Mostly, when you smell ammonia, it's due to too little ventilation. Also, the use of just one material for deep litter and that being a material that doesn't really break down well, you'll get more ammonia issues.
Deep litter is more than just having bedding that is deep, so you'll want materials that bind easily with the manure and break down in place....a good mix of different sized particles that are of different break down rate will be more successful. Leaves, pine needles, bark, twigs, lawn debris of a combination of all these things...all of these can create a better litter experience.
For now, you can get some sweet lime at any garden center and sweeten up your litter and control the smell and moisture with a light layer of that. Then see if you can open up some ventilation near the floor level and some up higher and have a good intake/outflow of air that will lift that ammonia up and out.
Until you can get better materials than wood shavings, you might try getting a couple bags of mulch and laying down a layer in your litter after you apply the sweet lime. This will give you some other textures and materials to help you along.
This method works best if you have really good ventilation at all levels, a mix of materials that break down at different rates, and then just play around with your coop and these materials until you get the mix of both things that works for you. Another thing to think about is stocking levels....if you have too many birds to your coop space, it can be way more difficult to control and manage your DL, so that's another consideration.
I'm gonna see what materials I can scrounge up in the next couple weeks and then work out a design. I really am not that far gone mentally. I do get big ideas sometimes but not THAT big. Everyone prolly thinks I'm a nut case!
