Want low maintenance hen house need advice.

[Boomerwaffen]

Hi All,

Thanks in advance. I'm reading about deep litter and then saw deep bedding. We’ve got an 8x10 hen house. I don’t want to have to clean out the hen houses constantly. I like the deep method where I can just turn it over and then clean it out once/year. Any advice? I looked at hemp but it’s very expensive. What else wil work and not smell too had?

 

[Boise-girls]

I use Flock Fresh and pick up the "roost poop" daily. So far, no problems with smell or flies. They don't spend much time in there during the day, though, so am not sure it truly qualifies as deep bedding. Same with the run, but I don't pick up poop there, just throw in scratch to encourage them to scratch. I also throw in odds and ends - coffee grounds, hemp, coir, etc.
Plain chopped hay might work as well. Caveat - I've only had chickens a couple of months, and they do have access to a larger grass area during the day.

 

[deidreg]

I use the deep litter method but it works best if it's in contact with the ground.

 

[Boomerwaffen]

I use Flock Fresh and pick up the "roost poop" daily. So far, no problems with smell or flies. They don't spend much time in there during the day, though, so am not sure it truly qualifies as deep bedding. Same with the run, but I don't pick up poop there, just throw in scratch to encourage them to scratch. I also throw in odds and ends - coffee grounds, hemp, coir, etc.
Plain chopped hay might work as well. Caveat - I've only had chickens a couple of months, and they do have access to a larger grass area during the day.

Awesome thanks! Why did you decide to get your birds?

 

[Sally PB]

I have poop boards and that makes daily cleaning a 2 minute chore, literally. I scooped every day before I had the poop board, but this keeps more poop out of the bedding.

I use shavings. I have added two bales over the course of a year to the existing bale I started with. My coop is about 47 square feet. The only thing I smell when I go in to clean is my poop bucket when I open it to add poop. Or if someone drops a fresh cecal poop. A lot of ventilation helps. I have the people door open all day, all year, unless it's raining or snowing hard, or below about 15 degrees. (I close it at night.)

I have taken out scoops of bedding with the poop, but other than that, I have not emptied the coop out since it was built -- about 13 months. I probably will empty it this fall just to put the shavings in the run to give the birds something to scratch through and compost for me for next spring.

 

[3KillerBs]

Have you seen my article on Deep Bedding? I clean once every 8-12 weeks on average.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/using-deep-bedding-in-a-small-coop.76343/

In the article I talk about pros and cons and about how to set up the coop for it to be successful.

Any dry organic material will work for your bedding but different options have different pros and cons.

I personally find that a mix of materials of different types and textures works better than any one material used alone. I mainly use pine shavings mixed with pine straw. This flock gets regular straw more than the in-town flock did because at the local farm store broken bales are free if you can manage to load them. So sometimes we pick one up when we're there for some other purpose.

 

[bill3607]

I use pine shavings in deep bedding system on a dirt floor. I have been using it for about 9 months or so and it works great. I have poop trays under roost and really it is next to nothing of poop getting anywhere else. When they are awake they are outside in the run 99% of the time.
I basically do the same in the run now, too. The difference being along with the pine shavings I mix in dried leaves, grass clippings, garden weeds etc...
As far as digging goes? Trust me they going to dig and dig and dig "a lot" more. A good backhoe has got nothing on chickens.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

^^^ that. (3KB's post)

Ground contact is best for deep litter.

In my raised coop, I use deep bedding, no poop boards. My material of choice is leaf litter - I'm on acres, the only thing it costs me is time/labor, and my smallest coop measures 8x12. Once a season or so, I use a bow rake to drag all the deep bedding plus droppings to the center, where it falls to the ground below the coop - where I spread it out with yet more leaf litter as deep litter. That's where the ducks stay, and the birds hang out at times when is blazes hot.

Every once in a while, I'll use a shovel (technically, a spade) to remove some and either turn it into the earth where I have bare spots in the pasture to break up the clays, or add it to the raised bed gardens, Mostly, because its become hard to shut the door.

Apart from 7-9 loads of the gorilla cart, four times a year, and one load or two out, its no maintenance, few flies, and odor free.

Key is lots of "brown", and raking when it hasn't rained in a few days, so you aren't introducing a bunch of moisture into the coop. You want a cold, slow compost, not the 50/50 of damp greens like fresh cut grasses and brown leaf material you would use in a hot composting pile or tumbler.

Oh, and I use straw in the nest boxes - which they kick into the bedding, and eventually joins the litter... A good hen house is a system, it all works together.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

daily cleaning

I would not have chickens if I had to clean every day. Deep litter method, big coop on dirt floor I have cleaned it out once after 2 years, I will clean it out again this fall it's been another 2 years. The compost is amazing, my garden loves it I keep saying I will do it every fall but then I get lazy.

 

[Boise-girls]

Awesome thanks! Why did you decide to get your birds?

I'm not completely sure why I got them. Sort of an impulse. I also just turned 70, so seemed best to do it now vs later! They're sure entertaining and interesting!