The deep litter method is simple. You start the coop floor with about 6 inches of pine shavings or straw, you add fresh bedding on top instead of shoveling the old stuff out, and you let the hens scratch it all together until it’s about 12 inches deep. Then it sits there, slowly breaking down, until spring. If it smells like ammonia, it’s failing, and the fix is almost always moisture.
I keep 12 hens and one rooster with a bad attitude, and I’ve run deep litter in my coop for most of the eight years I’ve had a flock. My first try was a wet, stinking mess by January (the rooster was not impressed either). So I’m not going to sell you on it as magic. It’s a way of managing bedding, and it works when you keep it dry and quits working the minute you don’t.
Below is how I run it, plus what the people who study poultry for a living say. The numbers come from the University of Georgia Extension, a University of Maine poultry vet quoted in the Bangor Daily News, and a poultry scientist answering on Ask Extension. I’ll name which is which as we go.
What Deep Litter Is, in Plain Terms
Deep litter isn’t a backyard invention. James Hermes, a poultry PhD answering a reader on Ask Extension, says built-up litter is common in the broiler industry. Commercial growers take most of it out after a flock goes to market, leave a little behind on their packed dirt floors, add 2 to 4 inches of fresh bedding, and do it all again, five or six flocks a year.
Your coop runs on a slower clock. One flock lives there year round, so the litter builds all fall and winter and comes out once, in spring. The idea is the same though. Droppings land on carbon, the hens mix it, and the pile starts to compost in place instead of turning into a crust you chip off with a flat shovel every Saturday.
As for a health upside, Hermes says there’s some value for immunity to common disease organisms that don’t usually kill many birds. That’s a careful answer, and I’d keep it careful. Deep litter won’t protect a flock from a serious disease, and he’s clear that a bad outbreak calls for a full cleanout. More on that at the end.
You’ll also read that the composting litter heats the coop. The Bangor Daily News piece says that heat helps keep chickens warm, and maybe it does down at floor level. Honestly, I’ve never felt it from the roost bar, and I wouldn’t plan a single winter night around it. Dry air and good ventilation keep my birds healthier than any warm floor. If you’re weighing that trade, my notes on chicken coop insulation cover the ventilation side.
Start at 6 Inches and Build Toward 12
The Bangor Daily News piece lays out the build the way I do it. Start with a 6-inch layer of pine shavings. Keep adding bedding on top as it packs down and gets dirty, and work it up to a 12-inch layer of compost by the end of the season. Straw is optional, and plenty of people mix it with the shavings.
Don’t dump the whole 12 inches in on day one. A thick, fluffy floor of clean shavings just sits there. The method needs droppings mixed into the carbon to get going, and that takes weeks of hens living on it.
Here’s my rhythm. I put the first 6 inches down in early fall, before the nights get cold, so it has a couple of months to get working before the hens spend whole days inside. After that, a fresh flake or two of bedding goes in any time the top looks dark or matted. It’s not daily for me. In a wet stretch it’s every few days, and in a dry cold snap it might be once a week.
One rule from the feed store guys that’s held up for me: buy bedding by the bale before you need it. Nothing’s worse than a soggy patch on a Sunday night with an empty shed.
Let the Hens Do the Turning
Deep litter needs air. The Bangor Daily News piece calls oxygen crucial to the composting, and says to turn the bedding with a shovel or poke holes in it with rake tines. You can do that. I’d rather the flock did most of it for me.
The trick from that same article is to toss scratch grains onto the litter at bedtime so the hens dig for it. Cracked corn, barley, oats, sunflower seeds or millet all work. I throw one loose handful per 10 birds, right before I close up, and by morning they’ve raked the top few inches over pretty well. Keep it to a handful though. Scratch is a treat, and a bucket of it in the litter makes fat hens and thin eggs.
Hens don’t turn every corner evenly. They skip the spot under the roost, where the droppings pile up fastest, and the far corner where the bossy birds won’t let the low hens go. Those two spots get my pitchfork once a week. Five minutes, tops.
If you’ve got a compost bin going in the run, it’s the same idea, just inside. Carbon, droppings, air and scratching birds.
The Smell Test: Ammonia Means It’s Failing
A deep litter coop that’s working smells like a barn or the woods. Earthy. A coop that stings your eyes when you open the door has gone wrong, and your birds have been breathing it all night.
The University of Georgia Extension explains where the smell comes from. Bacteria in the litter break down the uric acid in droppings, and ammonia is what’s left over. Three things drive it: manure, heat and moisture. Georgia says moisture is the biggest problem for poultry owners, and that if wet litter is present, ammonia issues are sure to follow.
The numbers are what convinced me to take my nose seriously. Georgia says ammonia shouldn’t go above 25 ppm in a coop, and that hens kept in as little as 20 ppm for long stretches can suffer for it. People can usually smell ammonia at about 20 to 25 ppm. So by the time you notice it, you’re already at the line. If you smell it, you’ve got a problem.
Too much of it shows in the birds. Georgia lists coughing, snicking, watery eyes from conjunctivitis and labored breathing, and birds eat less feed when ammonia runs high. Laying drops off too, in my experience, though winter muddies that one.
The fix is drying it out, in this order. Rake the wet layer out first, then add dry bedding and open the vents. Georgia also suggests keeping the relative humidity around 50 to 70%, and says a small fan to move air can help dry the litter. A cheap humidity gauge from the hardware store tells you a lot more than you’d think. If you want a number on the ammonia itself, Georgia mentions ammonia test paper at about six dollars a roll.
Wet Spots Start at the Waterer
Every failed deep litter coop I’ve seen, mine included, went bad from one wet spot outward. Usually it’s under the waterer. Hens slosh, the drip tray overflows, and a ring of soaked shavings packs into a cold, sour mat that never dries. Ammonia starts right there.
My answer was to move the water out of the litter entirely. In good weather it lives in the run. In winter it sits on a couple of patio pavers so the spill lands on stone, not bedding, and I dig out whatever gets wet before it spreads. That one change did more for my litter than anything else on this page.
Winter adds its own wet problem. A heated base that keeps water open also makes warm, steamy air right above the litter, so keep it where you can watch it. My post on how to keep chicken water from freezing goes through the safe ways to do that without risking a fire in dry bedding.
Roof leaks and blowing snow count too. Walk the coop after a storm and look for dark patches along the walls. It’s kinda boring, but it’s the job.
Nest Boxes Stay Clean, Not Deep
Deep litter is a floor method. It doesn’t belong in the nest boxes, and this is the one place I’m fussy.
Dr. Anne Lichtenwalner, who runs the University of Maine’s veterinary diagnostic lab, told the Bangor Daily News to clean nest boxes extra carefully in winter. As soon as you take out the eggs for the day, flick out any manure in the box and add a handful of fresh shavings. She also warns that a buildup of manure in nest boxes can lead to coliform salpingitis, an infection of a hen’s oviduct. That’s not something you want to find out about the hard way.
She makes one more point that’s easy to skip. Wash your hands after the coop. Chickens can carry salmonella without looking sick at all, and a deep litter floor is full of droppings by design. I keep a pair of boots and gloves that never come in the house.
Spring Cleanout and Where the Old Litter Goes
According to the Bangor Daily News piece, you don’t have to shovel out or remove anything until spring. That matches my coop. Some time in April, once the run has dried up, the whole floor comes out in one long, dusty afternoon. I leave a thin layer behind to restart it in the fall, the way the broiler growers Hermes describes leave a little on their floors.
Where it goes matters. The same article says spring litter can go on a flower garden, but not on vegetables you’re growing, because salmonella can stay active in composted chicken manure. I pile mine in a back corner bin for a full season before it touches anything, and it goes around the shrubs and flowers, not the lettuce.
Sometimes the litter has to come out early. If the smell won’t clear after you’ve dried it out, take it out and start over. And if your flock gets a serious disease, Hermes says to do a complete cleanout and leave the house empty for about a month. He also says commercial growers rarely use lime because it has little if any benefit, which saved me a bag at the feed store.
Deep litter is worth it for your coop if you can keep the water off the floor and you check it with your nose every morning. You’ll handle bedding a few minutes a week instead of a full scrape-out every weekend, and you’ll end up with a pile of garden compost in spring. If your coop has a leaky roof or no vents, fix that first. The winter coop prep list is where I’d start.
Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe
