This is one of my favorite YT channels. It's very relaxing to watch, and it's a very valuable knowledge that could really change the world if applied on a large scale.
I have been adding more and more saw dust to the coop as winter goes on. As time goes by it has mixed with chicken droppings and started to cook. If ammonia building up is a problem add more dry brown matter such as saw dust or leaves, should help.
Great video I would add 2 that compost pile in the coop lactose bacillus or lactose fermentation cut back on the ammonia actually completely eats it I use it on my dog waste composting set up
I've found that when the ammonia smell develops it means that your C:N balance is out of whack. I always keep plenty of dry pine shavings on hand to maintain the proper balance (rather than cleaning out the entire coop). I've had deep litter going for almost a year straight and all I do is take the odd wheelbarrow here and there to keep it from piling up too high. Just adding any old wet wood chips or whatever doesn't seem to do the trick though, the dry shavings do the trick because they are also keeping excessive moisture in the litter at bay.
I hear you John. I know I could have stirred in more bulk carbon, sawdust works great, or dry wood chips, etc. Part of the idea with doing the clean out is it got so deep I couldn't really walk comfortably in the space! That and when I built the coop I made the floor decently strong but didn't design it for a massive weight load (piled hot compost WITH my body weight is asking a lot). Those two things helped drive the cleanout as well. But your insight is super helpful for folks wanting to keep it going all winter...
Yeah I always remove some here and there to prevent excessive buildup. It was cold enough here for several weeks that I wouldn't have been able to remove it even if I wanted to. Now that it is thawed and it has been very wet lately I just add plenty of dry shavings and I use a bucket and a 6" wall scraper to remove poop from any flat areas. I meant to mention that my coop is designed so that most of the poop lands in the bedding, and that minimizes it's contribution to any ammonia buildup. Air quality is very, very important...
I've recently found your channel and I've been binging on your videos for ideas. I know it's an old vid and you probably have a solution for the smell of ammonia by now, I'm planning things out to do a similar operation as yourself i have been considering growing lots of mint for a barrier around areas of the land, additional organic material as it tends to take over if not managed and to add to the coop apparently its good for them and it smells nice.
The deep litter method seems like a great idea, especially if you have a tractor to move the muck, but if not, it's a lot of scooping by hand, more work than it's really worth in my experience. Because I move everything by hand, I'm sensitive to the number of times I move a pile of heavy anything. In my coop (40 birds), every two weeks, I come in with a large wheel barrow and scoop out the old poop and straw. It fills 1-2 barrows I move it to planned beds I'm working to build up for future plantings. Then, I bank the pile with fresh topsoil and let sit till the poop cooks down. It's a clean out and move to fertility bed all in one step. Manageable for one person, and healthier for the birds, because there is no build up in the coop. Where will your pile go from here?
Thats a nice system you have. The material coming out of our coop is integrated into the beginning of their compost operation, which is a massive pile they work all winter and I turn and pile up every day. Its a fair bit of work but by adding free food scraps from our coop and local organic whole grains it costs us nearly nothing to raise them this way and we get TONs of free compost.
This was timely! I was planning to reset our coop today! I have a question. Those compost piles outside, do you have to keep piling them up? We joke that our chickens would flatten mountains if put to work on them. Also, do you add a bit of soil to the floor of the coop to kind of inoculate the new bedding with the microbes necessary to compost?
I pile up / adjust compost areas for the chickens just about every day. Sometimes twice a day. In the winter its my main form of exercise some days! Its amazing how fast they can flatten anything. Two days and everything is level. I cover their poop with sawdust, dry woodchips, leaves, hot compost, soil, finished compost, all in random order and depending on whats easiest at the moment... :) Mostly I apply sawdust but the finished compost a bit here or there from their system is very helpful indeed. Have fun!
I only have 2 chickens and I also deep mulch my coop. My coop sits right on the ground and I start the deep mulch with a bunch of fall leaves. I fill the run almost 1/2 full with them. I then throw old bedding on top of it. For food I throw kitchen scraps and about once a week I feed them grain. My 2 hens are always scratching and eating worms and everything else. I was wondering if you tried to put your coop on the ground and deep mulched, if in the winter the worms would head for that deep mulch pile because of the ground freezing? We don't have that problem in northern California. Good video too.
Great suggestions. In our situation the site is so incredibly wet at times of year and sloped north that putting the coop directly on the earth wasn't a good option. I would prefer that if the site was appropriate, but oh well!
@@edibleacres how about treating the floor of your coop like a hugelkulture bed? This is what we have done. We put logs and branches and wood chips 2 feet down, on the bottom, layered with compost and soil and biochar food scraps. That's to start the composting off. Then I sprinkled on some kefir whey diluted with water, to add LABs. Then topped it off with 6 inches of woodchips and dry leaves. The logs at the bottom mitigate any extra moisture and feed it back to the top layers, to keep the composting microbes happy. And in very dry weather I don't have to add any moisture, just like a hugel kultur bed. It warms up nicely and with good ventilation eliminates any smell. Try putting a hugel bed under your coop. It's really effective.
Beautiful view of the snow outside. They are happy chickens. I have to avoid generating heat for my hens. It was over 85 degrees here yesterday. Do you ever have rat problems with your compost? I'm thinking about providing a compost pile outside the run in the open but I have issues with rats.
So beautiful! Your chickens look so healthy and happy!! Do you leave a little litter behind to begin the composting process? Or don't you worry about that? I like the idea of the flooring!!
I don't worry about leaving much behind, but it happens by default anyway. That, and when we get back into a rough cold snap I will end up bringing a few hay fork loads of hot compost back into the coop for them to work when its too cold and windy for them to come out, and that 'spikes' the new composting system.
Great video! Forgive me if you have already answered this in another video, but how did you chose to lift the coop off the ground and use vinyl? I'm not happy with the logistics of my current coop for the Winter, so I will be rebuilding it this Spring. I'm debating if it should go straight on the dirt, or if I should use vinyl like you. Any thoughts?
The coop is up off the ground because the site is on a north facing slope. In order to have a flat and level building I went for posts to get it off the ground and level. The bonus is that they can go underneath it which they love. If I was on flat, well drained ground I might have the coop rest directly on the earth with no floor... But the vinyl has been helpful in making it possible to clean it out and preserve the wooden floor below
Can I ask how you acquire your hay and other carbon material? I have a deep litter coop in town and I'm struggling to hold enough carbon stock to keep it going. I collected as many leaves as I can possibly store this fall, but it doesn't seem to be enough.
Hay I get on our local craigslist, farm and garden. I look for mulch hay or the like, or call folks selling quality hay and ask if they have any older stuff. I pay 1-2 dollars a bale for it. Also lots of wood chips, those are free around us and sometimes you can get delivery of it if you are lucky! Perhaps call carpentry shops in your area and see if you can get their sawdust...
Thanks for the tip. I guess I need to focus on getting creative with storage for the materials so that I can add as needed. I also cleaned my coop out about two weeks ago. Ours is in a cattle panel hoophouse much like the one you built. We put together a raised bed on one side and threw all of the finished/half finished com[post into the bed. We'll grow tomatoes and basil in there this season.
Howdy Stu! The idea is that coming out of the coop and mixed with other compost and worked over by the chickens for 1-2 months before it gets into the greenhouse almost every seed will be eaten or cooked (hopefully both!)
EdibleAcres No kidding. That was do some deep litter. Our hens like it too, but we don't have the vinyl. Great idea. I love that scoop/fork. Great vid.
This is one of my favorite YT channels. It's very relaxing to watch, and it's a very valuable knowledge that could really change the world if applied on a large scale.
I absolutely love chickens - and they've always proven to me how clever and 'individual' they can be.
Mucky but very enjoyable video, thank you.
I've been doing the deep litter method for a few years and I LOVE IT!! Thanks for all you do and share
Once the rain hits that pile it's gonna light up.
Light up as in catch on fire? Or just get warm? I hope you mean warm!
EdibleAcres It's gonna be lit, fam. Lit with thermophilic activity.
I swear chickens like to work. They get bored on the flat stuff, they are always exploring for that better scratching spot ;)
Thats pretty impressive, thats going to be some fine by product for the spring!
I have been adding more and more saw dust to the coop as winter goes on. As time goes by it has mixed with chicken droppings and started to cook. If ammonia building up is a problem add more dry brown matter such as saw dust or leaves, should help.
Great video I would add 2 that compost pile in the coop lactose bacillus or lactose fermentation cut back on the ammonia actually completely eats it I use it on my dog waste composting set up
Thats a neat trick, something for us to explore next time for sure.
I can't wait to try this
I've found that when the ammonia smell develops it means that your C:N balance is out of whack. I always keep plenty of dry pine shavings on hand to maintain the proper balance (rather than cleaning out the entire coop). I've had deep litter going for almost a year straight and all I do is take the odd wheelbarrow here and there to keep it from piling up too high. Just adding any old wet wood chips or whatever doesn't seem to do the trick though, the dry shavings do the trick because they are also keeping excessive moisture in the litter at bay.
I hear you John. I know I could have stirred in more bulk carbon, sawdust works great, or dry wood chips, etc. Part of the idea with doing the clean out is it got so deep I couldn't really walk comfortably in the space! That and when I built the coop I made the floor decently strong but didn't design it for a massive weight load (piled hot compost WITH my body weight is asking a lot). Those two things helped drive the cleanout as well. But your insight is super helpful for folks wanting to keep it going all winter...
Yeah I always remove some here and there to prevent excessive buildup. It was cold enough here for several weeks that I wouldn't have been able to remove it even if I wanted to. Now that it is thawed and it has been very wet lately I just add plenty of dry shavings and I use a bucket and a 6" wall scraper to remove poop from any flat areas. I meant to mention that my coop is designed so that most of the poop lands in the bedding, and that minimizes it's contribution to any ammonia buildup. Air quality is very, very important...
Love, love, love the bits of Chicken TV at the end.
And Happy New Year !
I've recently found your channel and I've been binging on your videos for ideas.
I know it's an old vid and you probably have a solution for the smell of ammonia by now, I'm planning things out to do a similar operation as yourself i have been considering growing lots of mint for a barrier around areas of the land, additional organic material as it tends to take over if not managed and to add to the coop apparently its good for them and it smells nice.
When the chickens are talking my captions say "music" and "laughter". Content girls and boys.
Thats sweet.
Another great video. Thanks!
The deep litter method seems like a great idea, especially if you have a tractor to move the muck, but if not, it's a lot of scooping by hand, more work than it's really worth in my experience. Because I move everything by hand, I'm sensitive to the number of times I move a pile of heavy anything. In my coop (40 birds), every two weeks, I come in with a large wheel barrow and scoop out the old poop and straw. It fills 1-2 barrows I move it to planned beds I'm working to build up for future plantings. Then, I bank the pile with fresh topsoil and let sit till the poop cooks down. It's a clean out and move to fertility bed all in one step. Manageable for one person, and healthier for the birds, because there is no build up in the coop. Where will your pile go from here?
Thats a nice system you have. The material coming out of our coop is integrated into the beginning of their compost operation, which is a massive pile they work all winter and I turn and pile up every day. Its a fair bit of work but by adding free food scraps from our coop and local organic whole grains it costs us nearly nothing to raise them this way and we get TONs of free compost.
This was timely! I was planning to reset our coop today! I have a question. Those compost piles outside, do you have to keep piling them up? We joke that our chickens would flatten mountains if put to work on them. Also, do you add a bit of soil to the floor of the coop to kind of inoculate the new bedding with the microbes necessary to compost?
I pile up / adjust compost areas for the chickens just about every day. Sometimes twice a day. In the winter its my main form of exercise some days! Its amazing how fast they can flatten anything. Two days and everything is level.
I cover their poop with sawdust, dry woodchips, leaves, hot compost, soil, finished compost, all in random order and depending on whats easiest at the moment... :) Mostly I apply sawdust but the finished compost a bit here or there from their system is very helpful indeed.
Have fun!
EdibleAcres -Awesome! I had supposed you did something along those lines, both with the piles and with adding compost to the deep litter. :)
Great video. Do you mind if I use a screenshot of your DL setup in a DL video?
Fine with me.
I only have 2 chickens and I also deep mulch my coop. My coop sits right on the ground and I start the deep mulch with a bunch of fall leaves. I fill the run almost 1/2 full with them. I then throw old bedding on top of it. For food I throw kitchen scraps and about once a week I feed them grain. My 2 hens are always scratching and eating worms and everything else. I was wondering if you tried to put your coop on the ground and deep mulched, if in the winter the worms would head for that deep mulch pile because of the ground freezing? We don't have that problem in northern California. Good video too.
Great suggestions. In our situation the site is so incredibly wet at times of year and sloped north that putting the coop directly on the earth wasn't a good option. I would prefer that if the site was appropriate, but oh well!
@@edibleacres how about treating the floor of your coop like a hugelkulture bed? This is what we have done. We put logs and branches and wood chips 2 feet down, on the bottom, layered with compost and soil and biochar food scraps. That's to start the composting off. Then I sprinkled on some kefir whey diluted with water, to add LABs. Then topped it off with 6 inches of woodchips and dry leaves. The logs at the bottom mitigate any extra moisture and feed it back to the top layers, to keep the composting microbes happy. And in very dry weather I don't have to add any moisture, just like a hugel kultur bed. It warms up nicely and with good ventilation eliminates any smell.
Try putting a hugel bed under your coop. It's really effective.
Beautiful view of the snow outside. They are happy chickens. I have to avoid generating heat for my hens. It was over 85 degrees here yesterday. Do you ever have rat problems with your compost? I'm thinking about providing a compost pile outside the run in the open but I have issues with rats.
We have never had rats, luckily perhaps, but they haven't been a problem.
Do you add unactivated char to the coop?
Yep! I try to add it slightly moist so it doesn't create a lot of dust for them.
Is it just me or do I see a big pile of gold?
Looks like gold to me!
So beautiful! Your chickens look so healthy and happy!! Do you leave a little litter behind to begin the composting process? Or don't you worry about that? I like the idea of the flooring!!
I don't worry about leaving much behind, but it happens by default anyway. That, and when we get back into a rough cold snap I will end up bringing a few hay fork loads of hot compost back into the coop for them to work when its too cold and windy for them to come out, and that 'spikes' the new composting system.
Great video! Forgive me if you have already answered this in another video, but how did you chose to lift the coop off the ground and use vinyl? I'm not happy with the logistics of my current coop for the Winter, so I will be rebuilding it this Spring. I'm debating if it should go straight on the dirt, or if I should use vinyl like you. Any thoughts?
The coop is up off the ground because the site is on a north facing slope. In order to have a flat and level building I went for posts to get it off the ground and level. The bonus is that they can go underneath it which they love.
If I was on flat, well drained ground I might have the coop rest directly on the earth with no floor... But the vinyl has been helpful in making it possible to clean it out and preserve the wooden floor below
Can I ask how you acquire your hay and other carbon material? I have a deep litter coop in town and I'm struggling to hold enough carbon stock to keep it going. I collected as many leaves as I can possibly store this fall, but it doesn't seem to be enough.
Hay I get on our local craigslist, farm and garden. I look for mulch hay or the like, or call folks selling quality hay and ask if they have any older stuff. I pay 1-2 dollars a bale for it. Also lots of wood chips, those are free around us and sometimes you can get delivery of it if you are lucky! Perhaps call carpentry shops in your area and see if you can get their sawdust...
Thanks for the tip. I guess I need to focus on getting creative with storage for the materials so that I can add as needed.
I also cleaned my coop out about two weeks ago. Ours is in a cattle panel hoophouse much like the one you built. We put together a raised bed on one side and threw all of the finished/half finished com[post into the bed. We'll grow tomatoes and basil in there this season.
I use shredded cardboard for my deep litter
Will you get 1 rooster, or do you already have one?
We have 4 roosters, not on purpose, and probably will be harvesting all 4 soon.
won't the seeds from the litter sprout when you use it in the greenhouse or is the idea that it heats up enough before then to kill it?
Howdy Stu! The idea is that coming out of the coop and mixed with other compost and worked over by the chickens for 1-2 months before it gets into the greenhouse almost every seed will be eaten or cooked (hopefully both!)
how big is the coop and how many birds do you have there?
Roughly 8x12' or so and I think around 45 birds. Mainly they are outside all day, they just use the space to lay and sleep. Seems like ample room.
It's not healthy for chicken to eat food out of its own droppings. It seems wood chips (we use cedar) do reduce the ammonia smell.
Deep litter method is proven to produce healthier chickens with better immune systems.
I could smell the ammonia from here.
Deep litter, nk.
whats nk?
EdibleAcres
No kidding.
That was do some deep litter. Our hens like it too, but we don't have the vinyl. Great idea. I love that scoop/fork.
Great vid.
If this was sitting on the dirt their would be no problem with ammonia and other life would live here creating a better compost.
I agree, but our site doesn't lend itself to that situation, oh well.
Oh. I guess you have to work with what you got the best you can. Love the vids. Have a nice day.