We use the Deep Litter Method for cleaning our coop. The idea is to keep adding bedding and just stirring it up weekly to keep the coop clean. There really is very little smell and the birds seem just fine. Normally you would keep the bedding in the coop until spring, but our ducks have made a water mess of the place and when the temperature goes below freezing, the bedding becomes ice. We took advantage of the nice weather and decided to clean out the wet bedding and start new. Chuck set up the waterer so dumping water onto the bedding would not be as easy. I will post a photo of this soon.

The objective is to get it from the coop to the garden.

We transport with a sled, which makes it pretty easy.

The combination of bedding, chicken and duck poop should make some nice compost for this spring’s garden.

The horses keep watching me walk back and forth from the coop to the garden. After reading more about putting this in the garden as compost, I realize I may have to compost it further. Some of the bedding was ready for the garden, but the top layers need a little help. I think I will set up a compost area by the garden and add other materials to help break it down.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 3:29 pm and is filed under January 2010, chickens, ducks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.