deep litter or bare floors

i like to use straw for the nests i wait till the misses has gone out get some in a bag and microwave it kills all the bugs that are in the stems of the straw

ian wrote:

yes but prefer straw for nest material tho

yes i also use straw for them to nest with, but ive found if you have it on the floor as deep litter it tends to get damp eventually and stinks.......

also have used sand in the bottom of the bowls and straw for the nest. since last year ive started to wrap the nestbowls in newspaper.

Saw that on the dvd david....in newspaper

The birds love the straw as they like to build their own nests at least some of them do anyway, lol I use coconut matting in the nest bowls and give the birds a bit of straw to put in for themselves.

Coconut matting doesnt get damp easily and lets air circulate right through it also it is very warm and is moth proof. You can buy it cheaper at the market gardeners than if you buy it for pigeons in ready made rounds. As soon as something is on the market for pigeons the price trebles.

i have hemcore down at the minute in yb loft and straw in the stock loft next year i will put old birds onto either grills or put a plywood floor in and scrape out daily???? found the hemcore a little too dusty for my liking.

I'm not a deep littler fan in any form, I just use a sprinkling of shavings, I also put shavings in the bottom of the nestbowls and give them straw for the nests.

Gaz b wrote:

I'm not a deep littler fan in any form, I just use a sprinkling of shavings, I also put shavings in the bottom of the nestbowls and give them straw for the nests.

tend to agree gaz just couldnt find the time to do it all this year, pressure from mrs etc trying to get my garden kitted out etc will be revamping my loft at end of season and hope to put new floors in then not even fissed if its chipboard or like i say floor grills with a light sand dusting just wary of mice with the grills in

in my stock shed i use the laysoft horse bedding, this is good because it only gets dusty when its old and been down a while, it also means im not constantly cleaning out, altho i scrape the perches most days..........

in my yb section i prefer sraped floors with a little bit of floor whitener down.

deep litter for me ,more time with the birds as a result of using it ,as we would,nt hve much time left

when i had bare floors and scraped out every day it meant that by the time id finished cleaning all the sections out, i had very little time to spend with the pigeons..........this is why i like the laysoft in a few sections.

deep litter is excellent for building the ybs immunity and if deep enough should never be dusty as the dust lyes underneath the litter but i do scrape perches and boxes daily but each to his own

David wrote:

when i had bare floors and scraped out every day it meant that by the time id finished cleaning all the sections out, i had very little time to spend with the pigeons..........this is why i like the laysoft in a few sections.

Spot on David

oldstrain wrote:

deep litter is excellent for building the ybs immunity and if deep enough should never be dusty as the dust lyes underneath the litter but i do scrape perches and boxes daily but each to his own

Daz that is 110% correct mate were immunity come in place

I used to be a clean floor man and to a certain extent I still am..however my youngbirds were never all that healthy as the floors were sterile, since I have started cleaning ybs out every 3/4 days they are much healthier. I do prefer a clean loft and I do keep it fairly clean but a dirty loft isnt always unhealthy....I kept my stock birds on deep litter for years and still do, and they are bouncing healthy, but the minute your loft gets even damp you must scrape out and start again, thats a warning to deep litter men it must be totally dust dry all the time.

with me having only 11 ybs i dont need to clean out every day, i usually scrape out a couple of times a week as theres hardly anything to scrape out...........

Rudderfett wrote:

I used to be a clean floor man and to a certain extent I still am..however my youngbirds were never all that healthy as the floors were sterile, since I have started cleaning ybs out every 3/4 days they are much healthier. I do prefer a clean loft and I do keep it fairly clean but a dirty loft isnt always unhealthy....I kept my stock birds on deep litter for years and still do, and they are bouncing healthy, but the minute your loft gets even damp you must scrape out and start again, thats a warning to deep litter men it must be totally dust dry all the time.

Spot on Martyn

Our youngbirds are on deep litter turn it over every couple of days they like dossing on the shavings on the floor.

VanReet Man123 wrote:

Our youngbirds are on deep litter turn it over every couple of days they like dossing on the shavings on the floor.

The more comfitable the more content your birds will be and for me the more prizes to be won

ive tried deep litter and dont like it,much prefere to see the droppings each day and its a good way of checking the birds health.