My neighbor's deep litter method versus my daily clean out

For the last six months I cleaned my coop floor every single morning, scraping out all the old bedding. It took about 15 minutes a day and I went through a $15 bag of pine shavings every week. My neighbor across the street, who has the same number of birds, just adds fresh shavings on top of the old stuff and only does a full clean twice a year. I thought his coop would smell awful, but I went over last weekend and it honestly didn't. My girls' run is dustier and I'm spending more money. The big difference seems to be that his deep litter breaks down and generates heat, which might help in winter too. Has anyone else made this switch and seen better results?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley86023d ago

Whoa, hold up. You're only looking at the bedding cost. What about your time? Fifteen minutes a day is over ninety hours a year. That's two full work weeks just scraping poop. Your neighbor spends that time maybe turning the litter once a week. His method saves a crazy amount of labor, which has its own value. You could use that time for other chores or just enjoying your birds.

susan_hall23d ago

Wait, ninety hours a year? That math is actually insane when you put it that way. I never added it all up like that before. Makes the weekly method sound way smarter.