Help with the deep liter method

[Svyetii]

Okay everyone, I’m just over one year into my chicken keeping adventure and still trying to figure things out. I chose the deep liter method for my coop. In part, because I’m lazy and travel a lot, and also because I’d like well composted manure for the garden. After reading several articles on the best ways to do this, I opted for pine shavings as the main liter. Here’s the thing: 1) I live in New Mexico, so it’s very dry. While I have no issues with smell, etc., the bedding and droppings just petrify and don’t really break down. 2) because they’re not breaking down, I’m afraid they’ll be too acidic to add to the garden soil. So, here are my questions:

1. For those of you who use the deep liter method in dry climates, what materials do you use and how often do you change it out?

2. For those of you who use the deep liter method and garden, do you add the composted liter direct to the garden from the coop, or do you dump it somewhere to further break down and become less hot before adding it?

Thank you!

 

[Stephine]

I have deep litter in the run - doesn’t really make sense to me to do it in a coop. I use wood chips (not pine shavings) and have not done anything with it yet, other than adding a bit more wood chips a few times. I n the coop I use waste hay, cleannit all out wvery two months or so (I have dropping boards). I dump the manure on a pil and let it compost for a year or so.

 

[Ted Brown]

Compost requires moisture and 6-12 months to become something that is useful.

Like the poster above I remove droppings from the drop board to the composter on a regular basis - most will say daily. I make sure to balance this with household waste and other organic materials from my yard. Compost goes into my gardens after a year.

In my coop I use pine shavings and clean out to the run each spring. In the run I used coarse wood chips/mulch as the base and add fallen leaves/needles each fall. My run is in it's 5th year, is covered and on well drained ground; I have not removed any material from the run as yet.

 

[ksbkeys]

Okay everyone, I’m just over one year into my chicken keeping adventure and still trying to figure things out. I chose the deep liter method for my coop. In part, because I’m lazy and travel a lot, and also because I’d like well composted manure for the garden. After reading several articles on the best ways to do this, I opted for pine shavings as the main liter. Here’s the thing: 1) I live in New Mexico, so it’s very dry. While I have no issues with smell, etc., the bedding and droppings just petrify and don’t really break down. 2) because they’re not breaking down, I’m afraid they’ll be too acidic to add to the garden soil. So, here are my questions:

1. For those of you who use the deep liter method in dry climates, what materials do you use and how often do you change it out?

2. For those of you who use the deep liter method and garden, do you add the composted liter direct to the garden from the coop, or do you dump it somewhere to further break down and become less hot before adding it?

Thank you!

Okay everyone, I’m just over one year into my chicken keeping adventure and still trying to figure things out. I chose the deep liter method for my coop. In part, because I’m lazy and travel a lot, and also because I’d like well composted manure for the garden. After reading several articles on the best ways to do this, I opted for pine shavings as the main liter. Here’s the thing: 1) I live in New Mexico, so it’s very dry. While I have no issues with smell, etc., the bedding and droppings just petrify and don’t really break down. 2) because they’re not breaking down, I’m afraid they’ll be too acidic to add to the garden soil. So, here are my questions:

1. For those of you who use the deep liter method in dry climates, what materials do you use and how often do you change it out?

2. For those of you who use the deep liter method and garden, do you add the composted liter direct to the garden from the coop, or do you dump it somewhere to further break down and become less hot before adding it?

Thank you!

I fully change and wash the inside of my coop with a water and bleach solution once a year. In between, I add in fresh shavings to keep the litter the right consistency...not too clumpy but not dusty and dry. I also use my nose to tell if more is needed. If it has any odor, especially any hint of ammonia, I add more. As for the garden, I let the manure age about 6 months or more. You can get salmonella not to mention burn your plants if you put it directly on your garden. I also usually till it into my garden in the fall after the growing season is over so it can further age over the winter months.

 

[21hens-incharge]

If your coop has a floor deep litter won't decompose as it's actually deep bedding.

Can you give us some details about your coop?

 

[aart]

If you want to compost to make garden soil, wood is the last thing you want to use as it can take very long to break down without managing a hot compost.

 

[David61]

A dry roofed/covered coop/run? no need to deep litter with a poop board. I have a dirt floor and use large pine shavings just enough to cover the floor. i rake out 3/4 of it about once a month or so depending on how much rain splashes in. The outside uncovered run is wood chips, leaves, grass clippings.

 

[RoyalChick]

I do deep bedding in the coop (dirt floor) and in the covered run. A couple of corners in the run get wet enough to compost. The rest just seems to desiccate and break down.
I don’t clean it out but when I want some fertilizer for the garden I go and collect a barrow full.
I use it straight on the garden - just not for seedlings which I worry might get scorched by it.
I use leaves, shredded paper, pine shavings and, in high poop areas like under the roosts, I sprinkle horse stall wood pellets.
No smell.

 

[NatJ]

1) I live in New Mexico, so it’s very dry. While I have no issues with smell, etc., the bedding and droppings just petrify and don’t really break down.

Dry is good if it is inside a coop (especially if the coop has a wood floor.) This applies to pretty much any coop with solid walls (not so much for open-air coops that have several sides made of just wire mesh.)

But to get the material to break down, maybe at some point you should move it to a place that can get wet, and water it regularly. That place could be in the chicken run, or a compost pile, or a spot in your garden, or anything else that works for you.

Depending on what kind of waterer you have for your chickens, you might dump the water on the place you want composting to happen, each time you need to dump it out for any reason (dirty water, container needs scrubbing, want to replace hot water with cold in summer or icy water with warmer water in winter, etc.)

Or if you water your garden, you could put the the material that needs to compost in a spot that it will get watered at the same time. This could be a compost bin at the edge of the garden, or a pile on the ground in the garden, or even a hole dug into the garden (it might stay moist better if it has soil on all sides, provided it does get watered regularly.)

Or if you have any kind of gutters/downspouts on your house, maybe you could direct the water from there into a compost pile location, so it gets a thorough watering each time you get a little bit of rain.

(I don't know how much water you have available from what sources, so I'm just trying to think of ways to have composting material get watered without you having to think about it frequently. At least for me, things are more likely to work right if I do not have to remember or think about them very often.)

 

[Stephine]

If you want to compost to make garden soil, wood is the last thing you want to use as it can take very long to break down without managing a hot compost.

Yep, that’s why I use hay in the coop, which gets cleaned out from time to time, and wood in the run, which just stays in the run (because it can take up a whole lot of nitrogen to decompose).