Questions about the deep litter method

[Edgars Mom]

Remove horse mattresses, layer lots of chipped wood. Use sweet pdz for smell management if your sensitive nose needs it.

since they are indoors in a stall, pooping all night, you might want to additionally make use of poop boards under the roost bars. Many people love them. They are just about 18-24” wide with an edge all around to hold in sweet pdz or sand. Birds poop all night, you use a kitty litter scoop in daytime to remove the poops once. Any other daytime poops will be on the floor/deep litter, but assume they spend time outdoors during the day.

Turkeys are an animal I’ve never raised. Dont know if they roost like chickens, or how best to manage them.

I'm definitely going to do poop boards... I still have to build the "furniture" as they are now using a temporary perch. They are 12 weeks old. Does Stall Dry or Stable Boy do the same thing as PDZ? My feed store doesn't carry it... Also, how well does it work for smells? Will it completely neutralize them or just reduce them?

 

[chikmaw]

Thank you.

I have never tried the hemp bedding. I used shavings with some pine straw mixed in because shavings last longer than straw and the pine straw mixed with shavings resists packing and matting.

I tossed all kinds of things into the chicken run, though if you put too many greens in with the browns you'll get an odor because the balance will be off.



My deep litter never seemed to get warm in the in-town run. The composting coop bedding would heat up when I made the piles, but the run always seemed to be doing the slow, cold composting instead of the rapid, hot composting.

Also, is composting in the run the same ratio as regular composting... about 2:1 Carbon to Nitrogen?

 

[Edgars Mom]

There are two concepts that are readily confused, Deep Litter and Deep Bedding.

Deep Litter is a cold composting process where the poop and the bedding react together, breaking down both into compost. It requires moisture (not sogginess, but moisture), and benefits from direct ground contact.

When you have the balance between poop, bedding, and moisture correct there is no odor -- just an earthiness comparable to a forest floor. It never *needs* to be cleaned out unless it becomes inconveniently deep or you want compost for the garden. However, this is very difficult to do inside the coop itself because the coop is generally kept dry. It's better suited for the run.

Deep Bedding works by dehydrating the poop -- rendering it odor free by preventing decomposition. It's ideal for inside the coop because it needs to stay absolutely dry. You simply use enough bedding to dehydrate quantities of poop -- adding more layers as necessary. It's managed by regularly tossing a little scratch into the bedding to encourage the chickens to stir the litter up for you and by occasionally using the manure fork to break up crusted areas under the roost.

When it either gets inconveniently deep or you feel that the poop-to-bedding ratio is too high (different bedding materials last longer or shorter), you shovel it all out and either put it into the run or compost it directly.

Thank you for explaining this...it makes a lot of sense. My barn is a pole barn, so under the mats is stone dust (some people call it crusher dust) which is a very fine gravel. I think if I removed the mats there would be moisture because it's essentially the bare ground. It's damp enough that we have to lay poly over the floor in the hay stall to keep the hay from spoiling. If I remove the mats, might there be enough moisture for DLM?

With the deep bedding method, does it really keep the smell down or is it just something I will have to get used to? Right now the bird stall takes me 20min/day to clean and it would be awesome to not have to do that every day.

 

[Edgars Mom]

Edited - this has become one of my "mini - books" and is long!

I'm not sure that it would work in your situation with an already in place, solid floor. Well, not true either - there are others here who say it does work...

In my situation(s) - all horse stalls, feed pens and chicken coops have been directly on the ground. One of the things we did with stalls that horses "tried to dig to china" - was re-level & pack them with clay and sand rather than straight sand and spent lots of time doing that on a regular basis. Over the years, we've had quite a number of ponies and horses who seem to like standing with their withers 3' below their rumps! & I've also had several full size horses that loved digging in corners or the back, forming a pile in the center/towards the front of the stall and you'd walk into the barn in the AM with the horse's head hanging over the top of a 7' stall door! I have actually had a pony sized arabian (full sized stall in trainer's barn) and a shetland pony (one mat at feed bucket) dig holes into the stall mats (mats were new in both cases)- that then had to be replaced, LOL. You can see quite a bit of our feed set up below, though not all of it. These ponies were not kept in those pens, in fact, when not feeding the pens were kept closed so no one fought and cornered another (there is a full size horse and a 1/2 Arab/Shet sharing the pasture with the two Shetland mares below). The two pictured, were not the only diggers in that time frame - I often threw "trash" into the holes and the ponies learned to step into their holes with tires, cardboard boxes, small water bottles, larger 2ltr bottles and shredded paper or pieces of tarps....

View attachment 2283808

Now, I have chicken coops and pens directly on the ground that have similar sand to the above. The link below shows the different materials that we (mostly me) have used to do the DLM. But our coops are not on mats and stone dust base. They are also all predominantly open air - meaning they don't have solid sides, back or fronts. They have worked for us well over the 5-1/2 years we've been doing this now...

DLM

As to smell - even in an open air type coop, there can be smell. If I suddenly get "scent" that is strong, then I know I have to add more material of some kind - it works best to add different types & sizes - not all the same. Personally, chickens themselves have their own scent, just as horses/cats/dogs & other livestock do. Our open air coops sometimes get rain directly in them (storms have removed both tin properly attached to a roof and tarps over a hooped coop). Because of first the ground we are on and then as I've built up DLM, they have drained relatively fast and actually not been "stinky". Not sure if that would be the case in an enclosed chicken coop which, to me, would already have a "smell" of "chicken".

I don't know where you are located.

I have been in a LOT of barns here in NC (and now coops). They have almost all been built like typical horse/livestock barns. Even almost new, just occupied for a few months or having had great applications of stall mats - they STINK of horse, manure, urine and ammonia (and after hurricanes - of NASTY, wet sand - even in areas where the stalls were on a good stone/limestone base). I have had to excuse myself and walk out of quite a few. More than a few times, I've been violently ill after exiting a "smelly barn" and I'm not as sensitive to smells as most people I know. I have wondered since 1993 why North Carolinians refuse to build open air barns like they build in Arizona, California and Florida (Georgia?).

DLM is talked about a lot here on BYC. It is also talked about in depth on a lot of permaculture/homesteading websites and YouTube videos.

"Back in the day" - pioneer times in mid-west or western states - DLM was done with other livestock, too, not just chickens. It is a method where clean bedding (usually straw, but could be prairie grass or now even shavings or shredded paper) was layered on over the dirty bedding, manure & urine. Deep enough that you couldn't see the wet or dirty. It saved time in the winter for farmers who had plenty to do and a short amount of daylight. Then in the spring, the barns were cleaned out, all of the DLM (wasn't called that then) was hauled and spread out on fields OR put into a compost pile to finish composting (would have already started in the barns). This also worked to keep the barn(s) a bit warmer during the winter cold - especially since straw was often stacked or spread up the walls. Honestly, from 2009 to 2014, I was up in OH in Amish country a lot. I went into quite a number of barns that used a good system of "DLM" in their livestock barns (cows, pigs & horses) and their barns - not cleaned all winter - were cleaner smelling than most barns cleaned on a daily basis down here in NC. I was also in barns that didn't have a good DLM type system OR just needed more bedding in a more timely matter. They were BAD smelling and your throat closed and your eyes stung/watered. I also saw these methods used on two different Hutterite colonies in MT from 1995 thru 1997. It's pretty amazing!

Now I'm watching YouTube videos where this is being done, on the ground, not only with chickens but pigs kept in areas that the land owner wants good compost to be piled up to be utilized later. Same thing.

Sorry - back to you. If you are going to do it on mats - get some good garden dirt/compost (not store bought bags, but real stuff w/ the bugs, worms, bio-nutrients already working) to put in your stalls, too. A shovel full or so?? That will help the bedding/DLM to get started and keep going. When you clean it out, you don't remove all of it. If we have a dry spell (a lot), I will dump the water out from waterers or even bring a hose and hose it down a bit (did/do that on hot, dusty/enclosed horse stalls as well). You don't want hanging dust particles & do want the bedding to be a little moist in the bottom layer.

- bedding materials - different sizes & types - very important to allow moisture/air wicking.
- deep - from 6 -18" to start. If doing a true DLM on mats, it should still work (I think?).
- you don't have to clean or turn - usually - a bit of chicken feed or treats literally tossed into area needing turning - they will do the work.
- some moisture, but not really wet or wet on top. Certainly shouldn't need to wet it every day in most climates

Turkeys - I have no idea if this would work or not IF they are by themselves. If in with chickens, then I would expect it to work fine as the chickens would turn it for you. I only have experience w/ "stupid" commercially raised turkeys that DO NOT dig or seem to scratch at all. If your turkeys show an interest in scratching (the element that turns the manure under/into your DLM), then it should work the same as chickens.

I very much appreciate that you took the time to write this long and informative post.

I am in Canada (near Ottawa, Ontario). My barn has a central alley with large double doors that stay open all summer so it's like stalls on either side of a breezeway, but our winters can be pretty cold and snowy so it's locked up in the winter. That said, it's not insulated and there is a very high ceiling, so no moisture accumulates. Ventilation is key with keeping odour down. In barns with low ceilings that are insulated and tight it's impossible not to have smell IMO. My horses don't churn in their stalls so pee spots are intact and easy to remove. I sweep the good shavings away from the edges until I have a clear area with just pee spots, then I shovel, sweep and spray the wet spots down with a strong vinegar solution. It keeps the barn fresh.

Regarding the mats... They are easy to remove and there is stone or crusher dust under them. That is the bare ground...my barn is a pole barn so no concrete floor...just stone dust over the gravel they backfilled the hole with. So excellent drainage. I'm not sure if it would be moist enough for DLM but moisture definitely comes up from the floor.

As for the turkeys... Their portion of the stall is the most work to sift and clean. In the chickens' part, the shavings still look brand new a month and a half in. We currently have commercial birds out there but they are going in the freezer in the next few days and then the next group are heritage birds. I don't know if they scratch because this is our first year keeping poultry. There is a lot to learn.

I really appreciate your help. I'm still trying to decide if I take a risk and try it for a period of time. I could always go back to sifting later.

 

[3KillerBs]

Also, is composting in the run the same ratio as regular composting... about 2:1 Carbon to Nitrogen?

Yes, though I'm never obsessive about the ratio because I don't really care how hot it gets or how long it takes to make the compost.

Thank you for explaining this...it makes a lot of sense. My barn is a pole barn, so under the mats is stone dust (some people call it crusher dust) which is a very fine gravel. I think if I removed the mats there would be moisture because it's essentially the bare ground. It's damp enough that we have to lay poly over the floor in the hay stall to keep the hay from spoiling. If I remove the mats, might there be enough moisture for DLM?

With the deep bedding method, does it really keep the smell down or is it just something I will have to get used to? Right now the bird stall takes me 20min/day to clean and it would be awesome to not have to do that every day.

I can give you a definite maybe on the moisture level.

Your climate and situation is too different from what I have experienced to have any good answers about the potential moisture level -- I'm on sandy soil in a warm climate.

I can say that yes, it does eliminate odor. If you detect the first whiff you just put down more wood chips, wood shavings, straw, pine straw, fall leaves, etc.

I find that a mixture of materials works better than just one. For example, pine straw isn't as absorbent as other materials but a mix of pine straw and coarse-flake shavings is almost impervious to packing and matting. Straw mats and develops anaerobic pockets when used on it's own, but in my run a couple straw bales give them a place to sit up out of the mess during times of heavy rain (I'm subject to hurricane rains and severe winter storms).

Wood chips drain wonderfully and can react with large quantities of poop before needing to be replaced. Many people find them ideal, but if you want the compost regularly you'll need to sift them out before using (they can go back into the run).

 

[khloee]

My aunt did this with her chickens. They did good for a long time, but this year they were infected with a respiratory disease called coryza. This is caused by dust. There are ways to treat it and ways to prevents it. Just watch for symptoms before it's late

 

[3KillerBs]

My aunt did this with her chickens. They did good for a long time, but this year they were infected with a respiratory disease called coryza. This is caused by dust. There are ways to treat it and ways to prevents it. Just watch for symptoms before it's late

The best remedy for dust problem is excellent ventilation.

Chicken Coryza is an infectious, bacterial disease. I'm very sorry for your aunt's loss.

 

[chikmaw]

My aunt did this with her chickens. They did good for a long time, but this year they were infected with a respiratory disease called coryza. This is caused by dust. There are ways to treat it and ways to prevents it. Just watch for symptoms before it's late

I'm pretty much decided on using industrial hemp for this very reason. It has no dust, is softer and more absorbant and it breaks down quicker.

 

[paintedChix]

Yes, though I'm never obsessive about the ratio because I don't really care how hot it gets or how long it takes to make the compost.



I can give you a definite maybe on the moisture level.

Your climate and situation is too different from what I have experienced to have any good answers about the potential moisture level -- I'm on sandy soil in a warm climate.

I can say that yes, it does eliminate odor. If you detect the first whiff you just put down more wood chips, wood shavings, straw, pine straw, fall leaves, etc.

I find that a mixture of materials works better than just one. For example, pine straw isn't as absorbent as other materials but a mix of pine straw and coarse-flake shavings is almost impervious to packing and matting. Straw mats and develops anaerobic pockets when used on it's own, but in my run a couple straw bales give them a place to sit up out of the mess during times of heavy rain (I'm subject to hurricane rains and severe winter storms).

Wood chips drain wonderfully and can react with large quantities of poop before needing to be replaced. Many people find them ideal, but if you want the compost regularly you'll need to sift them out before using (they can go back into the run).

OP - 3killerBs gave an excellent followup to my post. I believe that yes, removing the horse mats would possibly be enough moisture for it to start with. In some ways, you have similar situation, but as stated, different. Just in the past two weeks, w/o a hurricane, we've had over 6" of rain - anywhere from .10" to 2.2" per rain episode. In our current barn, we don't have as much condensation as we did in the larger one (even though it too had good ventilation) at our previous property, but we are now starting to have other issues (think the wind has either pulled nails/rubber washers loose (if those were even used to build this barn). I am no longer able to get up on roofs, so not sure when or how we will personally address this issue. There are now nail holes allowing water into each of 3 stalls - all used for storage of hay, feed & equipment.

Do you have runs for your chickens & turkeys to access outside the stalls? If not and you plan on building those, I'm thinking you will want to roof at least part of them so that you have an area that is outside, but protected from the snow. It will allow fresh air from a different level to come in through the pop door and get the chickens/turkeys outside during at least part of the day - helping you out in your daily cleaning chores. Of course, during a major snow event (blizzard?) you may have them closed (depending on where snow/wind come from) - then open them as soon as possible to let them out and to again add another "freshet" of air.

I was going to state more, but the thoughts escaped while I was helping our granddaughter with getting a cat into the house before another round of rain... I'll be back, LOL