Deep bedding and our coop

On our homestead we have multiple housing units for our chickens, most of which are portable. One though is stationary. We have moved our stationary coop once before but it took us a whole day to move it around 100ft across the yard. We moved it so that we could fence in an area for our birds to forage on without worrying about predators. The large stationary coop is made of cross arms from highline poles. They are bolted together with some extremely long bolt so that it holds up to just about anything. The sides are covered in a small hole wire that most people would only consider using for the bottoms of a brooder, it is called hardware cloth and its holes are so small that when the pen is completely closed we do not have to worry about predators, not even snakes. The only thing we have ever had get in the pen is a mouse and it dug an extremely long tunnel to get in there. But once the chickens figured out that there was something to chase in there, its stay was very quickly ended.

Inside our coop there is no floor. Why you ask? I find that floors in a coop make for a hazard down the road. Even if you keep it thoroughly cleaned manure can be slick at times and if you step in it, well you get the picture. I did not want to fall inside our coop and end up covered in muck. Not having a floor in our coop also helps me build nitrogen rich compost for our garden in the spring. I do this by adding pine shavings, leaves, newspaper, and scraps really just about anything that I can get my hands on.
The chickens scratch and eat, and spread the manure through the shavings. As the manure decomposes it produces heat which helps keep the coop warm and break down the materials on the coop floor. When I see dirt on the floor I add more shavings. This is called deep litter method.
This method helps reduce the smell commonly associated with livestock. It also reduces the amount of labor needed on the day to day basis for coop management.  Instead of cleaning out manure and having to compost it you get a giant compost heap build into your chicken coop. We still have a compost pile though since our trees drop far too many leaves for the chickens to keep up with. We also have a poop shelf in the chicken coop. This is a board installed below the roost that is covered in scrap linoleum so that we can scrape the manure off of the board to put into our compost to build the heat up for proper decomposition. This shelf also helps so we can monitor the chicken’s health through their manure to make sure they are in tip top shape and not carrying any parasites.

In the spring I simple park the wheel barrow at the coop and shovel out the rich materials from the ground.  It is then mixed into our raised beds or used to fertilize our fruit trees. If you are building a coop you might like to take to heart how you are going to heat your coop in the winter. If you’re like me and cringe at the idea of heat lamps then deep litter method may be a good option for your coop. You could also use plastic sheeting on the sides if your sides are wire like ours to create a greenhouse effect.  We simply put a tarp on the north side of ours because the weather here can go from 28 degrees to 80 degrees in two days.  No matter which method you choose to heat your coop it is easy to see which method would best suit your needs by sitting down and thinking it through before beginning construction.