Deep litter method can be accomplished in the coop too. We used cypress mulch (just raked it up from under the trees!) which smelled fabulous, shredded paper from a local business (in coop only!), and autumn leaves. We cleaned our coop twice a year, with an occasional mix of the litter or scoop out of a poop pile when needed. Twice a year we removed all the litter in the coop and put in fresh.
Essentially with deep litter, the poop either dries out or decomposes so fast that their never is any smell. You just keep adding more and more litter material to the top and mixing it in. It also provides a softer landing and floor insulation in the coop and entertainment for your chooks in the run! We lived on a small city lot, so having no smell was VERY important to us. Making sure your run has good drainage is the 1st step in a clean run! Ours naturally sloped to prevent mud/puddles. Every spring we'd snag a truckful of wood chips from the city transfer station (the tree companies dumped there and it wass free for public use) and spread them out in our run. During summer we bagged our yard and dumped the clippings in the run. They loved to dig through them and would spread them out with their scratching, eating the tasty bits like dandelion and clover. In the autumn we raked all our leaves up and tossed them in the run, and we snagged our neighbors leaf bags too! This is also when we went to the local park and raked up the cypress needles that had fallen under the trees. These we put mostly in the coop and nesting boxes. It smelled SO GOOD! Our chooks loved them too.
We actually fed our chooks acorns a lot. Some were not enjoyed very much, but those white oak acorns were eaten with relish! They are very nutritious, we would run ours over in a gunny sack a couple times to break them up before feeding.
