch droppings and I wash those off...Just spray it off into the litter and let the pile work, much easier and less "yukky" than scraping, lol!

aha, something just clicked for me -- here in Northern CA, it basically doesn't rain at ALL between April/May and November (still hasn't started yet this year), and my DL has gotten QUITE dusty -- and me not really paying attention, i haven't sprayed it down, but a couple of my chickens have been coughing a bit lately, although not acting sick -- not sure why i didn't put two and two together until this moment, but i'm sure it's the dust from the DL. will have to go give it a good spray this afternoon when i get home -- and I bet that will help it to break down faster, too! as things are awfully dry -- it must pull SOME moisture from the ground, but there isn't much to be had...

thanks for this!!!!

 

[gilcamp4]

aha, something just clicked for me -- here in Northern CA, it basically doesn't rain at ALL between April/May and November (still hasn't started yet this year), and my DL has gotten QUITE dusty -- and me not really paying attention, i haven't sprayed it down, but a couple of my chickens have been coughing a bit lately, although not acting sick -- not sure why i didn't put two and two together until this moment, but i'm sure it's the dust from the DL. will have to go give it a good spray this afternoon when i get home -- and I bet that will help it to break down faster, too! as things are awfully dry -- it must pull SOME moisture from the ground, but there isn't much to be had...

thanks for this!!!!

yes my chickens where coughing also when we first put the hay down, this time we did chips and hay, seems to be ok.

 

[RoseMarie1]

aha, something just clicked for me -- here in Northern CA, it basically doesn't rain at ALL between April/May and November (still hasn't started yet this year), and my DL has gotten QUITE dusty -- and me not really paying attention, i haven't sprayed it down, but a couple of my chickens have been coughing a bit lately, although not acting sick -- not sure why i didn't put two and two together until this moment, but i'm sure it's the dust from the DL. will have to go give it a good spray this afternoon when i get home -- and I bet that will help it to break down faster, too! as things are awfully dry -- it must pull SOME moisture from the ground, but there isn't much to be had...

thanks for this!!!!

yeah I've had to wet mine down to but not until they and me wound up sick probably from the dust. I had one that was gaping I think they call it from trying to breath I guess. Don't know for sure though because she only did it for a little while and then stopped doing it. So I'm not sure. But I did give them all some fresh garlic for 10 days straight just to be on the safe side. Hubby it out today wetting it down for me and adding some DL in an area that didn't have any. And getting their pen ready for the 20 degree tonight.

 

[Miss Elle]

I started out with sand in the coop and run too, this is my first year. The summer was great! I did switch to dirt in the run. I had no problem with extra moisture or smell. It is now the fall (nov) and I'm finding there is a moisture residual that I did not notice before and a bit of a stronger odor, mostly in the coop on the dropping boards, not so much on the ground of the coop (they poo very little there) I can't seem to dry out the sand :C I clean out the dropping boards (has sand on it-I'll post pics) about every 3 days. I assume it's because my windows are closed up for the winter and there is less air circulating but I have 6 vents+. I just scooped out all of the sand on my dropping board and threw some pine shavings down. I have a few questions. Do I need to throw some dirt as the first layer? And also my space to grow up is limited. Suggestions?? Liz
I elevated the roosting/dropping board so I could have a isolation area.

This looking down at it. I only have about 6-8 inches to build up.

 

[Beekissed]

That's perfect. Go slow and low with the shavings and let them settle into that space. You can place a shovel full of soil in there to get things started but you don't need a whole layer. Resist the temptation to stir the bedding or add too much too soon. If you start to smell anything, open up ventilation at the floor level and just lightly turn over any build up of feces under the roosts. You can even make the DL deeper in that area to facilitate that endeavor. If it's working right, the litter will settle and compact enough that you won't have too much spilling over, but if you do that's fine as your run could use deep litter as well.

My room for DL is about 4-6 in. only also and it never really spills over before it composts down into the soils. If you find yours building too soon, just scoop out some of the bottom layers and place it in the run if you have one, or in the compost pile if you do not. If you go slow on adding bedding materials and keep your ventilation flowing, you shouldn't get too deep, too soon.

 

[lawatt]

i just feel so stupid for not thinking of the lack-of-moisture/dust aspect sooner -- my poor coughing chickens! (only one or two, but still...) -- gave their runs' DLs a good spray this evening, and will try to do so every so often until the rain starts up again...

 

[MagicChicken]

i just feel so stupid for not thinking of the lack-of-moisture/dust aspect sooner -- my poor coughing chickens! (only one or two, but still...) -- gave their runs' DLs a good spray this evening, and will try to do so every so often until the rain starts up again...

Just remember to back off spraying the litter as soon as the humidity starts to kick up. I kept spraying my litter last year and it got soggy before I knew it. I also wound up with a bumblefoot problem in my large fowl birds about the same time as I realized their litter was too damp. It is possible it was a coincidence but I suspect the suddenly-too-moist litter aggravated the bumblefoot, which was pretty widespread in the flock. The stress of hot humid weather probably didn't help them shake off the bumblefoot, either.

 

[lawatt]

Just remember to back off spraying the litter as soon as the humidity starts to kick up. I kept spraying my litter last year and it got soggy before I knew it. I also wound up with a bumblefoot problem in my large fowl birds about the same time as I realized their litter was too damp. It is possible it was a coincidence but I suspect the suddenly-too-moist litter aggravated the bumblefoot, which was pretty widespread in the flock. The stress of hot humid weather probably didn't help them shake off the bumblefoot, either.

thanks, we almost never get hot humidity here -- i'll only spray as needed, and once it finally starts raining this winter, i'll stop spraying, as the ground will be wet enough to take over -- but after the grass dies again next summer i'll start again. i don't have a lawn, and once things get dry in July/august, there's not a lot of green vegetation to help add moisture to the DL, so it gets VERY dusty.

 

[Arielle]

Does anyone throw compostable items in-- like carrot ends, cuke peelings, that sort of thing?? THat is a good source of moisture-- just not sure if is a good thing to do. At this point all that goes to the compost heap.