How to Use the Deep Litter Method In Your Chicken Coop

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This article will be deep diving into the deep litter method for your chicken coop. There has been nothing better than having our sweet little ladies on the homestead. Have you heard of chickens being the gateway animal? All true! They provide food for our family and in return we provide them love and a wonderful life.

The circle must go round and round or we lose the entire meaning of this whole thing.

When deciding to get yourself some chickens, there is so much valuable information out there to learn from. We did a TON of research and made a TON of mistakes along the way, from what to feed them, to how to preserve their eggs, to how to take care of their coop.

When it comes to maintaining our homestead, we need to keep things as efficient as possible. With working and homeschooling full-time we need to be very mindful of what takes up our time. Automating feeding and watering systems on the homestead has been a huge win and implementing the deep litter method has been another!

Table of Contents

• The deep litter method
• Cleaning Out Your Coop
• Diatomaceous Earth, To Use or Not To Use?
• What Are The Benefits of Using The Deep Litter Method?
• What to Do With Your Straw After Cleaning Your Coop

The deep litter method

This method is a super simple low maintenance approach to cleaning your chicken coop. We have come across individuals who clean their coop multiple times a week, some who hand pick the poop off of roosts and nesting boxes and then some who don’t even use bedding in their coop. None of those approaches felt good to us. We needed a system that allows us to keep our chicken coop clean so our birds stay healthy but gives us the room to put our focus else where during the week. This method checks all the boxes.

The deep litter method is just like it sounds, adding layers of bedding to your coop instead of removing it.

The best bedding we found to use is straw. You would simply add a bale or two of straw, depending on the size of your coop. When you notice your coop is starting to smell, or is dwindling down, you simply add MORE straw right on top. You can implement this method for 6 months or even up to a year before having to clean out your coop entirely.

Cleaning Out Your Coop

When it comes time to cleaning your coop, you remove all the straw, which by this point is going to be slightly composted down, and throw it in your compost pile to finish breaking down.

When adding bedding back in, just be sure to add a ton right off the bat to start your system all over again. Now, this next suggestion is a bit taboo…you will find some very hard no’s when it comes to what we are about to mention. However, we use this every time and nothing has happened to our flock.

Diatomaceous Earth, To Use or Not To Use?

We use it and we aren’t afraid to say so! However, we use it very sparingly along the walls of our coop while the ladies are outside of the coop. Using diatomaceous earth helps to keep mice, ticks, fleas and other nasty critters away from your ladies. There is a hard no when it comes to diatomaceous earth from some people. If used irresponsibly, it can do some damage to your chickens respiratory system.

So use it or lose it, we support it either way!

That’s it.

What Are The Benefits of Using The Deep Litter Method?

Low maintenance, most importantly. But it is a proven way to help build your soil and helps to create beautifully rich compost. You see, your chickens will poop. A LOT. The poop is what is going to give your compost nitrogen and the straw is your carbon.

If your homestead involves having a composting system inside the chicken area like we do, then this whole thing got even easier. You wouldn’t have to go far to discard all that straw from your coop. Simply throw it onto the compost pile in your chicken area and allow your chickens to help you continue to break it down. They will continue to scratch through it, essentially turning the compost for you!

Wait, you mean I can be building materials for my compost in my coop?

Yup!

And my chickens are doing all the work for me?

Yup!

So I don’t have to go out and clean my chicken coop as often as I am?

Nope!

Mind blown!

I know, right!

What to Do With Your Straw After Cleaning Your Coop

Now if you haven’t ventured into making compost on your homestead just yet, that is fine, just allow the straw from the chicken coop to sit somewhere for 2-6 months. This step is extremely important.

Chicken manure is extremely high in nitrogen, it is considered a “hot” manure. Putting “hot” manure directly on plants can actually burn your plants.

Another reason you don’t want to put it directly onto your garden is because of the bacteria in the chicken manure. Bacteria like e.coli and salmonella can contaminate what ever crop you are growing, potentially make you and your family sick.

Allowing your chicken manure to sit for 2-6 months gives the manure time to cool down and the bacteria to decompose. Making it safer to use on your garden.

Homesteading is a laborious life style.

An extremely fulfilling life style but laborious none the less. Finding ways to keep things as simple and low maintenance as possible, is the key that we have found to be successful. Maybe you have time to clean out your coop once a week, why you would want to, is beyond me. But when you have a method that works and provides for you AND your chickens, I say that is two thumbs up yo!

Homesteading is a life that you actively choose. It is a commitment to hard work and understanding self sufficiency. Learning how to make nature work for you instead of against you has to be one of the most important parts of this whole journey.

For more on chickens head on over here.

Until next time…