Help with the deep liter method

[Svyetii]

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.)

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).

Thanks everyone!

Yes, my coop is enclosed and has a wood floor and a covered run. I've attached a photo from when I first built it (it was my first attempt at building anything...). I'll try to add other photos later today of the inside of the coop. I had looked into hemp also, but was wary about the cost.

I'm thinking I'll remove some of the litter to add to an empty garden bed this winter and add some straw/hay to the rest. That might add a better mix for future compost and keep the chickens warmer when it's below freezing. We use sand in the run to keep the smell down and for ease of cleaning. So far, I like that approach. But if it doesn't suite us in a year or two, perhaps we'll switch to a mix of dirt, leaves, and soiled bedding from the coop.

 

[Sally PB]

I have a covered run, but some rain will blow in. It's a dirt base, with the shavings from the coop added in the spring and autumn leaves in the fall. The poop from the poop board in the coop goes into a bucket and into the compost bin. The poop in the run stays there to break down the leaves and shavings.

To compost, you need some moisture. When we have prolonged dry spells, I empty the water bowl in the run at lock up. Last spring when it was very dry, I did that and after a week, the texture of the dirt in the run changed from dusty dirt to more like forest floor dirt.

Before I clean out the coop in the spring, I scoop out probably a cubic yard of very nice compost from the run. Then add the old shavings from the coop and start the cycle again.