I like your description on first post, might also define deep litter to show the difference....not that all will register the diff.
That's a good idea.
but I use poop boards, which makes the pine shavings on floor last even longer.
I personally don't want the work of having to deal with poop boards regularly. I am, however, going to focus on small coops where there isn't really room for poop boards anyway.
I have only really found that to be a problem the one time I used regular old straw for bedding. The straw cakes were THICK.
Yes, I've tried just straw in the coop based on old-timers' recommendations and found that it matted horribly. But a mix of straw and shavings stays fluffy better than either alone.
If teen child sees a mountain of poop laden shavings, teen will avoid the work and will be much less likely to turn bedding or to remove it all.
I have teens, but I do my own coop cleaning. Still that makes perfect sense.
I'm just too OCD to use the deep litter method. I clean the coop out every weekend and give it a super good cleaning every couple months.
May I ask, in all respect and in search of information rather than in an attempt to convince you to change your practices, what it is, exactly, that makes you want to clean so often? Distaste for the idea of manure building up? Sometime else?
It has a dirt floor so I only add bedding if the dirt gets muddy. Would this be considered deep litter?
I think that it can't really be called deep bedding if you're not actually using bedding in a systematic fashion.
I think this is deep bedding that you are doing. Seems like semantics but for discussion purpose I think deep litter doesn't have a dirt floor, and doesn't really compost in place. Deep bedding is typically done on a dirt floor, allowing the bedding to compost in place.
I'm sorry, but you've got it backwards.
Deep bedding is a dry, non-composting system that can be done on any type of floor.
Deep litter is a moist, composting system that is best done on a dirt floor (but which *can* be done on other floors with sufficient intensive management).
. Our reasons are, honestly, mostly aesthetic. We live in southern California where, like the Albert Hammond song, it rarely rains and is warm almost year-round, so it hasn't gotten totally gross yet (although the sand has been in the coop and run less than a year). We put wood shaving pads in the nesting boxes, but sand everywhere else. All but two of our chickens roost year round outside in the covered run, so the coop never gets smelly and is open on one entire side anyway. 
