Deep litter method

[SavageDestiny]

It will be different for each coop/person depending upon the climate, the season, the materials used, the ventilation, the coop floor or lack thereof, the stocking rate, etc. You'll know it's not working if you are smelling ammonia....then you need to adjust something.

You'll have to start seeing the poop as something NOT dirty but more as an integral part of a working system..without the poop, no need for the system and the whole cultured composting aspect of it.

I'll be doing a little video of the deep litter in my coop here soon and hope it will show the clean freaks of the world out there just how wonderful a working DL really is....too bad we don't have smellavision. If you hadn't dealt with chicken poop for most of your natural born life, you couldn't possibly understand how wonderful this method truly is...cleaning out animal poop for that long would cure you of your need to scoop poop. My granny would have leaped for joy to have known about it! My mother (79 yrs old) is in constant amazement to stand in a chicken coop at the height of summer and not smell chicken poop nor see a single fly. And you'll not meet anyone who is more of a clean freak then my mother....she probably has bleach running through her veins instead of blood.

Thanks for the reassurance Bee!

That said... I did a check on my girls this morning and found lice on one of them. Obviously I'm going to treat for it and I'm going to pull out all the shavings, spray down the coop with Poultry Protector and coat everything with DE to try and nip this in the bud. Will the DE ruin my chances of starting a successful deep litter? I'm so upset. I can't believe I've had the girls less than a week and something is already awry.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Just because one of your girls has lice doesn't mean things are messed up. If she is outside at all, the only thing that has to happen for her to get lice is for a wild bird to fly over and one single female louse fall off and land on or near her. She gets underneath those feathers, finds a warm spot and starts laying eggs. That's all it takes. I wouldn't strip my DL because of lice. Just treat the bird and check your others to be sure they don't have them too.

 

[armorfirelady]

That said... I did a check on my girls this morning and found lice on one of them. Obviously I'm going to treat for it and I'm going to pull out all the shavings, spray down the coop with Poultry Protector and coat everything with DE to try and nip this in the bud. Will the DE ruin my chances of starting a successful deep litter? I'm so upset. I can't believe I've had the girls less than a week and something is already awry.

I am not bee but you can use wood ash if you have it. Dust the girls every day for a few days and leave a container of wood ash out all the time so they have access to it. I also sprayed everything with neem oil. And removed all the litter as well. You have to burn it or throw it away so they dont reinfect themselves. It got rid of the mites for me

 

[SavageDestiny]

Just because one of your girls has lice doesn't mean things are messed up. If she is outside at all, the only thing that has to happen for her to get lice is for a wild bird to fly over and one single female louse fall off and land on or near her. She gets underneath those feathers, finds a warm spot and starts laying eggs. That's all it takes. I wouldn't strip my DL because of lice. Just treat the bird and check your others to be sure they don't have them too.

Well the DL has been going less than a week so it hasn't really started being DL yet I don't think.

I am not bee but you can use wood ash if you have it. Dust the girls every day for a few days and leave a container of wood ash out all the time so they have access to it. I also sprayed everything with neem oil. And removed all the litter as well. You have to burn it or throw it away so they dont reinfect themselves. It got rid of the mites for me

I don't have any wood ash. I did find out from the guy at Wilco that I wasn't using the DE properly. I was coating their dust bath holes, but he said they should be filled 3" or more deep with DE in order to be effective. So I did that, pulled the litter from the coop, sprayed the girls and the coop with Poultry Protector, and when it dries I'll coat with DE too. Hopefully this will get rid of it!

 

[pegm]

I currently use sand and take a minute or two to clean it each day. This has been working well up until we (finally thank you God) had heavy rains. Most of my run is covered, but I did leave part of it uncovered. There is a drainage ditch just above the coop area behind a fence. We have sandy soil, and one day the run actually flooded because it was just raining so hard. I got out and removed a foundation brick and most of the water flowed on out, but part of the ground beside the run flooded and that also ran into the run. I ditched it and got it mostly drained, It is still easy to clean, but ff not-with-standing, the coop still smells, because their poop still smells. Maybe not as bad as it may be if they were not in ff. I have been considering going to DL method, but with the drainage problems I experienced, I am wondering if that is such a good idea. I plan on covering the remainder of the run this summer, but the other flood area that ran into it will still be an issue. Will the water just stay under the litter? It will of course be absorbed by the sand, but I'm wondering if having a constantly damp under floor is a good thing? Our summers here are hot and dry, and last summer I gave wet the sand down considerably for them to dig in. I'm not sure that putting that much water in with the DL is good or not. Some advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Beekissed]

I currently use sand and take a minute or two to clean it each day. This has been working well up until we (finally thank you God) had heavy rains. Most of my run is covered, but I did leave part of it uncovered. There is a drainage ditch just above the coop area behind a fence. We have sandy soil, and one day the run actually flooded because it was just raining so hard. I got out and removed a foundation brick and most of the water flowed on out, but part of the ground beside the run flooded and that also ran into the run. I ditched it and got it mostly drained, It is still easy to clean, but ff not-with-standing, the coop still smells, because their poop still smells. Maybe not as bad as it may be if they were not in ff. I have been considering going to DL method, but with the drainage problems I experienced, I am wondering if that is such a good idea. I plan on covering the remainder of the run this summer, but the other flood area that ran into it will still be an issue. Will the water just stay under the litter? It will of course be absorbed by the sand, but I'm wondering if having a constantly damp under floor is a good thing? Our summers here are hot and dry, and last summer I gave wet the sand down considerably for them to dig in. I'm not sure that putting that much water in with the DL is good or not. Some advice will be greatly appreciated.

What you could do is divert the water away from your coop if you can by the use of banking or swales or even French drains. The water runs down our hill and right past and sometimes into the coop but the depth of the litter seems to absorb it within a few days, leaving the top layer dry and the bottom moist. That's when the bugs and worms really move into that lower level of DL...the rain must wash the nutrients from it deeper into the soils and bring up worms because a few days or so after a good, steady rains and the edges of the my coop have become really wet down, the chickens will start digging to China all along the edges of the coop, sending the moist bedding under the edges of the coop into the middle as they hunt like crazy for the worms there.

The only way to describe how my bedding looks some days after hard rains is to compare it to an ICEE or slushy in which the syrup has moved to the bottom and left the top a little colorless. That's how my DL reacts....dry where they walk, but just a few inches under the top layer is dark, moist bedding that smells like soil. It almost wicks it away from the surface.

 

[pegm]

Thanks Bee, I am wondering also how to start the DL. I already have a sand base, I'm assuming you then put down another type of layer and so on. There won't be leaves to speak of until Fall. I can probably find pine needles, and get peat, but I will have access to LOTS of cut grass intermixed with the few leaves that will fall when we start mowing our lawns. I also have access to grass hay, but in my experience, hay gets slimy and moldy when moist. I really need to reduce the smell because our neighbors are so close. They don't complain mind you, but I don't went them to either.

 

[Beekissed]

Thanks Bee, I am wondering also how to start the DL. I already have a sand base, I'm assuming you then put down another type of layer and so on. There won't be leaves to speak of until Fall. I can probably find pine needles, and get peat, but I will have access to LOTS of cut grass intermixed with the few leaves that will fall when we start mowing our lawns. I also have access to grass hay, but in my experience, hay gets slimy and moldy when moist. I really need to reduce the smell because our neighbors are so close. They don't complain mind you, but I don't went them to either.

If you can get rid of that sand base it will work a lot better. If you cannot, you might try to dilute it with some good soil or mulch before you begin. Then just start making poop lasagna with whatever material suits your fancy. The wood chips make a good first layer because they don't compress,which allows for air pockets in the mix. Then a layer of finer materials like leaves or raked up yard debris. I wouldn't do much cut grass if you live where it's humid, as it will soak up moisture/humidity~even if well dried first~ and clump, but you can do thin layers of it now and again between the bulkier materials...I like to call it a sprinkling. Woody weed, flower or herbage that isn't too strongly scented can make for some good gaps and air pockets in the mix and provide texture that can keep finer materials from clumping.

I think the most successful litters are those that use a variety of slower and fast composting/decomposing materials, bulky and fine, dry materials in the wet seasons and more moist in the dry parts of summer. Once you've built a good base and have some really good depth you can slow down on adding things and just keep burying your roost deposits in the DL each day or every other day by lightly tossing dry litter on them or lightly turning them into the top layers. Bugs and worms don't like being exposed in order to feed, so keeping the poop under a layer of litter will encourage dispersal of the feces. I found that out when raising earthworms....they would consume veggie scraps more readily if I placed them under the top layer of soil than if I just placed them on the surface.

The biggest help of all for keeping it well balanced is ventilation...I can't stress that enough. Even if the DL gets soaked in a rainy season, good, open air cooping can really help that moisture disperse and absorb more easily. Any heat generated by the litter in the summer can also escape readily if you have open air coops and I encourage anyone wanting healthy animals to have good airflow in their coops both summer and winter.

 

[pegm]

Since we are near a lake the soil is sandy naturally and drains well (when it's not pouring at least). When I water the yard 2 hours later the soil is pretty dry in the summer. I would have to amend the run with topsoil maybe. We are not humid here, maybe a few days in the summer, but mostly quite dry, and the afternoon sun hits the coop full force at the hottest part of the day, which is why I spray water in there to cool it down. I also shade it with a tarp. It does not restrict airflow however. Any grass I have put in the run in the past has dried out very well, but also it was not deep litter, just threw it in and cleaned it out every week. My run where I would do this is open, fenced on 2 sides, open on the other two so ventilation is not an issue. My coop is raised and they only go in at night, and I use Sweet PDZ in there. It is the run I am considering this for.

 

[niqueie]

We got torrential rains last weekend here also. I just started chicken keeping last fall. We had issues with a muddy run a couple times. Then I got some chipped wood and leaves / pine needles from a tree trimming company. It has been wonderful. The run never got muddy or very squishy even with the mulched tree trimmings. I was surprised. One corner of the run even acted like a collection basin before we put the mulched/chipped tree trimmings in there. It would fill up and sit with water for days. I live in San Diego and it's pretty dry usually, but some days it gets very wet. We also have times that there is a fair amount of humidity. I got the trimmings free from a tree service I saw working down the street. I just asked of they could dump it in my side yard next to my driveway. I love it and haven't had to do anything to it. It's about 12" thick in the corner that floods so easily. We also have some sandy soil some clay soil here.