That's the stuff I get. Brown paper bag...Ok so I ran to a local Farm and Garden store and bought a 50lb bag of oyster shells and I ambecause they are exactly what I have been looking for. Here is at shot of the bag and the shells. The brand is Pacific Pearl and it was $14.00 for the bag which I thought was a good price.
That's the stuff I get. Brown paper bag...
So I use the deep litter method as well but haven't been adding soil, which is a great thing to add. So that will need to change. I use straw for my deep litter method. I began the deep litter method around End of October before our first cold snap. I have wooden floors as the coop was a repurposed shed. I cleaned out the coop last week, the first time since October and I would say it was about 1 - 1 1/2 feet deep. I sprinkled a good amount of DE and Sweet PDZ on the floor and let the coop completely air out and then put about 1 foot of straw bedding down. It is always a balancing act of adding more bedding/leaves/shavings or whatever you use for bedding when the waste accumulates. My daily (most of the time) routine was pretty much sprinkling DE on the wet droppings in the am and let it sit for a bit, then turn with a pitch fork. With 25 birds the poop accumulates fast and the reason I cleaned it out is it was starting to smell. I bought some Sweet PDZ and now I mix that with DE for my daily sprinkling of the poop. Since doing this method my humidity in the coop hasn't gone above 26% and we have had a lot of melting around here.
So I have this saved for reference and thought I would share.....
Carbon/Nitrogen Ratio
All compostable materials are either carbon or nitrogen-based, to varying degrees. The secret to a healthy compost pile is to maintain a working balance between these two elements.
Carbon - carbon-rich matter (like branches, stems, dried leaves, peels, bits of wood, bark dust or sawdust pellets, shredded brown paper bags, corn stalks, coffee filters, conifer needles, egg shells, straw, peat moss, wood ash) gives compost its light, fluffy body.
Nitrogen - nitrogen or protein-rich matter (manures, food scraps, green lawn clippings and green leaves) provides raw materials for making enzymes.
A healthy compost pile should have much more carbon than nitrogen. A simple rule of thumb is to use one-third green and two-thirds brown materials. The bulkiness of the brown materials allows oxygen to penetrate and nourish the organisms that reside there. Too much nitrogen makes for a dense, smelly, slowly decomposing anaerobic mass. Good composting hygiene means covering fresh nitrogen-rich material, which can release odors if exposed to open air, with carbon-rich material, which often exudes a fresh, wonderful smell. If in doubt, add more carbon!
Here is the website I got this from, there is a great chart on the site that shows what materials break down into carbon or nitrogen.
http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html
Also on a side note if anyone is using pine shavings they are acidic and don't break down well.
No poop board here. The chickens usually mix it for me when I toss scratch in there and I add more dry materials every once in a while too. Every so often I find my chickens dust bathing in the deep litter too.
They will adjust. Integrate slowly. Keep some wire between them for a while. I had some rescue parental stock for Cx's and they did a whole turn around in the behavior and happiness in just a few days. I made the mistake of overfeeding them and they ballooned. I had to really cut back to get them down to size.
