When we moved our chickens from tractors to a coop and rotational pasture system, we had to deal with manure for the first time.  Deep bedding was the perfect solution, but we did run into a few minor problems this year.

The real cause of the trouble is that it's tough to find enough high carbon biomass to fill the coops (and to keep filling them as manure builds up).  Autumn leaves are may favorite, and I've tried a bit of the sawdust we bought for the composting toilet, with good results.  But when I ran low on optimal bedding, I decided to try treating the coop floor as a compost pile.

The positive side is that I was no longer creating bare patches in the pastures where I threw our food scraps.  Unfortunately, the scent of sweet corn cobs was irresistable to the neighborhood raccoon, who came for the scraps and stayed for a chicken dinner.  The hen he was hunting got away, but it took us weeks of effort to make our flock feel comfortable in the coop again.  Now corn cobs go in the worm bin, and the raccoon seems willing to stay in the woods.

The issue of never having enough high carbon materials is one we run into in the garden as well, and I've got all kinds of ideas for solving the conundrum.  Maybe we'll commit some open areas along the sides of our homestead to growing rye for straw, or we'll plant a high quality leaf tree (sugar maple is my favorite) in a pasture that stays mowed so raking leaves will be easy.  We're also pondering chop 'n drop plants, although that will probably be less helpful for the chicken coop than for the garden.

But these issues aside, deep bedding has been a boon to our farm.  Having that high quality mulch/compost to topdress the berries with this spring was worth every minute of coop maintenance!