Sand vs Deep Litter?

[ottbmom]

I started out wanting sand, but the non-daily aspect of deep litter appeals to me too. Has anyone tried both and come out with one they prefer?

Funny enough, I have tried both with horse stalls, which is what actually made me start thinking the DL method may be better for me. The sand is easier to clean, but has to be done on a daily basis. My "deep litter" stalls stay clean and odor free without any help, but the shoveling them out is going to be a pain--I haven't done this yet; I'm waiting until my garden is built so I can dump it directly in. It's gorgeous stuff though, whereas the manure from the sand stalls doesn't compost nearly as well.

I travel a lot, and don't like to stick my husband with too many farm chores. What happens to the sand if you skip a few days? Does it get really nasty? And for the DL, does the smell stay down even in the hot summer?

The farmers around me fertilize with chicken litter, and the smell is disgusting and the flies come swarming soon after. Is this an effect from the massive chicken houses? Does a small coop fare better?

I have both sand and pine shavings, and I'm being so indecisive, hahaha! In a few weeks, my little chicks aren't going to be so little, so I need to hurry!

 

[jetdog]

I have sand in my run and love it the girls dust bath all winter long, I clean it once a week usually a Saturday project, just a cat litter scoop and a bucket. It doesn't smell I think the sand dries it out and with the girls scratching around it gets covered. Just rake and sift.

 

[Mtn Laurel]

I was in a similar situation to you about this time last year. I had 3 hens in a tractor. I had used deep litter in the winter but sand in the warmer months and I liked it okay. But, that was with three hens.

Last spring I got 5 additional chicks. Had them on sand when they were in the growing out phase and that was okay, too.

We then built a larger coop which has a tray under the roost for droppings. I initially put sand in the tray with pine shavings in the coop floor. With three hens, sand in the tray was okay. We then added the 5 additional pullets. Well, the sand soon became NOT okay!

I know a lot of people like sand and maybe it was the way I was handling the scooping process. I kept a 5 gal. bucket with lid in the coop. Every morning I would scoop the poop from the tray into the bucket and put the lid on. #1: It soon - sooner than I expected - became a very heavy bucket that I had to tote to the compost pile. I think a lot of the weight was due to sand sticking to the poop. #2: The bucket got really nasty in the summer. I'd open it in the morning to add more poop and not only would insects swarm out, the odor would knock you out. I would empty the bucket about 2 or 3 times a week.

I then noticed that the sand wasn't as pristine as it was originally and there was some smell associated with it. I did some digging around in the tray and discovered that the watery portion of the poop had seeped to the bottom, creating a heavy layer of wet, stinking sand. I would chip it up and turn it over to try to dry it out but that was even more work and it never really dried out as the girls were constantly adding to the situation.

SO . . . I took out all the sand and put pine shavings in the tray. About once every other week I'll scoop out a large portion of the pine shavings and throw them in the floor to be added to the deep litter. Add a bit of new pine shavings to the tray and that's it. No odor, no scooping, no turning sand to dry out, no lugging poop buckets to the compost pile.

While many love sand for the coop, it just wasn't the ideal medium for me given my set up. Deep litter seems to be working much better for us.

 

[ottbmom]

I have sand in my run and love it the girls dust bath all winter long, I clean it once a week usually a Saturday project, just a cat litter scoop and a bucket. It doesn't smell I think the sand dries it out and with the girls scratching around it gets covered. Just rake and sift.

How many chickens do you have, and what size coop and run are they in?

I'm wondering if that makes a difference; I have six chicks right now, and my hubby is building a 12x6 run and a 3x6 coop (maybe. It changes every time he tells me about it!). I'm hoping to give them plenty of free time outside of the coop, but this doesn't seem highly likely since my dogs and cats would probably dearly love to eat them...

 

[jetdog]

I have 4 hens and a small coop, just built a new coop but have to wait for the snow to go away before I move it out back, the run is a 10x10 dog kennel with a roof so it never gets wet or snow, I have a bird dog I hunt with and the rule of thumb around here is when the girls are out he is in so we don't have any accidental retrieves.

 

[jetdog]

Here's a picture

 

[Telecaster68]

I have sand and like it a lot. The only thing is when the sand gets wet from rain it will stink to high heaven. But one day in the summer sun will dry it all back out again and no more smell.