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Truly no work, no smell chicken litter

 
Posts: 1
Location: Saint Louis, United States
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The one thing I always hated about keeping chickens was coop cleaning. It stunk, I needed to do it every couple of weeks, it was hard work since I had a 10 x 20 coop with several hundred chickens at the time.

I liked the idea of deep litter but the litter didn't work as well as I would have liked using the typical methods of trying to emulate the forest floor or compost pile in the coop. The biggest problem was the moisture that compost and the forest needs to break down manure. Moisture creates an anaerobic system that leads to ammonia buildup, manure buildup and cleaning or adding material on a regular basis.  

I stumbled on Korean Natural Farming deep litter and tried it. During my initial research on this type of deep litter I found the KNF pig sites that talk about keeping it dry using things like sawdust and putting the bacteria and fungus to work to digest the manure. I didn't find much at the time on how to do it for chickens back then so I was winging it.

I used hardwood sawdust that was free from a local sawmill that was perfect. I had been racking my litter every few days for years and I continued to rake the litter especially under the roost. After a short while I noticed that the litter had dried out, turned gray, and I didn't see any manure even under the roost. There wasn't any ammonia smell either.

That was back in 2015 and I haven't had to clean my coop since. I have converted a couple of coops locally but it took me doing all the work for them to convert. They both love it now but wouldn't have converted on their own. The stumbling block seems to be starting the process. Folks would rather clean the coop periodically than to switch over and never clean again.

The last few years I have dabbled with using the litter on my garden with fantastic results. The first year I put some on a raised bed in October and planted like I always did in the spring. I live in Missouri and our rocky clay soil is horrible. I had it tested and the report said the soil was deficient for planting in almost every way. I planted from seed and in my tomatoes I saw these leaves that were not like tomato leaves, they were huge and I assumed they were weeds. After pulling a few I noticed they looked like tomatoes but enormous tomato plants. I let them go and didn't add anything else to the soil. The plants grew like weeds and I even got a leaf that was 11 inches long. I couldn't believe how big the plants were. I had a farm hand at the time that didn't know how to shut a gate and the goats got in and ate all the leaves off the tomatoes twice and really crippled the plants.

Last year I decided to see what would happen if I put a half cup of litter in the ground at planting. I used walmart plants that were about 6 inches high with the magic chicken poo. My brother in law planted a garden and challenged me to a tomato grow off. We tracked our progress every friday. After the first 2 weeks my plants averaged 1 foot of growth per week. They quickly outgrew the cages and at 8 weeks were taken out by a storm. I still got a few 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes from the twisted plants but they clearly didn't reach their potential. My rhubarb hadn't done anything so I put some magic poo on that too. I had a leaf that was 5 feet long. The leaves were dark green and huge. My corn grew 3 stalks out of every seed along with most of them having 3 ears as well. My cilantro went to bolted and went to seed almost immediately after planting. The plants were about 3 feet tall. The cilantro re-seeded itself and started growing in november. It was about 5 inches high during superbowl weekend. By the first of may it was about 38 inches tall and went to seed again.

This year I just planted again and hope to have a well documented account of my garden again. Is anyone else doing this kind of stuff with chicken litter?


 
pollinator
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I don't have a convenient source of hardwood sawdust, but do you think hardwood pellets would work?  They don't have any binders and the moisture in the poop should break them apart.  My only concern would be the chickens picking them up as feed...but I can't imagine them doing too much of that.
 
pollinator
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Kevin,
I'm about 2 hours north of you and started with chickens last year. I used the litter from the brooder/coop as mulch on my small corn plots and planted them 4 rows wide on an offset 9"x9" spacing. All the seed planting guides, and my industrial farming in-laws told me it was too close and the chicken litter needed to be composted. I've never had corn grow so well. I'm planning to do it again this year. We also have llamas and they poop pellets like rabbits. That stuff is amazing as well.
 
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Location: Rome, Italy
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Hi!
I use dried sawdust/chips without spraying microbes. In future I count to spray JMS. Another idea is to pour LAB on the compost pile when I remove the sawdust/chips litter.

Actually, without turning it, I use the composted litter like compost for pots. If I have many I distribute it over the ground. I don't know how is the weather where you live, but raised beds are suggested if the ground where you farm is often damp. If you suffer of dry weather the raised bed won't be a good solution, check for sunken beds. This is just a suggestion for a family vegetable garden...if you go industrial don't waste time going for sunken beds!

Fabio
 
pollinator
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Location: Big Island, Hawaii (2300' elevation, 60" avg. annual rainfall, temp range 55-80 degrees F)
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I use a slightly different method of handling floor litter, but it's along the same base ideas as KNF.

I use a modified deep litter system..... (My pen is outdoors, 10' by 30', is roofed, and houses up to 100 birds.)
The litter started out (when I first created the chicken pen) as layered grass clippings, compost, and a little dirt. Nowadays I add grass clippings daily for the hens to eat, plus I add a few shovelfuls of hot compost if I notice any odor (much like adding KNF imo's and formulas), although I almost never need to do that. Each morning I use a shovel (a manure fork would work) to heap up litter into piles running down the center of the pen. I will often sprinkle the hen's morning grain treat atop the piles. During the day the hens scratch the piles down, eating what they like and mixing up the rest up. I sometimes add various food waste from the farm's gardens to the litter for the girls to pick through, though their main food is a cooked slop.

I use this litter as one of my fertilizer sources for my gardens. I hot compost the litter before using because I sell or trade my excess vegetables. I feel it is safer to hot compost manures since my veggies leave this farm.
 
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Location: Victoria British Columbia-Canada
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Has anybody tried dry clay with your mix? Whether you're using leaves or straw or whatever, I would think that a nice powdery dry clay would control smell and lock up nutrients. Remember what we're smelling is our nitrogen disappearing into the air.

I use dry clay for a five gallon bucket toilet that I use on job sites. Just a very light covering, cuts out the smell and it causes everything to dry up. I've seen this happen outside with chicken manure. If they poop in a dry dusty spot, the moisture is quickly wicked away.

It might be good to have a separate tray of dry clay for them to dust bath. Because you don't necessarily want them using their litter for that.
 
pollinator
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Location: Northern California
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I once went on a farm tour and the owners there had put a few inches of sand on the bottom of the run, and other material on top (don’t remember what - maybe straw?). They said the layer of sand wicked away moisture and kept the smell down enough that they never needed to muck out, just add bedding occasionally.
 
pollinator
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I'm envious of the success of the original poster in generating the magic pooh.... but in our case, our free range birds don't spend enough time in the coop to do the work to this particular standard!  Our chooks come in at dusk, get up on the roost and don't come down until sunrise.  We don't have feed or water in the coop unless there are new hatchlings, not even when hens are setting 'cos they consistently come out to feed and drink during the day.

We use woodshavings on the floor and straw in nesting boxes / stuffed tyres for all our bird accommodations (geese, ducks, chickens).  I rake/toss the floor covering every few days, sweeten it with additional woodshavings and a few scoops of DE when necessary and for the past 3 years have only changed the bedding every 3-4 months, when it has built up into a good thick layer - so we do get excellent composting material which either goes onto the compost pile or directly onto fallow/over-wintering growing areas.

As an anecdote, we found by accident (when they escaped under their fence) that letting piglets root up the deep litter in the bird houses was absolutely the best way to loosen it up before cleaning!
 
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Location: Central WI
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Kevin Schaible wrote:
The last few years I have dabbled with using the litter on my garden with fantastic results. The first year I put some on a raised bed in October and planted like I always did in the spring. I live in Missouri and our rocky clay soil is horrible. I had it tested and the report said the soil was deficient for planting in almost every way. I planted from seed and in my tomatoes I saw these leaves that were not like tomato leaves, they were huge and I assumed they were weeds. After pulling a few I noticed they looked like tomatoes but enormous tomato plants. I let them go and didn't add anything else to the soil. The plants grew like weeds and I even got a leaf that was 11 inches long. I couldn't believe how big the plants were. I had a farm hand at the time that didn't know how to shut a gate and the goats got in and ate all the leaves off the tomatoes twice and really crippled the plants.

Last year I decided to see what would happen if I put a half cup of litter in the ground at planting. I used walmart plants that were about 6 inches high with the magic chicken poo. My brother in law planted a garden and challenged me to a tomato grow off. We tracked our progress every friday. After the first 2 weeks my plants averaged 1 foot of growth per week. They quickly outgrew the cages and at 8 weeks were taken out by a storm. I still got a few 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes from the twisted plants but they clearly didn't reach their potential. My rhubarb hadn't done anything so I put some magic poo on that too. I had a leaf that was 5 feet long. The leaves were dark green and huge. My corn grew 3 stalks out of every seed along with most of them having 3 ears as well. My cilantro went to bolted and went to seed almost immediately after planting. The plants were about 3 feet tall. The cilantro re-seeded itself and started growing in november. It was about 5 inches high during superbowl weekend. By the first of may it was about 38 inches tall and went to seed again.

This year I just planted again and hope to have a well documented account of my garden again. Is anyone else doing this kind of stuff with chicken litter?




Kevin,

I have a 5x7 coop doing the deep litter method as well.  A local woodworker has been providing me a couple garbage bags every few weeks which works out nicely.

Did you wait for this to break down, or just spread the litter as is??  I have woodchip-mulched (back to Eden method) raised beds.  They're doing okay right now, but i'd love to amend them with on-site nutrients rather than buying fertilizer/manure.

 
pollinator
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Nate Groshek wrote:
Kevin,

I have a 5x7 coop doing the deep litter method as well.  A local woodworker has been providing me a couple garbage bags every few weeks which works out nicely.

Did you wait for this to break down, or just spread the litter as is??  I have woodchip-mulched (back to Eden method) raised beds.  They're doing okay right now, but i'd love to amend them with on-site nutrients rather than buying fertilizer/manure.



I compost the litter before I use it on my B to E gardens, and then just add it to the top.
 
pollinator
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Here is a write on Lab and on IMO.  Natural Farming!

http://culturalhealingandlife.com.www413.your-server.de/index.php?/forums/topic/35-inputs-section-1-lab-or-lactic-acid-bacteria/

http://culturalhealingandlife.com.www413.your-server.de/index.php?/forums/topic/45-inputs-section-10%C2%A0-imo-to-imo-2-how-to-capture-and-cultivate-indigenous-microorganisms/
 
pollinator
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I started with chickens in 2014, deep litter from the beginning. After it got pretty deep, we did a clean out, maybe 2 years in. We composted the litter using the Berkeley method and top-dressed the soil under a fig tree with it a few weeks later. That year we got three harvests of figs, each almost the size of my fist.

I started with KNF towards the end of 2017, my chicken pen has become something of a soil fertility factory. Still no smell, but so much life to inoculate into the rest of the garden.
 
Posts: 95
Location: Hot, humid, sometimes hurricane drenched west central Florida
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Kevin Schaible wrote: This year I just planted again and hope to have a well documented account of my garden again. Is anyone else doing this kind of stuff with chicken litter?




Hell no I'm not but I'm going to start!! Holy wow and muchas gracias for posting all that for us.
I'm in Florida and all we have is sand so I feel your pain. I'm always looking for anything and everything that I can use to build soil, but so far I've only had mediocre results. I want my efforts to matter and yield healthy strong plants. I work way too hard for average results.
We have a lot of rain here, and plugging leaks and keeping the coop dry takes a lot of my attention. Consequently I use pelleted bedding and cat litter clay which keeps it dry and stink free. The problem is that this particular cat litter is nothing but clumped up diatomaceous earth and it kills every living thing, like worms. The litter has its own area because I can't compost it. It decomposes pretty quickly but I haven't tried throwing a plant or two in it to see if anything survives without worms and such. I sacrifice having compost for having a dry stink free coop I only have to clean every 3 months or so.
 
pollinator
Posts: 270
Location: Haiti
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My rabbit/chicken house is nearly finished, and I'll be doing something similar. I'm going to lay blocks around the inside of the dirt floor, and fill with local sand (which also has some clay in it). Then I'll put in a thin layer of sawdust and shavings along with a sprinkling of charcoal powder. Bunnies in suspended cages will shower poo, pee, and food scraps down to the chicks below them who will then scratch and poop and pee and do their chickeny thing. Whenever needed, I'll add more sawdust, and periodically, some more charcoal powder.

The house is 16x12, and we're only starting with 2 or 3 buns and 4 hens. But assuming all works out, we will likely expand fairly quickly (if the bunnies have their say!). I assume at the beginning we will be able to go almost a year before cleaning it out. Once it's at capacity, it will fill much faster.
 
Leslie Russell
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Priscilla Stilwell wrote:My rabbit/chicken house is nearly finished, and I'll be doing something similar. I'm going to lay blocks around the inside of the dirt floor, and fill with local sand (which also has some clay in it). Then I'll put in a thin layer of sawdust and shavings along with a sprinkling of charcoal powder. Bunnies in suspended cages will shower poo, pee, and food scraps down to the chicks below them who will then scratch and poop and pee and do their chickeny thing. Whenever needed, I'll add more sawdust, and periodically, some more charcoal powder.
Hi Priscilla, what is the charcoal powder for?
The house is 16x12, and we're only starting with 2 or 3 buns and 4 hens. But assuming all works out, we will likely expand fairly quickly (if the bunnies have their say!). I assume at the beginning we will be able to go almost a year before cleaning it out. Once it's at capacity, it will fill much faster.

 
Priscilla Stilwell
pollinator
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Took me a minute to find the question . . . Haha

The charcoal powder is for several things. First, chickens apparently derive some nutritional benefit from it, because they seem to enjoy it. Also, they will "bathe" in it like dust or ash, which is apparently good for their skin.

Additionally, the charcoal helps to absorb odors and any toxins (not that there should be any, but you know, just in case), and it will then "charge" with all the poo and pee and benefit the soil even more when it comes out of there as lovely compost!
 
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Kevin Schaible wrote:The one thing I always hated about keeping chickens was coop cleaning. It stunk, I needed to do it every couple of weeks, it was hard work since I had a 10 x 20 coop with several hundred chickens at the time.

I liked the idea of deep litter but the litter didn't work as well as I would have liked using the typical methods of trying to emulate the forest floor or compost pile in the coop. The biggest problem was the moisture that compost and the forest needs to break down manure. Moisture creates an anaerobic system that leads to ammonia buildup, manure buildup and cleaning or adding material on a regular basis.  

I stumbled on Korean Natural Farming deep litter and tried it. During my initial research on this type of deep litter I found the KNF pig sites that talk about keeping it dry using things like sawdust and putting the bacteria and fungus to work to digest the manure. I didn't find much at the time on how to do it for chickens back then so I was winging it.

I used hardwood sawdust that was free from a local sawmill that was perfect. I had been racking my litter every few days for years and I continued to rake the litter especially under the roost. After a short while I noticed that the litter had dried out, turned gray, and I didn't see any manure even under the roost. There wasn't any ammonia smell either.

That was back in 2015 and I haven't had to clean my coop since. I have converted a couple of coops locally but it took me doing all the work for them to convert. They both love it now but wouldn't have converted on their own. The stumbling block seems to be starting the process. Folks would rather clean the coop periodically than to switch over and never clean again.

The last few years I have dabbled with using the litter on my garden with fantastic results. The first year I put some on a raised bed in October and planted like I always did in the spring. I live in Missouri and our rocky clay soil is horrible. I had it tested and the report said the soil was deficient for planting in almost every way. I planted from seed and in my tomatoes I saw these leaves that were not like tomato leaves, they were huge and I assumed they were weeds. After pulling a few I noticed they looked like tomatoes but enormous tomato plants. I let them go and didn't add anything else to the soil. The plants grew like weeds and I even got a leaf that was 11 inches long. I couldn't believe how big the plants were. I had a farm hand at the time that didn't know how to shut a gate and the goats got in and ate all the leaves off the tomatoes twice and really crippled the plants.

Last year I decided to see what would happen if I put a half cup of litter in the ground at planting. I used walmart plants that were about 6 inches high with the magic chicken poo. My brother in law planted a garden and challenged me to a tomato grow off. We tracked our progress every friday. After the first 2 weeks my plants averaged 1 foot of growth per week. They quickly outgrew the cages and at 8 weeks were taken out by a storm. I still got a few 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes from the twisted plants but they clearly didn't reach their potential. My rhubarb hadn't done anything so I put some magic poo on that too. I had a leaf that was 5 feet long. The leaves were dark green and huge. My corn grew 3 stalks out of every seed along with most of them having 3 ears as well. My cilantro went to bolted and went to seed almost immediately after planting. The plants were about 3 feet tall. The cilantro re-seeded itself and started growing in november. It was about 5 inches high during superbowl weekend. By the first of may it was about 38 inches tall and went to seed again.

This year I just planted again and hope to have a well documented account of my garden again. Is anyone else doing this kind of stuff with chicken litter?




I love KNF, but here in Maine Jadam is easier to incorporate. I hope to implement KNF coops but was curious if Jadam preparations would work over the IMO4... do you have any experience?
 
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Oh wow. I’m still in the process of researching the keeping chickens project, and now I feel I have hit the jackpot.

I have been reading about the different kinds of litters and and cleaning the coop and composting the poop and and how to make stuff easy, but there have been so many different opinions and ways to do things.. This seems perfect! And guess what?

Our closest neighbour has a sawmill. All the free sawdust I ever will need.

AaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAaaaaa I love Permies. Thank you thank you thank you Kevin for posting this and Anthony for bumping this thread so I could see it.
 
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Has anyone tried hemp straw for the deep litter method? That’s what we are trying out now. I really hope it works. We also sprayed with a mineral spray before we put it down. So far it has been amazing. The backyard smells so much better now.
 
pollinator
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I use a mix of sand and ash in my coop. About 5 cm layer on the floor of the coop.  I've been using the method for 3 years, and the result has been excellent - no smell AT ALL, easy to clean (I use a small rake and a cat litter scoop), and suitable also as dustbath when the hens don't feel like going out (e.g., because of bad weather).
 
Anthony Dougherty
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Levente Andras wrote:I use a mix of sand and ash in my coop. About 5 cm layer on the floor of the coop.  I've been using the method for 3 years, and the result has been excellent - no smell AT ALL, easy to clean (I use a small rake and a cat litter scoop), and suitable also as dustbath when the hens don't feel like going out (e.g., because of bad weather).



True KNF coop needs no cleaning, it is microbially cleaned
 
Levente Andras
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Anthony Dougherty wrote:

Levente Andras wrote:I use a mix of sand and ash in my coop. About 5 cm layer on the floor of the coop.  I've been using the method for 3 years, and the result has been excellent - no smell AT ALL, easy to clean (I use a small rake and a cat litter scoop), and suitable also as dustbath when the hens don't feel like going out (e.g., because of bad weather).



True KNF coop needs no cleaning, it is microbially cleaned



If the KNF coop requires organic matter like the one you described - e.g., hardwood sawdust, or any kind of sawdust - the sourcing of that material can be a problem (at least in my area) as nowadays all woody biomass is gobbled up for fuel. Whereas with my method, the sand lasts virtually for ever (the rake & scoop ensure that only minimal amounts of the sand litter are removed during cleaning), and supply of ash is usually not an issue if you have a wood-burning stove or boiler.
 
Saana Jalimauchi
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Kevin, Anthony, anyone!

I need help with setting up KNF deep litter system! I wasnt prepared to getting chickens so soon yet but now it seems that in two months we will have chickens. I will start making the IMOs as soon as possible.

Is hardwood (pine) sawdust really okay? The neighbour with the sawmill said that it’s not good as it had resin in it? He said that it should be soft wood, but ofcourse he’s not doing KNF but using the sawdust as is..

I will have a coop with wood floor, the deep litter thing works in it too? We can have really cold winters, this is not Hawaii or anything, it’s Finland (zone ~5b). The coop will of course have some heat in the winter but not much.


Aaaaa I’m exited and a bit scared too!

 
Anthony Dougherty
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Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Kevin, Anthony, anyone!

I need help with setting up KNF deep litter system! I wasnt prepared to getting chickens so soon yet but now it seems that in two months we will have chickens. I will start making the IMOs as soon as possible.

Is hardwood (pine) sawdust really okay? The neighbour with the sawmill said that it’s not good as it had resin in it? He said that it should be soft wood, but ofcourse he’s not doing KNF but using the sawdust as is..

I will have a coop with wood floor, the deep litter thing works in it too? We can have really cold winters, this is not Hawaii or anything, it’s Finland (zone ~5b). The coop will of course have some heat in the winter but not much.


Aaaaa I’m exited and a bit scared too!


I don't see why it wouldn't be ok the resin will just give it a little longer shelf life, my local vet said only I be careful of cedar with small animals for respiratory concerns... I still haven't clarified if the jumpers that are called cedars apply to that. I'm Maine, 5a, I don't have the deep litter system yet but I know regular deep litter systems are used here. I have some hesitation with wood for a floor though.

In the knf system they recommend concrete, I imagine the reason is the imos will decompose any wooden surfaces. You also want to dig down 4-6 feet and you layer in carbon charcoal and the imos to build a habitat that will feed on the manure keeping that smell down...

PureKnf has several videos on chickens, but he's a little difficult to follow at times.... This is Chris Trump's explanation of the coops
https://youtu.be/Om2Gh_jt1CY
 
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Anthony, thanl you for the reply and for the video, I will check it out!

Concrete floor might be possible but what does this mean:

Anthony Dougherty wrote:
In the knf system they recommend concrete, I imagine the reason is the imos will decompose any wooden surfaces. You also want to dig down 4-6 feet



Digging down on the run is of course doable but how does the concrete floor thing work..? Sorry if I’m missing something obvious!
 
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Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Anthony, thanl you for the reply and for the video, I will check it out!

Concrete floor might be possible but what does this mean:

Anthony Dougherty wrote:
In the knf system they recommend concrete, I imagine the reason is the imos will decompose any wooden surfaces. You also want to dig down 4-6 feet



Digging down on the run is of course doable but how does the concrete floor thing work..? Sorry if I’m missing something obvious![/quote

Well essentially we are breeding a decomposing factory to decompose the animal waste, it's like a superpowered composter, so concrete will be able to take the hit where wood can't... Now I'll mention I know of individuals who have made super condensed imo preparations from Johnson Su compost and has been able to decompose certain granites

 
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I meant that if I have a concrete floor then there cannot be digging down for 8 feet to layer things.. Unless the chickens live on the second floor, haha.
 
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I’m starting to think that this is not doable at all in a insulated winter chicken house.. They don’t have actual coops where they are doing this, just those runlike cages..?

I’ve seen some videos but they indeed have been from warm places.



Well it did sound too good to be true!
 
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Saana Jalimauchi wrote:I’m starting to think that this is not doable at all in a insulated winter chicken house.. They don’t have actual coops where they are doing this, just those runlike cages..?


I'm not a cold climate, but wet and hovering around 3C has it's own challenges!

So if I was doing this, I would dig down and install a reinforced and insulated concrete wall like a basement wall. If you make that 8 ft (which does seem excessive, but what's your frost line?), it quite possibly would need some buttresses. I'd fill the bottom four feet with a mixture of dirt and biodegradable material and the KNF inoculant. Then the next 4 feet would be just sawdust and inoculant. I'd make absolutely sure that however you join your coop to the "wall foundation", that rats and mice can't chew their way in.  If one of those "buttresses" in fact was a dividing wall, you could have 2 or more areas of the foundation. One could be for the coop and the second and third ones for runs for when the birds can get out for even part of the day.

We use mostly portable shelters, but I've been swearing for years that we need a couple of the wall set-ups I'm describing so that when we get really pathetically wet winters - or worse, wet snow is forecast - we can roll the shelter over the wall set up and the birds can stay there for a week or longer without damaging the soil from their high nitrogen output. However, 3 feet would be more than adequate.

However, beyond that, I'm always leery of "no work". If you've got lots of bedding, and the microbes are eating the poop, I'd totally believe "no smell". But if you're not having to add bedding, then the bedding is not decomposing. That means that the microbes are just eating the poop and turning it into something that floats away - like CO2, Methane, O2 etc. I consider chicken poop a valuable resource for my garden. Maybe they're just turning it into heat? It's the old rule that's something like, "matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can just change form". You're adding matter in the form of chicken feed which is getting turned into heat, eggs, body mass and poop. The heat and the eggs will leave the system. Is that enough for everything else to be in stasis? Is that what you want? Or do you want amendments to use to kick-start plants and soil elsewhere? In my climate with lots of rain, I find that plants like a spring mulching with chicken shit inoculated wood chips to start the growing season with! But I'm a very different climate.

Maybe the people who have done this can explain where my thinking has gone wrong. I have read great things about KNF decreasing smell from animal bedding - I'm just not sure what's happening in the process!
 
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Thank you Jay for the reply.

We did some math (spoons, time and money) and decided that rushing it is not worth it. We will get chickens next year.

How we ended up thinking of getting chickens in a couple of months was that dear hubby went to the neighbour to pay for the snow plowing and he asked if it was possible to get chicks from them at some point and the neighbour said that yes, he will leave some eggs to incubate.

Then excited hubby comes home and tells me that we will get chickens! He’s the throttle in our relationship and I’m the brake!

Whew.
More time to research chicken keeping and to do things properly and to focus on the fruit trees and other perennial plantings this year.
 
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Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Whew.
More time to research chicken keeping and to do things properly and to focus on the fruit trees and other perennial plantings this year.

There are lots of great threads about all aspects of chicken keeping on Permies.  If you're in a high predator pressure area, I highly recommend you plan your fruit trees along with the concept of "chicken paddocks" - contained areas so that your chickens can forage and clean up the fruit trees when you want them there.  There are threads about chicken friendly plants, but you'd need to research which ones are suitable for your climate. Even a small flock would benefit from 6 paddocks if you want them to forage a significant chunk of their diet.

I'm using a portable shelter system, and it can't be moved over obstacles like bushes and it's a lot of work. But it is possible to train birds to follow you to the paddock you want them in for day use. There are people who've even trained ducks, although they're much flightier. I have sort of done so with one group, but I more "herd" them than "lead" them. Two people would be much easier at least in the beginning - one leading and one herding!
 
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Thank you, those are great leads for me to follow into the rabbit holes of chicken keeping in Permies! I will definitely look into designing the gardens so that the chickens can be a part of the ecosystem in multible ways.

And I will not dump the KNF chicken thingy yet, I will do more research on that also.. There are many things in Korean Natural Farming that really resonate with me!
 
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Kevin Schaible wrote:

I liked the idea of deep litter but the litter didn't work as well as I would have liked using the typical methods of trying to emulate the forest floor or compost pile in the coop. The biggest problem was the moisture that compost and the forest needs to break down manure. Moisture creates an anaerobic system that leads to ammonia buildup, manure buildup and cleaning or adding material on a regular basis.  

I stumbled on Korean Natural Farming deep litter and tried it.



Hi Kevin,
I want to try this in a covered, outdoor pen with my quail.  How deep did you make the sawdust, and did you innoculate it?  If so, how?
 
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Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Thank you! I will definitely look into designing the gardens so that the chickens can be a part of the ecosystem in multible ways



Saana, I am from Finland (Kymenlaakso) as well and I tried to keep my chickens in the walled fruit orchard. Almost the entire flock was eaten by hawks. I live in the deep countryside with wheat and hay fields around me. I suspect the hawks don't find enough food in the fields. The hawk pressure is just astonishing.

A week ago I happened to go to my chicken house when I heard screaming. There was a hawk inside. He had dropped at great speed through the top netting 😳. Now I have the run covered in wire netting.

It is easy to fall in love with those curious charming lively little dinosaurs. Losing them is a tragedy.

20231020_174948.jpg
fenving and net on the top is the only option here
fenving and net on the top is the only option here
 
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Kaarina, so sorry for your loss. I have been following your journey with the chickens and everything here on Permies, thank you for posting great content!

We still have a plan to get chickens next spring.. I stopped researching the KNF method for now, it seems like it wouldn’t work in our climate. Some parts of it might come handy though.. We’ll see.

As for letting the chickens free range - I don’t think it would work at our place either (forest in Etelä-Savo). The previous owner had chickens and the runs were covered with nets. But I’m hoping that I could arrange supervised free ranging time (and super secretly I’m hoping to train the chickens to follow me for an adventure to the forest to eat bilberries and stuff ).
 
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Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Kaarina, so sorry for your loss. I have been following your journey with the chickens and everything here on Permies, thank you for posting great content!

We still have a plan to get chickens next spring.. I stopped researching the KNF method for now, it seems like it wouldn’t work in our climate. Some parts of it might come handy though.. We’ll see.

As for letting the chickens free range - I don’t think it would work at our place either (forest in Etelä-Savo). The previous owner had chickens and the runs were covered with nets. But I’m hoping that I could arrange supervised free ranging time (and super secretly I’m hoping to train the chickens to follow me for an adventure to the forest to eat bilberries and stuff ).



Saana, I'm in a climate with very cold winters.  -28C happens ever year, we had two nights a couple years ago -40C.  I use the deep litter method along with a Woods Open Air Coop and have excellent results.  I would never use another type of coop given a choice.  My coop is uninsulated and the front stays open all winter.  I have far less issues with frostbite than I did with an insulated coop.  The secret for happy chickens for me is two things in winter.  The coop needs to stay completely bone-dry in the winter, and the chickens need to be completely protected from drafts.  
 
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Trace, thank you! I have lately been reading about the chickens not needing actual heating in winter -stuff.. I got scared of the possible fire hazards the heating of the coop might bring. Are you using the KNF deep litter method with the specific inoculants?

Do you have any pictures of your coop in Permies? It would be really nice to see your setup!
 
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Hawk pressure is something that I experience as well. In fact I have a pair of bald eagles that like to fly above due to my proximity to a few rivers. That is all I need, some freedom chickens tearing into my coop! I have put wire on top of their run and am eventually going to put an actual roof on the run in due time.

I'm going to attempt the deep litter method this year, I understand the mechanics and I'm hoping to see some good success! I'm starting off with flaked pine bedding and hoping to perhaps shift to something that is a local waste stream. I have plenty of connections to sawmills in my area so i might go that route. All in due time!
 
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Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Trace, thank you! I have lately been reading about the chickens not needing actual heating in winter -stuff.. I got scared of the possible fire hazards the heating of the coop might bring. Are you using the KNF deep litter method with the specific inoculants?

Do you have any pictures of your coop in Permies? It would be really nice to see your setup!



I never use heat in my coops, fire hazards being one reason.  There are other reasons as well.  Any time a system is made more complex, there is more chance for failure.  Suppose I kept my chicken coop at 35 F, just above freezing.  My chicken will be acclimated to that.  So, one night comes along that is bitter cold -40 F, and my power goes out, and with it, the heat to my coop.  Will my chickens survive?  I really don't know.  My gut feeling is that even if they do, they will be miserable, never having acclimated to those temperatures.  Another reason for not heating is that it's just isn't necessary.  Now that I have a coop with proper ventilation and no drafts, my chickens thrive in any temperature.

I am not using any inoculants in my coop.  I don't really understand how to use inoculants and at the same time keep the coop completely dry.  It seems like for them to work, I would need to keep the coop damp, and I definitely don't want that.

I'm not sure if I have any pictures of my coop.  I'll try to remember to take some.  This is a picture I found online of a coop of the same style.  Mine looks very similar but has boards on the outside rather than painted siding like this one has.

Woods-coop.JPG
[Thumbnail for Woods-coop.JPG]
 
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Hi all, Just wanted to clarify. So there is deep litter mulch for poultry, which uses high carbon bedding like leaves, wood chips, etc. I’ve been using this method for three years. I also tried shredded newspaper, but it was not a great option. I start in the fall, October in Eastern Washington, by digging out the residue in the covered run, first scraping back the top orange/brown layer and spreading the dark black sublayer around the garden. It has been composting in place for a year. Then I add a new layer of wood chips around 6 inches deep, mixing in the top lay I had moved aside to innoculate the new bedding. If things get damp in the winter, I'll throw some leaves on top and maybe some extra leaves under the roost. But that’s it for maintenance in the deep litter method. This is not the KNF Poultry method.

KNF poultry is the native dirt floor inoculated with LAB and IMO sprays with maybe a 1/4” deep layer of straw finely chopped for 130 birds in permanent in-door accommodations. They also spread scratch daily to encourage the chickens to clean the floors. That’s it. Perhaps they add some extra straw on occasion. But it is not deep litter. You can see 40 minutes into this 3-hour video from Master Cho's intensive training in Korea while they tour a farm. There isn’t a deep mulch. Thank you to Dr. Drake for sharing his recording on YouTube. https://youtu.be/pJA_dx4zHy4?si=kAE5JV4FOJMxlp4k

Master Cho’s innovations are well thought out. They also mention in the video series that the chickens are highly productive for three years, and at the end of that time, they are butchered and sold as meat hens for a premium price because of their high-quality meat. During those three years in the same area, they never remove the bedding, unless, at the end of the three years before moving the new chicks in, they want to sell it as a high-grade soil inoculant to farmers. Not because it has to be removed. So, it’s a very different method to deep litter.

I want to start using it once I can have a larger space and more than four birds.
 
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