Yes, it' definitely worth it. Time? You'll be saving yourself scads of time, as well as materials by using DL. It works best on a soil floor. I'd love to hear from folks who are DL on a wood or other type of floor. I'm doing mine on a linoleum over plywood floor. Using pine shavings, because I didn't get a chance to gather leaves this fall. I had ammonia build up in December. Did a partial clean out (just under the roosts). Then, I put in a wheelbarrow full of compost and soil (that I was able to salvage from the garden) under the roosts. Then I moved all of the litter from the front of the coop to the back of the coop and put it over the compost/soil, and added a fresh layer of shavings over that, as well as in the front of the coop. So far, no more ammonia smell. It is a bit more damp than I'd like to see, but no odor when I go in. When using DL, my recommendation is: get that wood protected so it doesn't compost along with the litter! Get some good microbes going for the base: garden soil, compost, leaf litter, lawn clippings if you have them and they're not laden with ----icides. Add a bit of fresh litter over the top as needed. Have the flock help you to keep things stirred up: toss some scratch in so they'll go to town flipping things over. And finally: Never do a complete clean out: save some of the good stuff to inoculate the new litter you're putting in. One thing I'm planning to do is get as much aquarium sludge as I can from a friend the next time she does her tank maintenance. Good stuff, and I'm hoping that it'll do a good job increasing the bacterial load of my DL.
Yay for free! I've been waiting for a good use for it! Guess I should plant some basil too.
