The first time I tried this, it didn’t go well. I made the mistake of not using soil from our yard as the base for the bedding. Things turned swampy and stinky quickly. I emptied the hutches, and tried again.
This time, I put a thin layer of soil from the yard down before anything. I didn’t need to spray anything like yogurt water, as the garden soil works magic without this. In the photo here, you can see the layer of soil. You can also see the section of sand bath that I put in the middle of each hutch level.
The soil and maintenance of at least some moisture is why I’m referring to this as deep litter, and not deep bedding.
The first go ’round, I put timothy hay on top of everything, as my birds love to nestle into it. Now, I simply start with mostly pine shavings and a small amount of mini bark nuggets. It’s important not to use cedar or anything else that can harm quail. Pine is drying. It’s the brown in the compost, where the bark nuggets would act as enough of a green – along with the poo.
So the brunt of it all is a thick layer of pine shavings on top of the dirt layer. Many hutches don’t have super tall sides. The sides of the ones I build are only four inches high. I start with a couple of inches of dirt and shavings, and then add to that as needed.
Our local stores sell pine in fine, medium or coarse flakes. Coarse doesn’t seem to break down. Fine gets soggy before turning to a cement wedge. Medium starts to break down in the hutches at just the right rate. I put it in a separate compost pile, and add some to the regular compost as I need extra browns. Pun kind of intended.
I use a hand cultivator and my hands to aerate the bedding and to check its state.
If a spot of bedding seems a bit too moist, like near a drinker, I take a little out and replace it with a small amount of pine. I also take some of the very broken down stuff out, and do the same. I do add a very little timothy hay for the birds to nestle into from time to time, now that things are established.
Whenever I add any pine, I sprinkle a little bit of Horse Fresh on it, and fluff that in. This product adds PDZ. I’m not sure if it’s necessary, but it does supposedly help to absorb moisture and ammonia.
And there isn’t an ammonia smell to the quail digs. It’s actually kind of earthy in the shed.
One important thing to keep in mind if you decide to try this is the humidity level of your environment. We live in a humid setting. I’d probably have to add more moisture if we were in the desert.
I just got done setting up my newly finished hutch with this bedding. You can see the hutch in between the first two here. And then, the young birds I was finally able to move out from the indoor hutch.
I’m not sure how this will go during the winter, but it ought to be fine. It would probably be hard to start this during the cold months. The birds seem comfy, and I like being able to compost even before stuff hits the compost pile.