Who DOESN'T use the deep litter method?

[LovinMyHensInNC!]

I use sand in my walk-in-coop and I love it!... Once a week all I do is rake up the poop and shift it like cat litter. Easy, clean, odor-free, cheap, and not wasteful!

 

[sbs]

My coop is pretty small ,only four hens.I am a clean freak too,I have about three inches of shavings that I cat litter scoop out daily.and change the whole thing out every two to three weeks.So far it has worked great for me, no smell or dust.Oh ,I also use stall dry on the floor before I add my shavings,that really helps keep things nice and dry!

 

[Mac in Wisco]

LovinMyHensInNC! :

I use sand in my walk-in-coop and I love it!... Once a week all I do is rake up the poop and shift it like cat litter. Easy, clean, odor-free, cheap, and not wasteful!

Y'all are losing me on the wasteful part. How is it wasteful?

What are you doing with the manure you collect?​

 

[sbs]

I bag up the poo and shavings and pass it on to friends who add it to their compost piles.

 

[HorseFeathers]

Us! We wouldn't love the smell... at all.

 

[Beekissed]

My coop actually smells better now that I have put down the chips. Before that, I raked out every other day, so it wasn't like I had an accumulation of poop~it just smelled like poop. Now it smells like wood shavings! I throw some BOSS into them every other day so the girls will keep them fluffed and dry and this is working out beautifully!

 

[Ariel301]

I don't use deep litter for either my chickens or my goats.

My husband has terrible allergies to dust, shavings, hair, feathers, animals, hay...just about anything, so I try to keep it swept up as much as I can so that he can actually spend time with the animals. I also brush/bathe the goats regularly so he can pet them without worries. Plus we live with my in-laws, and I don't want the pens/shelters for the animals to look bad, I feel like I have to keep things spotless so that they don't decide that they do not like the animals. (I even put my roosters in a covered cage at night so they won't crow until everyone is awake and ready for it!)
So I keep things as clean as I can, I spend about 10-15 minutes every evening cleaning in my pens. The goats waste a lot of hay and it piles up on the ground, so I sift the hay out of the poop and then use that hay as bedding in the chickens' shelter and nest boxes. They eat some of it, dig around in it, and just have a general good time with it, and then I rake it all out and replace it at least once a week. All the manure/waste hay goes into a compost pile for the garden. Th chicken pen isn't too bad. The one that is really bad is my male goat pen; with two bucks peeing all over everything that one really stinks!

 

[lngrid]

Quote:
So, Mac, what kind of insects are beneficial in deep litter or does it vary according to what region of the country you live in?

I can learn to tolerate insects but it's not a natural gift. I think I would just toss my dinner if I went into my coop and got so covered with roost mites that I could see them on my face in the mirror. (This happened to a fellow BYCer.) I would be screaming all during my shower, which would empty the water heater.

 

[beej5000]

Isn't this site great? Different people with different solutions for what suits them. I love it. Some use low-labor deep litter and some clean their coops daily...and the cluckers keep on clucking either way. My grandkids and I thought it would be great to raise chickens so on April Fools Day (Ha!), 2009, we got chicks and it's been an adventure ever since. When we moved them to our little coop I started cleaning out the litter monthly but then decided to try DLM and haven't emptied the coop for about 4 months now...I stir up the litter occasionally and add pine shavings. So far it's fine, but that doesn't mean I won't change my mind and try something different just for the heck of it. Different strokes for different folks. What fun.

 

[tdgill]

My coop and DLM was great. No ammonia, no wetness, no smell. The ONLY problem or complaint I have with MY DLM is the dust flying in the air when the girls get to scratchin. It seems my mistake with DLM has been an overly generous amount of pine shavings added before it was really needed, I have learned that more is not better. And to let the Poo be my guide....lol.