I've been reading the posts here for about three hours, and I feel more lost than I was before. Lol I am building a new large coop. It will have an attached virgin soil run. What do I need to do to create the deep litter method in the run? I have no access to leaves. (live on the great prairieland... no trees here! Lol) I can get pine shavings, shredded mulch, or wood pellets from the hardware store, as well as hay. Please help me do this right from the start!
Make sure that drainage is good first, that's the most important thing, and very hard to fix later. Then use what you have; also straw, sand, stuff from the coop, whatever. It doesn't need to be complicated, just not a soggy mess. Shovel it out as needed, which shouldn't be often. If you can cover the run, that's ideal; at least cover it with hawk- proof netting. Mary
I did the deep litter method with wood chips. I got a truckload of free wood chips from a local arborist and spread it all over my yard. Wood chips take a while to decompose though, the bigger pieces can last for a good two years or so before they really break down. It worked pretty well for the chickens overall though. The chips absorb the odor fairly well. One challenge is keeping everything tidy. The chickens can really kick the wood chips all over the place. In my case it really helped to put a border of bricks and concrete pieces around the run to help contain the chips. Every few months I heaped in a few wheelbarrow loads of chips into the run and spread it around. Also you have to watch out for rain. Once the run gets muddy the surface will get packed and prevent proper decomposition. When that happens I stick a pitchfork in there and stir things up a bit.
I'm shoveling pine chips out of our coop into the run area since they take so long to break down in the composter (wood chips in that thing was a bad idea and I still kick myself for doing it just once). We have almost 100% sand out here so drainage isn't an issue for us so our run isn't covered. As others have stated drainage is the biggest key feature of a deep litter endeavor. Luck!