Deep litter

I'm thinking of going down the deep litter route, what's the pro's and con's, as always your input appreciated.

We have always had our young birds on deep litter easy to use and just turn it over every 3,days

use the easybed from countrywide

I have put easybed down with straw in young bird section, in other sections just easybed. I spray with Vykil first and put loft whitener down before the easybed. just rake every couple of days, seems to work ok.

I think it depends a lot on how many young birds you have in your section, if you have too many and they are pooing on their own pooh and it is always tacky on the floor then deep litter would be better.

But if you have ample space and the droppings dry out as they drop onto the wooden floor, and you can clean out daily then a clean floor is fine and less dusty,
So better for you and the birds breathing.

If you don't have deep litter, a sprinkling of sharp sand on the floor under the perches where the droppings hit the floor Will suffice.

In my opinion anyway.

im using easy bed/lay soft horse bedding at the moment, i remove droppings alternate days and rake over....this seems to keep it ok.

my personal findings are that my birds tend to keep healthier scraped out with whitener on the floor and perches, when i use the bedding my birds seem to go off colour.........why, i don't know.


p.s., what did you mean by deep litter lofty, bedding or just turning over dry droppings...?

Lofty wrote:

I'm thinking of going down the deep litter route, what's the pro's and con's, as always your input appreciated.

One has to be able to get ones mind     around the Deep litter senario Lofty if it is to be successful etc. I was one of those clean clean types for 50 odd years sadly  & basically it just wore me out in the end but now I'm in love again since my pile of Sh*te has grown "Big time" & my birds just love me for finally at last seeing the light.

David wrote:

im using easy bed/lay soft horse bedding at the moment, i remove droppings alternate days and rake over....this seems to keep it ok.

my personal findings are that my birds tend to keep healthier scraped out with whitener on the floor and perches, when i use the bedding my birds seem to go off colour.........why, i don't know.


p.s., what did you mean by deep litter lofty, bedding or just turning over dry droppings...?

Was going to use bedding David, but as I'm here all day maybe it would be better to just clean out every day.

I use deep litter in the race sections during winter but clean floor once racing commences ybs and stock always on deep litter but I change mine every 6 months when I worm the pigeons as it just gets too dusty for my liking and also little Alfie likes to go into the lofts he does where a mask but it don't fit overly well because of his age we use those surgeon ones as they are the best bet for his age...the bedding we use is 2x bags of kiln dried sand and 1 bag of 15kg versa laga wood chips they do different grades we use the biggest size woodchip we just turn it over every few days and clean boxes and perches daily ...you could have a tray beneath perches to take care of most of the droppings remember deep litter is not just about building immunity in ybs it also takes moisture out of the loft in damp weather and insulates too theirs plenty out their to choose from atb

Thanks Daz, just what I wanted, I was going to use large wood chips, the type they use for horse bedding, I think I'll give it a try, see how the birds are on it,if I'm not happy I'll go back to what I'm doing now, thanks all.

We use the big shavings there for horses never had a problem with them.

agree with what you say david noticed when I change the easybed the birds do go off but just for a few days I hate changing any thing to do with my birds just changed the corn to super breeder that is the only thing I give nothing new

nothing wrong with deep litter as long as it is kept very dry birds all ways look very content and in good condition on deep litter we have floor grilles in the old bird sections and clean floors in the other lofts young and stock

whatever you use don't use that fullers earth cat litter it contains silica and is very dangerous to yer health atb

I use deep litter in stock loft now for 6 years, its the healthiest loft I have. I put 2 bags of kiln dried sand in so that's about 2 inches deep all over, then 1 bag of anti bacterial cat litter mixed in, and half a bag of pro bed horse bedding, its like chopped up wood but not wood. Excellent and dry turn it over every week still clean boxes daily. cant go wrong. except if you have any dampness or if it gets wet then it all has to come out mine is bone dry 24-7.

When I flew with my dad many years ago we had deep litter and my dad cleaned out every Saturday but it caused loads of dust

Yes it was always dry but with deep litter your not able to check the droppings as much as having clean floors which are cleaned everyday as wet droppings quickly dry up on deep litter

But that is JMO as I know nothing

got my 4th section sorted out today, and fresh bedding down, only one more section to do now.....then im ready to start letting them out.

David wrote:

got my 4th section sorted out today, and fresh bedding down, only one more section to do now.....then im ready to start letting them out.

good news david before you know it racing will be upon us

yes april for us Darren..........

David wrote:

yes april for us Darren..........

yes same for us mid april see what the programmes like I may not start til may got a few for the channel and a few yearlings that were only trained as you know I have turned south this year

David wrote:

got my 4th section sorted out today, and fresh bedding down, only one more section to do now.....then im ready to start letting them out.

Great news David does that mean you'll be racing this year with the youngsters David???