Why Do You Use Deep Bedding/Why Do You NOT Use Deep Bedding?

[3KillerBs]

That's what I thought when I read it. I'm in no way knowledgeable in this but the meaning of the words "litter" and "bedding" lead me to this explanation. The word "litter" brings to mind, something negative, not wanted, wont last, breaks down. Bedding evokes a positive thought. Good, clean, changeable.

That's a good mnemonic, though in this context it's more like leaf-litter on a forest floor.

In fact, many chicken keepers try to consciously create a forest-floor environment for their birds.

 

[Nana Dilts]

I have an old corn silo we use as a a coop. The door is quite a ways up. I use deep bedding and my girls love to nestle down in it. It keeps the coop smelling good, easy to clean and feels snuggly.

 

[hopeshark45]

This is a cool thread. @3KillerBs - you will have a solid article with all this feedback!

The lower maintenance of deep bedding would be awesome, but "what I'm trying at present" (as my beekeeping mentor likes to say) is scooping coops every morning with a trowel and dustpan. It's not nearly as labor intensive as it sounds...

My core reason is parasites. We suspect the 50 wild turkeys who overwinter on our fields left the lasting legacy of northern fowl mites and roundworms.

It'd be a massive amount of work to properly dispose of all the bedding every time the mites churned out another hatch. Instead, I treated the wood floor of our coops with poultry dust and laid down textured but easy-to-clean plastic mats from the flooring section of a big box store.

Deep bedding would be a softer landing for our big Brahmas and Langshans, but instead, we have low roosts and added a ladder, which they fortunately love walking up and down.

Other pros...

• We generate a 5-gallon bucket/week of "brown gold" to stir into our compost bins.
• No smell, except after the rooster farts. Our Brahma rooster farts like a human.
• Quick, even if it's daily. It takes 2 minutes to scoop up after 11 chickens in 2 coops.
• Easy to detect poop problems right away (though poop boards can accomplish about the same thing).

I'm only a year in with chickens and expect my approach to evolve, but so far, the daily scoop has been a great way to learn about chickens and stay on top of health issues.

thanks for the info, i am trying to raise turkeys for my ag bio class and this is really useful!!

 

[3KillerBs]

thanks for the info, i am trying to raise turkeys for my ag bio class and this is really useful!!

This is the article I wrote about it. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/using-deep-bedding-in-a-small-coop.76343/