Deep litter v poop board -- what do you think?

[kitkat5505]

I maintain a composting deep litter in my run. In the coop I have a deep layer of dry bedding (some combination of pine shavings, chopped straw, hay, and dry leaves) and a poop tray with PDZ (crushed zeolite product)

My coop is a tad small for the number of birds I have. They would produce too much poop for the space if I tried to maintain a composting deep litter in the coop. The trays catch 90% of the poop and are scooped every couple of days. The random stray poops "disappear" into the bedding which gets cleaned out yearly and dumped in the run along with grass clippings, leaves, and other yard waste.

The net result is that my birds get all the benefit deep litter has to offer and they have a very dry, clean and odor-free coop to sleep and lay in.

The only time my birds had coccidiosis was when I had a sand run that got saturated with spring snowmelt and rain. I've had two rainy springs on the deep litter since and no sign of cocci.

This is pretty much what I do too and it works very well. DLM in run, pine shavings in coop with poop board and pdz.

 

[ChitownHV]

It's simple to do both. I have a poop board with PDZ, which takes care of the heavy, nightly poops, and deep litter composed of pine shavings and pine straw for the occasional poop. I scoop out the board every 2-3 days, and while I'm in there I stir up the deep litter. No smell and no hassle. The deep litter, BTW, is on a linoleum covered floor.

 

[IamRainey]

This is pretty much what I do too and it works very well. DLM in run, pine shavings in coop with poop board and pdz.

Good to know. Thanks for the input.

But I'm still a little confused. I thought part of the advantage of DLM was that the composting inside the coop would keep temperatures warmer through the winter. So doesn't it make sense to do it inside the coop rather than the open run where all that heat will be dissipated anyway?

I had planned on letting my hens have a bare earth floor in the run. Mistake?

Again, thanks so much. I'm learning from you and I'll be better prepared when the 6-week old chicks arrive in a week or so.

 

[ChitownHV]

Go ahead and do the DLM in the coop to receive the "heat" benefit.
I use pine mulch and pine straw over bare earth in my covered run. It never gets muddy, and the hens do a good job of mixing it up as they search for the hand full of scratch that I toss in every few days.

 

[Gramma Chick]

Go ahead and do the DLM in the coop to receive the "heat" benefit.
I use pine mulch and pine straw over bare earth in my covered run. It never gets muddy, and the hens do a good job of mixing it up as they search for the hand full of scratch that I toss in every few days.

I too use the deep litter method on a dirt floor .
I use dried grass and dry leaves ..pine needles wood chips or sawdust
Basically what ever I have available
( I usually have about 30 leaf bags for the winter - Harvested from neighbors lawns too . I have a lawn rake so it is easier and quicker )
Some put in lots of litter and mix it up . My method is add it on the top every few days as needed and mix it in then very slightly . There is very little smell this way and the bottom does decompose . ( and adds heat ) and can be put straight on the garden in the spring
I read somewhere That chickens need some bacteria for their digestion .
Give a chicken a choice of a clean water dish or a dirty one ...they will take the dirty one every time or a mud puddlle

 

[Ridgerunner]

In Los Angeles you are not in the least worried about needing heat for the winter. In a well-ventilated coop with decent breeze protection my chickens don’t need heat when it’s below zero Fahrenheit. They get no heat benefit from anything other than their feathers. That’s plenty. Your record low is barely below freezing. I’ve had 5 week olds manage that without supplemental heat.

In the deep litter method you are turning your coop (or run) into a compost pile. For materials to compost the stuff needs to be slightly damp. If it gets too wet it stinks and gets slimy. If it gets too dry the bugs and microbes that eat that stuff can’t live and reproduce. There is a certain window of how moist it needs to be so you have some latitude. A coop too wet is unhealthy, stinky, and slimy. In a coop too dry the stuff doesn’t compost but it is not unhealthy, stinky, or slimy. It just doesn’t compost.

If poop builds up to a certain thickness it will not dry out. How big is your coop, how many chickens, how much time do they spend in there? That will determine how fast it gets to where it stays wet. Good ventilation helps it dry out too, just keep outside moisture out. You can get a huge advantage from a droppings board in this respect. Chickens poop all the time but at night they don’t move around so it builds up. A droppings board makes it easier to collect this piled up poop and get it out of your coop.

For stuff to compost you need both greens (nitrogen) and browns (carbon). The closer you have those in the right proportions the faster it composts. Pure poop is a green, the shavings and most bedding are browns. As long as you have some of both and it’s slightly damp it will compost. You don’t have to have those proportions exact or even that close for the process to work.

I have a relatively large (for my number of birds) coop that stays dry. It has a dirt floor with wood shavings on top. For what it’s worth my main run is bare dirt but I also have a large area of grass inside electric netting. I use the top of my built-in brooder for a droppings board. No PDZ or anything else, just a flat piece of plywood. When I have a large number of chickens sleeping over it and the weather is wet I might scrape it once a week and put that pure poop on my compost pile. With a smaller number of chickens and dry weather I might scrape it once every six weeks. My nose tells me when I’ve waited too long, it starts to smell.

My coop is so dry that stuff does not compost. Some poop gets mixed in and the chickens scratch the whole thing pretty much to a powder over time. I clean out my bedding once every three or four years. Not because I have to but because I want that stuff on my garden. I put it on in late fall and by planting time it’s broken down.

If I did not use a droppings board that poop under the roosts would build up. I could probably get around that by raking it into the rest of the bedding or tossing scratch in that area so the chickens would rake it for me with their scratching, but I want that stuff in my compost anyway. I have a lot of outside room so the chickens are hardly ever in the coop except at night, most of their daytime pooping is outside. My system works for me.

I don’t know how important that stuff actually composting is to you. Think of the bedding as a diaper. Its purpose is to absorb moisture and keep things dry. That’s going to take care of any smell problem, it stays dry. If you can turn that into compost so much the better, but how high is compost on your priority list? Would you be happy with dry and no smell but no compost?

I don’t know what the right answer is for you. I envision you in suburbia with a few hens and a fairly small coop and run. Smell would be an issue with you and your neighbors. You’ll probably have to do some poop management but in your warm dry climate it shouldn’t be too bad. A true deep litter method or just dry litter would probably work well for you but in something small the poop could build up.

Good luck!

 

[kitkat5505]

Good to know. Thanks for the input.

But I'm still a little confused. I thought part of the advantage of DLM was that the composting inside the coop would keep temperatures warmer through the winter. So doesn't it make sense to do it inside the coop rather than the open run where all that heat will be dissipated anyway?

I had planned on letting my hens have a bare earth floor in the run. Mistake?

Again, thanks so much. I'm learning from you and I'll be better prepared when the 6-week old chicks arrive in a week or so.

I tried bare ground in my run at first. It stunk so bad! DLM keeps the smell down. A good thick layer of bedding in the coop will help insulate during winter and their body heat will keep them warm enough, most standard chickens do just fine during winter with no extra heat.

 

[Connie57]

After doing extensive I went with sand in the bottom of the coop and poop boards under their roosts when we built our coop a little over one year ago. I put Sweet PDZ on the poop boards and clean the boards once or twice a week, the coop floor twice a year and haven't had any issues with moisture (=smell), mites, etc. at all! The PDZ and sand act as a desicate and dry out the poop, which prevents odor and makes cleanup so easy! I use a kitty litter scoop to clean the poop boards and replenish the PDZ as needed and purchased a perforated shovel on Amazon to sift the sand on the coop floor. The only downside is that the chickens like to dust bathe in the sand

 

[IamRainey]

Fabulous contributions all!!!

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

 

[TeeMom]

I use the deep litter method only, but I'm not necessarily composting. Mine is on a concrete floor and I cover it with a thick layer of pine shavings and add more as needed. I don't have any moisture in there and am not adding any green to actually compost, but the pine litter and the poop does break down as time goes by. I usually do a big scoop and spray out once a year and move the used litter to the actual compost pile. I throw a scoop of scratch in the coop daily and the chickens do my work for me by turning the litter to dig for the elusive food. It works great! No smell and happy, healthy chickens.