Decaking the Chicken Houses ⎸Crusting the Litter

When we are between flocks on the farm, we call this downtime. It is usually anything but that. Downtime is typically 2-3 weeks, usually closer to 2. This is the time when we clean up from the previous flock, perform any routine maintenance and get ready for the next flock. In this video, we use the Lewis Brothers Poultry House Keeper DB2 pulled by our John Deere 4066M Heavy Duty trator to decake (crust) our litter. The cake (crusting) is the waste left behind after the chickens are gone. It is removed from the houses and used as fertilizer on our pastures. We do this to create the best possible environment for our next flock. We want to get each new flock off to a great start so we spend several hours between each flock decaking the houses. Our main two goals when doing this are removing the waste that produces ammonia and removing as much moisture from our litter as possible. Ammonia is a byproduct of chickens. If there is too much ammonia present in the chicken houses when starting a new flock, it can cause problems. Also, if there is too much moisture it creates a more suitable environment for harmful bacteria to live.