Deep litter!

[The Backyard Bantams]

Hi! What's your experience with deep litter? Any tips?

I started it a few months ago with hemp bedding. I have a small coop that I bought and my 4 little bantam pullets live in it at night. They only sit on 50cm of perch even though they have multiple. I guess it doesn’t really smell, but for me personally I don’t think it’s worth it. I did it mainly to warm to coop up, (my winters aren’t actually that cold) but my main problem is iceberg just used sooooo much bedding! Like, a couple hundred litres of expensive hemp, and it’s not even 30cm deep (my coop is really small).

Before using deep litter I would just have a couple cm of bedding, and every day I would just scoop out the poop. It never smelled and was super easy. Also, my coop is not made for deep litter. The door is right at the bottom of the coop and the coop is only 80cm or so high. I had a short board in front of the door to hold the bedding in, (enough room for them to fit though) and a tarp on the floor to stop the fine hemp from falling through the slats.

So i think deep litter isn’t right for me. I'm going to switch back to normal in the spring.

Oh, and I really recommend hemp! It is so absorbent, natural, sort, warm, dust-free and is actually pretty cheap. I buy it online at a place called pet circle (for Australia only) in 100L bales. They are about $35 au each.

 

[3KillerBs]

There are two concepts that are readily confused:

Deep Bedding, which is always kept dry, and Deep Litter, which is a form of cold composting -- requiring some moisture and, optimally, bare ground contact.

For my in-town chickens I used Deep Bedding in the coop -- piling on layers of pine shavings* every couple weeks and changing it out every 6-12 weeks as needed (judging based on odor and the visual determination that the poop-to-shaving ratio had gotten too high). I threw a handful of scratch into the bedding once or twice a week to encourage the chickens to stir it up and occasionally used the manure fork to break up any crusty areas.

It stayed bone-dry and didn't start composting until I took it out and made a pile (watering the layers as I built the pile).

I used Deep Litter in the run. That was a mix of pine shavings, pine straw, straw, fall leaves, etc. -- a mix of materials in different sizes and textures provides better drainage and better aeration than just one thing (I'd have used wood chips but didn't have any available on that property). I kept adding layers of new material anytime I noticed an odor or thought it looked too messy. The chickens LOVE having a new pile of pine straw or leaves to kick around.

Again, I tossed scratch in a few times a week to encourage digging and used the manure fork to break up crusts and mats. I only had to clean it out when it either got inconveniently deep or I wanted compost for the garden (I'd take it out a month before it was wanted and let it age).

If your coop is so small that you can only use a few centimeters of bedding at a time you probably have no alternative to intensive poop management via scooping, etc. My deep bedding starts at 4-5 inches and finishes at 10-12 inches.

*I tried straw as bedding once because the guy at the feed store convinced my DH to buy that instead of shavings and only got a month out of it -- never again. I will put a bale of straw in the run for them to sit on and tear apart over the winter, but not use it as bedding.

 

[The Backyard Bantams]

There are two concepts that are readily confused:

Deep Bedding, which is always kept dry, and Deep Litter, which is a form of cold composting -- requiring some moisture and, optimally, bare ground contact.

For my in-town chickens I used Deep Bedding in the coop -- piling on layers of pine shavings* every couple weeks and changing it out every 6-12 weeks as needed (judging based on odor and the visual determination that the poop-to-shaving ratio had gotten too high). I threw a handful of scratch into the bedding once or twice a week to encourage the chickens to stir it up and occasionally used the manure fork to break up any crusty areas.

It stayed bone-dry and didn't start composting until I took it out and made a pile (watering the layers as I built the pile).

I used Deep Litter in the run. That was a mix of pine shavings, pine straw, straw, fall leaves, etc. -- a mix of materials in different sizes and textures provides better drainage and better aeration than just one thing (I'd have used wood chips but didn't have any available on that property). I kept adding layers of new material anytime I noticed an odor or thought it looked too messy. The chickens LOVE having a new pile of pine straw or leaves to kick around.

Again, I tossed scratch in a few times a week to encourage digging and used the manure fork to break up crusts and mats. I only had to clean it out when it either got inconveniently deep or I wanted compost for the garden (I'd take it out a month before it was wanted and let it age).

If your coop is so small that you can only use a few centimeters of bedding at a time you probably have no alternative to intensive poop management via scooping, etc. My deep bedding starts at 4-5 inches and finishes at 10-12 inches.

*I tried straw as bedding once because the guy at the feed store convinced my DH to buy that instead of shavings and only got a month out of it -- never again. I will put a bale of straw in the run for them to sit on and tear apart over the winter, but not use it as bedding.

Deep bedding deep litter then lol.

I have mulch on the floor of my run so I suppose thats sort of deep litter... if I put a board up against the door, with enough room for the chickens to fit in I can get it to about 3/4 of a foot deep… I just don’t think it’s worth using so much bedding, hemp is expensive but really good. Actually for the first couple weeks of owning chickens I tried out pea straw... I am scarred for life... it smelt horrible after a day and I had to clean the whole coop out every three days… It actually turned out to be more expensive than hemp by a lot because I had to change it so often…And it was so dusty! It literally hurt I was coughing when I was putting in there… Very bad for the chickens lungs…PLEASE DO NOT USE STRAW!

 

[rosemarythyme]

I have mulch on the floor of my run so I suppose thats sort of deep litter... if I put a board up against the door, with enough room for the chickens to fit in I can get it to about 3/4 of a foot deep… I just don’t think it’s worth using so much bedding,

No, mulch by itself is not deep litter. Neither is a boatload of hemp inside a coop. You have the two concepts confused - it's like saying dogs are hard to train but you only have cats.

Deep litter does NOT work well in most coops. It does work well in many run set ups, but not all.

If you had a coop litter management system that worked for you, absolutely stick with it. No reason to change just because someone else uses something different. I had to experiment a bit to figure out what would work for me.

 

[3KillerBs]

I just don’t think it’s worth using so much bedding, hemp is expensive but really good.

Everyone's management system will differ.

I don't want to have to do all that daily scooping and tending so I use cheap bedding in the coop and free/cheap litter in the run in quantities that allow me to clean the coop once every 6-12 weeks and the run twice a year.

Not everyone has room for a tree service to dump a truckload of wood chips to age in an out of the way corner or has all the pine straw they could want free for the raking (and a 14yo boy to help with the raking).

 

[David61]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/refill-on-deep-litter-run.1393987/

I have been very pleased. No smell or mess and not much maintenance. Outside netted run is deep litter.
The Covered roof coop/run is dirt floor with pine shaving with poop board under roost. I rake the poop board clean every forth day. I rake the covered coop run twice a month and add pine shavings once a month. I muck out the pine shavings every third month add it to the deep litter run.
I add to the deep litter as needed and that is talked about in the thread I posted above.

 

[aart]

The terms 'deep litter' and 'deep bedding' are often misunderstood and misapplied.
I've always liked this explanation:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-method-with-this-coop.1075545/#post-16440037

What kind of bedding you use may depend on how you manage the manure.
This is about cleaning, but covers my big picture
-I use poop boards under roosts with thin(<1/2") layer of sand/PDZ mix, sifted daily(takes 5-10mins) into bucket going to friends compost.
-Scrape big or wet poops off roost and ramps as needed.
-Pine shavings on coop floor, add some occasionally, totally changed out once or twice a year, old shavings added to run.
- My runs have semi-deep litter(cold composting), never clean anything out, just add smaller dry materials on occasion, add larger wood chippings as needed.
Aged ramial wood chippings are best IMO.
-Nests are bedded with straw, add some occasionally, change out if needed(broken egg).
There is no odor, unless a fresh cecal has been dropped and when I open the bucket to add more poop.
That's how I keep it 'clean', have not found any reason to clean 'deeper' in 5 years.

 

[David61]

Like aart said, pine shavings take up moisture and dry the poop and keep it off the dirt floor but its still there. If it gets wet you need to get it dry or get it out. Deep litter is a bio generator and eats up everything bit of poop, wood chips, grass chippings, leaf and bio degradable plant and food matter. it makes dirt and can be bagged and used as chicken fertilizer for gardens, flower beds or worm beds. Its hot fertilizer.