Do I have this right about sand?

[cheldi]

We're debating bedding for our new coop. Do I have this right, that sand is good as long as your coop stays dry? Our coop is raised and fully enclosed.

So far after several books read I'm leaning toward deep litter sand method. They will have a large protected run that will be on natural ground, with a baby pool dust bath provided under the coop for cover.

Related Qs-
Tips on the correct names of sand type? (I'm in Pennsylvania - have not seen anything but play sand in stores so I need to know what to ask about when I call suppliers)
What do you do with the sand when you do a big clean out? I've seen recs to compost or add to run but sand isn't going to break down, is it?

 

[DobieLover]

Have you considered using poop boards in the coop instead? They make chicken keeping SO much easier.

You can use a thin layer of sand on them but I much prefer zeolite granules (Sweet PDZ) or stall dry. Both of these mineral break down in the compost pile.

I bed the coop down with either pine shavings or hemp. Both compost. I only clean the coop out annually. The boards are scooped with a metal cat litter scoop into an old cat litter bucket daily.

deep litter sand method

Sand cannot be a deep litter substrate because it does not break down. It will not allow the poop to compost in the coop. It will have to be scooped regularly to keep odors under control.

correct names of sand type

washed concrete sand is coarse enough to work.

sand isn't going to break down, is it?

No. It won't BUT it will promote better soil structure in heavy clay soils when mixed in.

 

[aart]

deep litter sand method.

Never heard of this...deep litter(moist and composting) and sand are 2 different types of bedding.

Tips on the correct names of sand type?

This is near impossible, there are no real standards for labeling and many colloquial 'names' may exist.

 

[cheldi]

Have you considered using poop boards in the coop instead? They make chicken keeping SO much easier.
View attachment 3781329
You can use a thin layer of sand on them but I much prefer zeolite granules (Sweet PDZ) or stall dry. Both of these mineral break down in the compost pile.

I bed the coop down with either pine shavings or hemp. Both compost. I only clean the coop out annually. The boards are scooped with a metal cat litter scoop into an old cat litter bucket daily.


Sand cannot be a deep litter substrate because it does not break down. It will not allow the poop to compost in the coop. It will have to be scooped regularly to keep odors under control.

washed concrete sand is coarse enough to work.

No. It won't BUT it will promote better soil structure in heavy clay soils when mixed in.

Thank you! This is helpful. Yes! We did include poop boards in our coop. We just have to figure out how to position the roosts over them. Ours will be L shaped like your photo so that's again very helpful!

 

[cheldi]

Never heard of this...deep litter(moist and composting) and sand are 2 different types of bedding.


This is near impossible, there are no real standards for labeling and many colloquial 'names' may exist.

Thank you! I think I used the term deep litter just because in my head the sand method shared the "long term" part of deep little method - my mistake to convolute them. The books I've read described using sand and sifting poop out daily but leaving the main bed of sand in for quite a long time, in the same way that deep litter method involves leaving the other bedding types in for along time, but of course that is different as far as adding more and more of the absorbent beddings. thank you!

 

[K0k0shka]

I don't think there is a lot of standardized terminology when it comes to backyard chicken keeping. Some terms have established themselves over time via use on the internet, and I guess maybe books too, but they get confused all the time. For example, "deep litter method" has come to be understood as one specific method, not just any litter that is deep and stays in place. The Deep Litter Method in chicken discussions refers specifically to compostable litter that is kept moist and encouraged to break down and compost over time. It requires the right balance of carbon (litter matter) and nitrogen (poop), the right amount of moisture, and aeration - either by the chickens or the humans stirring it. It's tricky to do right, without ending up with smell and filth, so what a lot of people end up doing instead is the dry equivalent of that - the "deep bedding method". That is a different thing. It's dry and does not compost, and the point of it is for the bedding to absorb the moisture and dry the poop out, because when poop is dry, it doesn't smell or cause sanitation issues. In the dry bedding method, you start out with a thick layer of bedding, and as it gets poopier over time you add more fresh bedding on top, until eventually you do a big clean and shovel it all out. The litter used for this method is usually organic materials (in the chemical sense of the word - organic as in derived from living things like plants, not "organic" in the fancy contemporary meaning of the word as in "raised without chemicals"). I guess technically you could use sand for this, but not for the composting "deep litter" method.

A lot of people use sand in the coop, but they are committed to scooping it regularly. So if you choose sand, you have to stay on top of it and do a lot of cleaning, because it won't compost and it won't absorb, and can start to smell. It's compacted a lot more densely than, say, pine shavings which have a lot of surface area, so wet sand dries very slowly. And it will freeze in the winter. Even if you scoop every day, by the time you get out there in the winter to scoop, the dirty areas will already have frozen solid into slabs of poop concrete.

Another problem with sand is that you have very limited options for what to do with it when eventually you need to do a big clean-out. If you have a lot of land, and very clay-heavy soil, and heavy equipment, you could dump it out there and mix it with the soil, but that's a lot of hard work - sand is heavy; getting it out of the coop will be physically harder than shoveling lightweight shavings; transporting it will require heavier equipment; and digging it into clay soil, at that volume and without turning the soil too sandy, will be a lot of hard work too. And eventually you will have to take it out of the coop, because you can't clean all the poop out - some will dry out and get pulverized into poop dust from the chickens walking/scratching and grinding it down. Over time, the proportion of poop dust to sand will increase, and the poop content will just stay there indefinitely because it won't compost.

Overall, long term, it's more trouble than it's worth. I highly recommend pine shavings or something else that's compostable - either in the coop with the DLM, or outside once you shovel it all out. I personally use the deep bedding method with pine shavings, and am very happy with it. I do a big clean-out twice a year, and the bedding isn't too heavy to shovel at all (unlike sand). I start out with a deep layer of shavings, which have a high surface area and dry quickly. It absorbs moisture and dries out the poop. I periodically add fresh shavings on top, with some PDZ, maybe once a month. Beyond that, I don't do any other cleaning. We have cold winters and it has never frozen solid. It doesn't smell. When I shovel it out, I put it in a compost pile behind the coop where it sits for half a year to a year, at which point I bury it in my garden. This has been working really well for me and I highly recommend it. But with any type of litter, how quickly it gets dirty and how/when you clean it out will depend on the density of chickens per square area. I stay at or under the recommended 1 chicken for every 4 square feet of area, and it has been working great. I have, temporarily, had more chickens than that in the coop, and oh man can you really feel it! It gets dirty much faster and breaks my nice balance.

 

[cheldi]

I don't think there is a lot of standardized terminology when it comes to backyard chicken keeping. Some terms have established themselves over time via use on the internet, and I guess maybe books too, but they get confused all the time. For example, "deep litter method" has come to be understood as one specific method, not just any litter that is deep and stays in place. The Deep Litter Method in chicken discussions refers specifically to compostable litter that is kept moist and encouraged to break down and compost over time. It requires the right balance of carbon (litter matter) and nitrogen (poop), the right amount of moisture, and aeration - either by the chickens or the humans stirring it. It's tricky to do right, without ending up with smell and filth, so what a lot of people end up doing instead is the dry equivalent of that - the "deep bedding method". That is a different thing. It's dry and does not compost, and the point of it is for the bedding to absorb the moisture and dry the poop out, because when poop is dry, it doesn't smell or cause sanitation issues. In the dry bedding method, you start out with a thick layer of bedding, and as it gets poopier over time you add more fresh bedding on top, until eventually you do a big clean and shovel it all out. The litter used for this method is usually organic materials (in the chemical sense of the word - organic as in derived from living things like plants, not "organic" in the fancy contemporary meaning of the word as in "raised without chemicals"). I guess technically you could use sand for this, but not for the composting "deep litter" method.

A lot of people use sand in the coop, but they are committed to scooping it regularly. So if you choose sand, you have to stay on top of it and do a lot of cleaning, because it won't compost and it won't absorb, and can start to smell. It's compacted a lot more densely than, say, pine shavings which have a lot of surface area, so wet sand dries very slowly. And it will freeze in the winter. Even if you scoop every day, by the time you get out there in the winter to scoop, the dirty areas will already have frozen solid into slabs of poop concrete.

Another problem with sand is that you have very limited options for what to do with it when eventually you need to do a big clean-out. If you have a lot of land, and very clay-heavy soil, and heavy equipment, you could dump it out there and mix it with the soil, but that's a lot of hard work - sand is heavy; getting it out of the coop will be physically harder than shoveling lightweight shavings; transporting it will require heavier equipment; and digging it into clay soil, at that volume and without turning the soil too sandy, will be a lot of hard work too. And eventually you will have to take it out of the coop, because you can't clean all the poop out - some will dry out and get pulverized into poop dust from the chickens walking/scratching and grinding it down. Over time, the proportion of poop dust to sand will increase, and the poop content will just stay there indefinitely because it won't compost.

Overall, long term, it's more trouble than it's worth. I highly recommend pine shavings or something else that's compostable - either in the coop with the DLM, or outside once you shovel it all out. I personally use the deep bedding method with pine shavings, and am very happy with it. I do a big clean-out twice a year, and the bedding isn't too heavy to shovel at all (unlike sand). I start out with a deep layer of shavings, which have a high surface area and dry quickly. It absorbs moisture and dries out the poop. I periodically add fresh shavings on top, with some PDZ, maybe once a month. Beyond that, I don't do any other cleaning. We have cold winters and it has never frozen solid. It doesn't smell. When I shovel it out, I put it in a compost pile behind the coop where it sits for half a year to a year, at which point I bury it in my garden. This has been working really well for me and I highly recommend it. But with any type of litter, how quickly it gets dirty and how/when you clean it out will depend on the density of chickens per square area. I stay at or under the recommended 1 chicken for every 4 square feet of area, and it has been working great. I have, temporarily, had more chickens than that in the coop, and oh man can you really feel it! It gets dirty much faster and breaks my nice balance.

Thank you very much for taking the time to go into the terminology as well as your personal experience - that helps a lot!

 

[SoCal Chicken Mama]

Have you considered using poop boards in the coop instead? They make chicken keeping SO much easier.
View attachment 3781329
You can use a thin layer of sand on them but I much prefer zeolite granules (Sweet PDZ) or stall dry. Both of these mineral break down in the compost pile.

I bed the coop down with either pine shavings or hemp. Both compost. I only clean the coop out annually. The boards are scooped with a metal cat litter scoop into an old cat litter bucket daily.


Sand cannot be a deep litter substrate because it does not break down. It will not allow the poop to compost in the coop. It will have to be scooped regularly to keep odors under control.

washed concrete sand is coarse enough to work.

No. It won't BUT it will promote better soil structure in heavy clay soils when mixed in.

I saw a YouTube video where a woman compared 4 types of bedding, shredded paper, hemp, coarse sand, and pine shavings. Her chicks preferred the paper, but she preferred the coarse sand because of ease of cleaning. She talked about buying it by the truckload for about 45 cents a pound, but around here we have to buy it in bags, called "Coarse paver sand" I'm assuming you have a coop that is open to the ground like mine. I don't think you could use this method in a coop with a wood floor.

 

[SoCal Chicken Mama]

Up inside the house where they sleep I have a machine washable pet mat that is meant to put under a cat litter box. I give them a clean one every day (cut to fit to cover the whole floor). this coop's floor is a metal tray that can be take out and rinsed off, however I can't do that easily because there is a tree in the way. So I just change the mat, hose it off, and machine wash it. Small residential yard. I think in the heat the sand area gets enough sun to dry out if I rinse it once a week. It's blistering hot here during the day. This coop does a very good job keeping them in deep shade all day. I sometimes drape a shade cloth over the wire end. Just one side.

 

[SoCal Chicken Mama]

They are very tiny, three weeks old. I'm going to put a hardware cloth screen behind one of the doors (there is only one ramp and this door is not the one they use), so it can be left open for fresh air. Right now they spend all day in the sand area under the coop. We are building the run next week. They only go inside, under the brooder, at night. I don't have room for a "much larger run", but when they are bigger I plan to also get a chicken tractor that I can move around the grass to give them additional grazing area. The run outside the coop will be planted with "chicks mix", which they love. It is is a shaded area.