Will the DL method make compost if I use wood chips?

[sonew123]

Quote:
Do you have moisture? If so, find its source and get rid of it. If the droppings dry out then you will not have the smell.

I use all kinds wood in my compost. The chips will take longer to break down, but with a good hot compost method, it will not be long at all. If you still have chunks, screen your compost with a 1/2" screen to get rid of the 1/2" or larger. Some smaller chunks are good they give your soil air and good drainage!

ON

yes there is moisture in there and we have a heater in ther enow to try and dry it out some its 50 degrees in the garage/coop but with the heat comes teh overwhelming smells..bleahhh..we do use shavings and chips maybe I should add alot more DE???

 

[gsim]

It will make really fine compost and humus. You can just use it as mulch for the garden and till it under the following year.

I did 2' mulch and makes weed control and removal a snap for gardens. Ditto for shrub beds. Would love to get a load of free chips but man who used to own a big tree service retired and gave the thing to his daughter to run. Cannot get any chips at all now. So, I use grass clippings, free and smell so good. If I throw a bushel in the run, the chooks dive on them and gobble them up like time-lapse photography!

I get a really good deal on compost now, 16 ft trailer load for $15. That will be my mulch for the forseeable future .

Grass clippings for the litter.

 

[nursecat9]

Quote:
Do you have moisture? If so, find its source and get rid of it. If the droppings dry out then you will not have the smell.

I use all kinds wood in my compost. The chips will take longer to break down, but with a good hot compost method, it will not be long at all. If you still have chunks, screen your compost with a 1/2" screen to get rid of the 1/2" or larger. Some smaller chunks are good they give your soil air and good drainage!

ON

yes there is moisture in there and we have a heater in ther enow to try and dry it out some its 50 degrees in the garage/coop but with the heat comes teh overwhelming smells..bleahhh..we do use shavings and chips maybe I should add alot more DE???

We keep a small fan in our coop. It works well to keep the moisture and the smell down. It's not running all the time, esp. with our temps so low right now. However, even if it's cold, if I find my moisture levels getting too high, I'll turn the fan on pointing towards the roof, just to get that extra moisture out...and the smell! Works great! Also helps tons in the summer!

 

[sonew123]

fan is a good idea-even if it is small well have to try it...I dont want to have to smell that a few times a day nasty-I especially dont want them getting sick..ahhh...small fan hunting we go!

 

[theFox]

Do you mix the new shavings in when you add them?

How many birds do you have and how big is your coop?

I don't come close to using a bag a week. Now the next warm day I get I'll shoo the birds out of the coup (they don't really like the snow), do a full turning, and mix in some more shavings. I go through 3.2 cubic feet of compressed white pine shavings a month (one bale).

I mix in some DE and poultry dust (every so often), the DE also helps dry out excess moisture, and the other keeps the any bug problem in check.

 

[Cornychick]

when we kept a waterer in the coop it would get damp and smelly pretty quick. Now we only keep water in thier runs and it stays much drier.

 

[silkiechicken]

I just keep adding pine shavings to my 8x8 coop with a dirt floor and dig out chunks of it when I need some compost. Hasn't been an issue of excessive moisture or poor plant growth yet!

 

[1littlefarmer]

sonew123 wrote:

My Dh and I are doing something wrong with our DLM. we started with about 6 inches in our coop/garge add 2 new bags of wood pine chicps every week-it smells of ammonia so bad in there we dont know what to do?? It is not air tight and plenty of cracks where air circulates but pee-youu...Were thinking about empyting the whole thing out and starting all over-I even used a ton of DE too???

Do you (or your chickens) stir up the litter regularly? I've found with the DLM that whenever I start to get an odor if I turn it over with a pitch fork or throw out some scratch and let the chickens do it the smell goes away very quickly.​

 

[halo]

Quote:
I think you probably dont have the circulation and ventilation that you think you do.

 

[sonew123]

Quote:
I think you probably dont have the circulation and ventilation that you think you do.

your right Im sure. I stirred it all up and removed a large portion of it yesterday and heading to the store today to but more new shavings. I take great pride in my babies and have people stopping by all the time just to see them-like chickens are unicorns or something-haha. Maybe because I have some of the neatest ones they've ever seen? IDK either way. I love a clean coop and fresh smell and It broke my heart to smell that amonia smell...lesson learned..fan..turn more...take out some put new in...more than 2x a week I guess.