Deep Litter

[CrealCritter]

Yep...

 

[Beekissed]

Wowza...you ain't akiddin' about no place to add ventilation. That place is a box! Was it there when you came there? Maybe you could add a screen door for the coop and add some big ventilation in that manner. I bet that thing is pretty stuffy in the summer months.

That wooded section along the top of the walls could be opened up and screened/fenced in for more air flow as well. The more you have the healthier the coop. Don't worry about what folks say about drafts...better a drafty coop than one with stale air any ol' day.

That framed hole in the wall....is that the pop door into a run or a hole into the nesting area?

 

[CrealCritter]

Wowza...you ain't akiddin' about no place to add ventilation. That place is a box! Was it there when you came there? Maybe you could add a screen door for the coop and add some big ventilation in that manner. I bet that thing is pretty stuffy in the summer months.

That wooded section along the top of the walls could be opened up and screened/fenced in for more air flow as well. The more you have the healthier the coop. Don't worry about what folks say about drafts...better a drafty coop than one with stale air any ol' day.

That framed hole in the wall....is that the pop door into a run or a hole into the nesting area?

The framed hole leads to the yard or run i guess you would call it. And yes the cinder block building had a caved in roof that I rebuilt out of lumber from my sawmill. Their is also a screened window behind the fan and the nest boxes also open to the outside. During the summer I run the fan and open a few nest box doors so there's good air flow through the coop. the vid was taken a few weeks ago when it was about 12 degrees outside so I have it closed up except for the framed door to the run.

 

[Beekissed]

The framed hole leads to the yard or run i guess you would call it. And yes the cinder block building had a caved in roof that I rebuilt out of lumber from my sawmill.

That's a nice big hole almost at floor level and should pipe you in some passive airflow there, so that's not too bad at all. Good intake from below, so now you just need some big openings up top to siphon that stale air and humidity out and a good screen door for a cross breeze and you should have some good airflow going. The fan is a good idea for the summer and some people just turn them around and use them in the winter to pipe humidity and stale air out of the coop too.

It looks doable for DL but you'd likely have to find a way to get more moisture in there, pretty much like I'm doing...I'm going to catch some rainwater and pipe it into the mass with an old garden hose section.


It sounds all like a bunch of fuss but it really does pay off when you get it all situated right...you can walk in there and not smell bad things, the air is cleaner, the footing dryer and with your tall ceilings you can let that stuff build pretty deep.

 

[CrealCritter]

That's a nice big hole almost at floor level and should pipe you in some passive airflow there, so that's not too bad at all. Good intake from below, so now you just need some big openings up top to siphon that stale air and humidity out and a good screen door for a cross breeze and you should have some good airflow going. The fan is a good idea for the summer and some people just turn them around and use them in the winter to pipe humidity and stale air out of the coop too.

It looks doable for DL but you'd likely have to find a way to get more moisture in there, pretty much like I'm doing...I'm going to catch some rainwater and pipe it into the mass with an old garden hose section.


It sounds all like a bunch of fuss but it really does pay off when you get it all situated right...you can walk in there and not smell bad things, the air is cleaner, the footing dryer and with your tall ceilings you can let that stuff build pretty deep.

I would have to raise up my drop feeder to which is not in the vid - it's about 8" off the cement floor. I could also add a roof vent on the high (right) side right. The nest boxes are built into the rafters on the low (left) side. Some soffit vents on the low side would help also. It's just a little 6x8 coop with a slopped roof like 7' tall on the short side to about 8' on the tall side. I have about 14' x 26' of storage behind the right side wall. The building its'self is 20 x 26 - I just carved up a 6x8 for the layer coop. So I have lots of options to reconfigure / expand if needed.

 

[Hinotori]

My coop for the large fowl is literally just an awning off the back of a shipping container that we threw boards for walls and a door on. Lots of ventilation up top from the slope of the roof as we ran the boards straight on the sides. No wind issues where the birds sleep on the roosts.

Dirt floor that the guy who owned this place before us put carpet down under the roof supports.

We were desperate after the coop they were living in was damaged so did what we could in one day to give them someplace to live. It's actually lasted very well.

So 8x15 area. Over the stupid carpet I couldnt remove, I put down 5 or 6 inches of bedding pellets then wood shaving on top originally. The first year was bad. It's a slightly lower than surroundings spot in the yard. So that means pooling water here for much of the year. It got too wet and smelled some. I put down stall dry and more shavings.

I was going to clean it all out that spring but hurt myself so it didnt happen. Just more shavings got put down regularly. I was afraid of the coming winter and smell. But between the drying out over summer and more shavings as well as me not cleaning it out, there was no smell. It was mostly dry all that year. I removed a little off the top next spring for plants but left most and added shavings. Been doing same since.

I haven't added as much shavings last few years, mostly just what I toss from nest boxes when cleaning. It's about a foot or so of soil in there now. The carpet is about half decomposed when I dig down that far. Worms and such love it in there near the bottom. It's them and the microorganisms that are the real key to it working.

It's fluffy enough to rake out even from under the roost. Even that doesnt smell when bagged up. I'd say it takes about 4 days for poops to break down fully to soil.

Whatever balance it has is working perfectly.

 

[tortoise]

I am in my first year of attempting deep litter. My first winter. I *only* have chopped rye straw to work with in winter. Or purchased pine shavings, but sounds like those don't work well. I can try to source a better variety of bedding materials this summer/fall.

My coop is cement floor, cement block walls on 2.5 sides. The other sides are open to the rest of the barn, with hanging snow fence to keep chickens in. The area was previously a pony stall. The barn has 2 doors open year-round for sheep to access pasture. Chicken area has windows and high ceiling.

The litter is mostly dry and a mix of light colored "dirt" and straw. I pitchfork up any heavy wet areas like around the waterer, spread it around and throw cracked corn on top for the chickens to scratch out and spread out.

DH is *sure* it will stink horribly at spring thaw. If he's not happy, he will nix my deep litter efforts.

 

[Beekissed]

I am in my first year of attempting deep litter. My first winter. I *only* have chopped rye straw to work with in winter. Or purchased pine shavings, but sounds like those don't work well. I can try to source a better variety of bedding materials this summer/fall.

My coop is cement floor, cement block walls on 2.5 sides. The other sides are open to the rest of the barn, with hanging snow fence to keep chickens in. The area was previously a pony stall. The barn has 2 doors open year-round for sheep to access pasture. Chicken area has windows and high ceiling.

The litter is mostly dry and a mix of light colored "dirt" and straw. I pitchfork up any heavy wet areas like around the waterer, spread it around and throw cracked corn on top for the chickens to scratch out and spread out.

DH is *sure* it will stink horribly at spring thaw. If he's not happy, he will nix my deep litter efforts.

You could try capping off the litter under the roosts to prevent any bad smells and don't encourage the chickens to stir it up...stirring up wet shavings or straw releases the ammonia smells. I tried all that way back when I first started this....stirring doesn't make it dryer, it just buries the dry pieces. They cannot absorb much moisture because they are wood or woody. If they do start to smell a little when it thaws, you can put some garden lime on it to control odor and moisture but the lime will also slow down your composting, so I'd not use it too much.

Then I'd start using everything you can get your hands on this spring...dried grass clippings spread out evenly on top of the mass under the roosts, weed trimmings from the garden, bark, lawn rakings, etc. Can you get leaves in the fall?

Anything to give you something to tone down all the wood shavings and straw and create more air pockets and different materials in the mass. It sounds like you have GREAT ventilation, so now you just need to manage your materials. You'll likely need to add moisture to any mass you create under the roosts...you can do that when you clean out waterers and such but you'll likely need more. If you don't see it composting downward, you'll likely need more water. Might even need to turn the mass once in a blue moon, but I wouldn't do it too often.

I'd just start now when adding dry material, only add it to the mass under the roosts. After each night's deposits, flip a thin layer of dry on top. Cap off the smells.

Another thing that controls smells enormously that I have not mentioned...also controls the flies. Fermented feed. Decreases the stink of poops and flies are no longer attracted to it...even my dogs won't eat the poop any longer.

I sure hope you can continue with the DL...it's a great, easy care way to create compost while keeping a healthier coop all at the same time.

 

[sumi]

Thank you for starting this thread @Beekissed! This is something that never interested me much, until I read what you said elsewhere about how much warmer the coop is inside, thanks to the composting litter giving off heat. This method, if anything, is about 1000x better for heating the coop in winter! I'm curious, have you measured the temperatures before you started doing this to compare?

 

[Beekissed]

Thank you for starting this thread @Beekissed! This is something that never interested me much, until I read what you said elsewhere about how much warmer the coop is inside, thanks to the composting litter giving off heat. This method, if anything, is about 1000x better for heating the coop in winter! I'm curious, have you measured the temperatures before you started doing this to compare?

If I move the thermometer away from the composting area, it will usually just measure what the outside temps measure if placed in other parts of the coop. It's only over the digester, at the roosts, where you see the 10* difference.

My coop is pretty open air, so having that heat source at the roost level in the winter time is a good feeling. Also the warm under their feet when they stand on that mass when days are brutal cold. It won't heat the whole coop unless the whole coop is being intensely composted like the mass under the roosts. I don't have enough manure in my coop to develop the whole coop as a manure digester, so I have to concentrate my efforts where the poop is deposited nightly.


My coop measures 10x12 so I make the most use of the space by concentrating on the roosting end for creating compost and winter heat.

You'll enjoy this in the summer months as well...though it puts out heat and moisture in the summer months, usually I have the flaps raised on the side of the coop so the prevailing breezes can create a cross breeze to remove that excess heat. But in the summer time is when it's the most convenient...no flies, no smells, and I'm not having to speed up the composting then as the ambient temps will do that for me. Compost happens quicker in the summer, so as quickly as you put green in there, you can soon enough pull out some compost to put on the garden again.