Anyone here ever use the deep litter bedding system, do you like it ?
I’ve used it for sheep and poultry, but not for horses. I kept adding fresh straw on top when needed. It worked beautifully—gave off some heat as it broke down, made great compost later on, and kept the chickens busy rooting for food within the layers. The only downside was removing it all at the end of the season. The tractor wouldn’t fit into either building, so we had to do it by hand. It was a back-breaking bitch-kitty of a job! :lol:
Depends on how you define it. I did a modified one, cleaned entire stall once a week. Removed manure twice a day. It was hemp bedding. I didn’t like it much, there were enough horses that I was cleaning one whole stall every day, and that was a lot of work.
I asked a well known trainer in our area about this a couple weeks ago when I first heard about it. She said back east in PA they used it a lot and it did make the barn a little warmer and gave the horses a deep bed to sleep on. The stalls were picked daily, wet spots removed, bedding added but the stalls were not stripped until spring. It was a totally new approach for me to learn about.
If you have a barn set up for twice a year bedding removal by tractor, it is a most awesome way to bed.
If not, it’s a pain. Modified (picking daily and digging down for wet spots as little as possible - 1x week) is not as bad as full on deep litter. Sometimes it’s a necessity though.
On swampy ground where the moisture rises up through the floors of the stall, it’s the only way to keep horses dry. Removing it too early in the spring and having to start over because you didn’t wait for the water table to settle down after spring thaw can be heartbreaking. Ask me how I know. I’ll be the one in the foetal position over there in the corner clasping a bit of high ground and some rubber mats.
We used it when I was a kid in MN. We had a concrete block barn built into a hill. We would pick manure daily and add sawdust as needed. It kept the barn warmer than it otherwise would have been and kept the stalls dry during the spring melt off. Of course, cleaning it out in the spring was a royal pain - we could get the bobcat into the barn, but it all had to be shoveled by hand from the stalls into the aisle.
Did it when I still used pine shavings. Loved it. Thankfully our stalls are huge and the bobcat fit easily inside.
Always have. Remove the obvious piles and the wet spot. Strip stalls now and then when they begin to build up.
I did a “modified” version for a shelter that worked wonderfully.
I had a paddock with a “stall” attached. It was a free standing 4 sided structure with a dutch door on one side. The base was crushed granite, and slightly sloping (from front to back).
I bedded DEEPLY with rice hulls (which tend to drain rather than absorb). Removed manure daily, and urine simply drained down through the bedding to the base (and out the back of the shelter!).
Fresh bedding was added weekly, and the whole thing was stripped no more than once a year.
We did it with straw for the winter way back when. It needed daily picking/wet spot removal with bedding fluffed up, more added as needed. Very warm on the cement floor. Be sure you ceiling is high enough! I don’t remember any ammonia smell.
Sometimes no option
I have done it regularly in the winter. Pick out the poop. In deep snow I can’t get to the manure pile and that starts the deep litter time. There is only one of me. In the summer I pick poo more often as it will mold. The stripping is horribly hard but I do a 1/4 of the stall and work my way around. Mine do not stay in in the winter except when really windy and below zero but they do stay in in the summer days. I have known people who did the whole winter…horses in in bad weather and at night…only poo picking…spring was not fun…aisles too narrow for machines. It was much warmer as the layers built up. The stalls were concrete floored. PatO
I thought deep litter was not cleaning at all, only adding fresh bedding on top? I’ve never been anywhere where stalls were stripped on a daily basis.
[QUOTE=Pehsness;7904702]
I thought deep litter was not cleaning at all, only adding fresh bedding on top? I’ve never been anywhere where stalls were stripped on a daily basis.[/QUOTE]
That’s my understanding of “deep litter” method, also. You leave ALL the mess and just add fresh bedding on top. With my chickens, this means I start out with ~4" of clean bedding in the fall, and by spring, the coop has ~10" of compacted partially composted pooped on bedding in it. I never clean it over winter, just toss more bedding on top of the poop when the poop gets too deep. Unfortunately for me, my chickens don’t dig in the coop bedding to turn it over. It just becomes layers of bedding - poop - bedding - poop - bedding, etc.
If you are picking up poo and wet spots daily, to me, you are cleaning the stall.
I don’t know if TRUE “deep litter” would work for horses in a typical matted, concrete, or hard surface stall using shavings. Horses put out way too much urine and poop. You’d end up with a sloppy poopy mess that would probably burn your eyes and nose with the level of ammonia.
My cattle are bedded “deep litter” style in the dirt floored run-in, using straw. Same method as the chicken coop. Costs me a TON in straw, but I need the new babies to have a dry place to lay down.
My understanding of deep litter is that you pick up the manure daily, level the bedding , do not remove the wet spots because the wet drains down into the deep bedding. Add a small amt. of bedding daily. The bedding packs down and remains dry on top
I do a modified version - as described by SmartAlex & Blugal - with pelleted bedding.
Generally let the unsoiled stuff remain and add fresh on top all Winter and strip when it gets warm out.
I have friends who use a true deep litter method with straw in their run-in.
Scraped out & burnt every Spring.
I haven’t been there in the Winter, but let me tell you, IMHO, it is gross in warm weather.
They do pick manure - not all, just visible piles - but peed-on straw is {ahem} fragrant :disgust:
[QUOTE=just sayin’;7904912]
My understanding of deep litter is that you pick up the manure daily, level the bedding , do not remove the wet spots because the wet drains down into the deep bedding. Add a small amt. of bedding daily. The bedding packs down and remains dry on top[/QUOTE]
This would be correct.
Lots of places strip daily because they use far too little bedding so the whole stall ends up a sloppy mess. It’s disgusting.
No. You start with a deep enough bed that no pee stays on the surface. You keep adding bedding to keep the pee off the surface. Typically, in British style deep bedding specifically for horses, you pick obvious poo balls daily which makes a world of difference to doing it right.
The method you describe is what we use to loose house cattle. Start with sufficient and add daily without removing anything. A few times a year (depending on density of animals being housed) the whole works is taken out by loader tractor and started fresh. It’s a very comfortable bed for the cowz, not labour intensive, and stays dry and clean IF sufficient bedding is added often enough.
If you layer with shavings and straw, you eventually end up with the best compost ever.
But it’s a LOT of heavy work to strip out by hand when the time comes, so if you can make your stalls accessible by a bobcat, do.
This system is very often used here in Germany. I think it’s great. My horses are all deep bedded and it makes mucking out a breeze. I remove all the manure I can see, there are no wet spots because I put in enough straw to prevent them rising up. Once every 3 or 4 weeks I’ll put half a 25kg bag of wood shaving in the area where they pee. I add plenty of straw probably every 2-3 days.
My husbands gelding is revolting in his box, and when he was boarded where they did ‘proper’ mucking out he always stunk of urine.
I probably empty my boxes out every 3 or 4 months. Dig out all the mattress and then all the ‘still good’ straw that was on the top gets put down on the concrete to turn into the new mattress.
I did it when my “barn” was a converted garage and the floor was cement. I had mats but because the stall walls were pen panels the mats would shift a lot, and it was still kind of damp and chilly in the winter (in PA).
So I did the light manure pick + add bedding system, with occasional wet spot cleaning if one area started to get squelchy. I stripped twice a year which was a hellish day, but was offset by the ease of cleaning for the rest of the year. The place was pretty open and airy so it never stank, and I bedded with shavings or sawdust.
It certainly worked but I don’t think I’d do it now, not unless I had hydraulic-bucket-accesssible stalls or could hire someone to do the clean-out.
