How To Do the Deep Litter Method

April 7, 2024

April 22, 2024

A clean coop is a healthy coop. And since chickens make a lot of chicken poop, it can be a daunting task to clean the coop out all winter long. But there is an alternative to winter-time shoveling, and we call it the deep litter method.

What is the Deep Litter Method?

The deep litter method is a way of managing your chicken coop. Rather than weekly cleaning out the coop in the winter, you consistently add more bedding to it. As the chickens dig through the bedding, they turn it and aerate it, which causes the manure and bedding to compost. The compost creates heat, which warms the coop, keeps the ammonia smell under control, and manages the manure so you don’t have to do a weekly cleanout.

How to Use the Deep Litter Method

The deep-litter method works great during the colder months. It’s fairly simple and saves a lot of hard work and time spent out in the cold. Here’s how to use it.

The first step is to consider how you’ll keep the litter in the coop. You may need to fasten a piece of plywood inside the coop in front of the doors to keep it from falling out every time you go in for maintenance. Just make sure not to block the door that the chickens use!
Cover the floor of your coop with 6 to 12 inches of litter. I generally use pine shavings from my local Tractor Supply. But there are plenty of other materials that can work, as well! Ideally, it needs to be a dry, organic material that is compostable and high in carbon. This could be leaves, mulch, dried husks, shredded cardboard, chopped straw, or a combination. If you use straw, you’ll want to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t get compacted or moldy, which can cause respiratory issues for your chickens.
Sprinkle a little food-grade DE (diatomaceous earth) on top. DE will help dry out the poo as well as control mites and lice.
Now, you get to do nothing! At least for a little while.
You’ll want to add more bedding when it starts to compact or flatten. Depending on how many chickens you have, how big your coop is, and how much time they spend indoors, this could take a week or a month. If it starts to smell, you definitely need to add more litter!
Add more bedding until it’s 6 to 12 inches deep again. Your chickens will probably be very excited to dig through it! If they are very active in the coop, you probably won’t have to do much else. If they don’t turn it over, you’ll have to get in with a shovel and mix it up.
Sprinkle more DE over the top any time you add litter.
Repeat as needed.
In the spring, when it starts to get warm and again in the fall, right before cold weather sets in, you’ll probably want to completely clean out your coop. Pick a warm, sunny day to sweep out all of the composted litter (dump it in your compost pile for next year’s garden!). You might also want to hose out the coop and let it dry before you add more bedding. Then, you can begin the cycle again!

Troubleshooting the Deep Litter Method

Some people have great success using the deep litter method year-round. However, if you live in a warmer climate, you might only want to use this method during the cooler months. The composting bedding will generate extra heat in the coop, no matter what time of year it is. If your coop is hot, you don’t want to add more heat.

If you start to smell ammonia in your coop, it’s probably a sign that you need to add more bedding. However, you can also use Nutriplex-W as a water-soluble supplement right in your chicken’s water. This will reduce the ammonia in the chicken manure - and help your coop stay fresher longer.

If the bedding isn’t composting and creating heat, you might have too much bedding for the amount of chicken poop. That’s ok - you can just wait longer before you add more.

If it is frigid where you live, you can keep your food and water right in the coop. Just make sure they don’t get shavings in their water. Depending on how cold it is in the coop, the heat generated from the composting litter might also be enough to keep your chicken water from freezing.

If you have small chicks in your coop, they may get lost in the deep litter. So you might want to use the regular bedding until the chicks are larger or put them in a grow-out coop with the mother hen until they are large enough to navigate it.

Lastly, if the entire deep litter method fails, you can sweep out your coop and return to using a small layer of bedding that you sweep out regularly, or even start over and try the deep litter method again.

Getting your bedding to manure balance just right may take a little trial and error. Always err on the side of too much bedding because too much poop can cause unhealthy conditions for your hens. Otherwise, the deep litter method is foolproof, easy, and carefree for you and your chickens.