another post by myself to the original post on DLM with ducks.

And here are some pics in 2016. Same coop as the last 3 pics in above post. 1st pic – corner opposite a PuppyX pen that I use as a chick nursery. 2nd pic – shows chick with pine shavings in the puppyX pen. 3rd pic shows different chicks in puppyX pen with just the paper shreds 3.5 months later – you can’t even see the pine shavings any more, but they weren’t removed!

2016 different coop (2 pics) and 2017 (1 pic)

and in 2017 – I don’t have any pics of the floor of this coop previously… This coop already needs another layer of material. Will post pics tomorrow of the difference between 4 May and 9 June.

Hay, by itself, won’t break down very fast and can then start to stink with the chicken droppings. That black bale in my picture above is actually more than 2 yrs old and had been moved from the one coop/pen set up where we had it stacked to give our cats a place to hide out/lounge while we were in the process of moving and they were in an outdoor pen at friends’ place, to a different pen stack set up, this one not covered with a tarp and finally moved into the run (also not covered) where it was in that pic. I opened it up and tore it apart so that it would mix with the other materials in that run and finish breaking down. That’s why it’s important to use different materials of different sizes – they break down at different rates. It’s pretty amazing how “spongy” the DLM gets the runs – soaking up rain, “swallowing” the droppings and not smelling at all. I was SO “blown away”!

I swear the chickens in our one coop purposely throw the DLM into the door area of the coop – I’m always having to move it to shut the door again once I open it, LOL.