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.

[@mulberryhollow5088]

Man I’m about to tell you something crazy. I couldn’t believe it. I started watching your videos awhile back. This was my first time watching this particular video, trying to learn a little about decaking because I’m going to try to buy myself a poultry housekeeper. Well I was on the Facebook market place going through and saving possible buys. I saved a particular poultry housekeeper months and months ago and just now realized you’re in the profile picture on one of the housekeepers I have in my saved marketplace listings lol. Saving that decaker and stumbling across your KZbin channel happened months and months apart. I never put them together until I went back through my “saves” and watched this video this morning lol.

[@FarmerHunt]

Haha wow that’s crazy!!

[@stephenwalker8424]

Thanks for the good videos. I'm in southeast Mississippi. I'm buying a 6 house broiler farm and your videos have really helped. I've got to upgrade to whole house brood. They mentioned turbo feeders. I'll be looking forward to the next video.

[@FarmerHunt]

Thank you and good luck with the farm! We are getting everything switched over to the turbo grow 2’s right now. Getting birds back next week so I’ll be posting a video about it hopefully later next week. I’ll share again about the feeders once I have used them and let everybody know what I think.

[@Farmlifebelike]

FYI that litter gets wet it will catch fire just had it happen

[@FarmerHunt]

I know some people who have had that happen. Luckily, we haven't yet...

[@Gixzer04]

I may not be a smart man but 1200$ for a load of shavings vs the cost of a tractor , cost of the cruster machine , and the fuel costs and maintenance etc. let alone your time spent. 1200$ sounds like a pretty good bargain to me. Plus you’re not introducing disease to your new flock. But I’m just the guy who delivers feed all day long and wear disposable boots to not get chickens sick.

[@FarmerHunt]

Your thought process makes sense, but when you break down the cost and the labor it doesn't work out. The labor to remove the existing bedding and place new bedding in the houses takes more time than decaking and cleaning up. You also have to have equipment to do that (tractor or skid steer). A load of shavings is around $1200. It takes about 1.5 loads for each of my houses so that would be $7,200 each flock if you did all the work yourself and we grow 6 flocks a year totaling $43,200. One years worth of shavings will cover what we paid for a new John Deere 4066. When you only clean out once a year or so, the litter you remove is great fertilizer and can be sold if it's not something you need for your pastures. That helps offset some of the sawdust expense. If you clean out every flock, you are removing mostly shavings with a little bit of chicken poop mixed in. You can't sell that so you would have to figure out what to do with that waste. As far as diseases go, most of them are introduced and not necessarily in the bedding. A lot of the issues we battle are actually introduced to the hen before she even lays the egg. Other things (like Avian Influenza) are either tracked in the houses or airborn.

[@RaulDesamparado]

Great to work with you sir someday if you need a people who work in your poultry farm. I have an expirience in poultry farm sir in the philippines.

[@marydeancapps4238]

Turbo feeders oh no. To big for chicks and to much money and to much work. You will go back to paper. Need some I got some. Good luck.

[@FarmerHunt]

We've had them for several years and so far really like them

[@mavvv6178]

What do you do about the cake right next to the walls? On our farm we get as close as we can to the wall but there is a good chunk leftover that doesn’t get hit, and we end up having to use a rake and a shovel to get it which ends up taking hours for just one house

[@FarmerHunt]

On my farm I have clean out boards so I usually run a PLR or Crustbuster up against the board to grind it up. Eric’s farm doesn’t have the boards so we usually rake his walls. Sometimes in the warmer months we are less likely to rake them depending on time. We typically always do in the colder months though.

[@impalaman68]

It’s been 3yrs , how is the John Deere holding up? I’ve never used the hydrotype drive on a tractor. 5 house operation

[@FarmerHunt]

So far it is doing great. We really like the hydrostatic transmission. I wish it had just a little more horsepower and weighed just a little bit more. I have no complaints though. It's a great tractor for chicken houses and also very useful in the hay field.

[@gafgrading2720]

Can you send me the link to the music in the video please

[@aniketvaidya628]

How do you manage to clean /sanitize feeders and water drinkers with chicken litter still lying around?

[@FarmerHunt]

We will spray feeders and drinkers with a Clorox/water mix. We don't ever run into any issues though still having litter in the houses. If for some reason something happened with a flock and the houses needed to be fully sanitized, then we would remove all litter and start over with saw dust.

[@colton8786]

Do you have any advice on the KMC decakers dump versions vs the Lewis? I’m in the market to buy a brand new one and my local tri green has both. Really looking for some helpful advice? I will be hooking to a Mahindra 6075

[@FarmerHunt]

I only have experience with the Lewis Brothers. Most people in my area run Lewis Brothers and I really like those. The KMC machines may be just as good if not better though. I have heard that the KMC windrowers are better than the Lewis Brothers.

[@supersport3714]

What do you do with your edges and corners? I typically use new litter every time, unless I have time restraints

[@FarmerHunt]

I sometimes use a pulverizer and other times I use a rock bucket and scoop out the corners. My walls have a clean out board so I usually run the pulverizer down the side walls. Here is my video cleaning out corners with the rock bucket. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpWUaIpjqMl5o9E

[@ronnieatticus8455]

Instablaster...

[@roosterrooster9330]

How you clean your corners buddy

[@FarmerHunt]

It all depends on our time and also what time of year it is. Sometimes we will back drag the cake (as best we can) with a bobcat bucket, sometimes we just try to skim the top off with a bobcat bucket. We also have a rock bucket that goes on our tractor and you can scoop up the litter and cake and shake it. Most of the litter will fall through and the cake stays in the bucket. We have also done it where we just grind the corners as best we can (Lewis Brothers Crustbuster). We have also had flocks (when its warmer) when there isn't a lot of cake and we just don't do anything at all...

[@RaulDesamparado]

Notice me sir im willing to work in your poultry farm

[@wilsontalley8891]

I might of missed it, but how does it take you to decake a single house?

[@FarmerHunt]

Usually one house can be done in about 3-4 hours. It can vary from flock to flock. Winter flocks are typically worse than summer.

[@Peterhgf3214]

Is it possible to do a total cleanout with this machine?

[@FarmerHunt]

With this one you cannot. I think some of the newer ones may possible be able to but I don’t know for sure.

[@scottward1019]

Does your integrator have any problems with you posting videos? I'm a grower and I would like to do videos as well but I am concerned they may retaliate against me.

[@FarmerHunt]

I don’t post anything with chickens in it. Just stuff between flocks or outside stuff. I’m hoping to one day be able to do a few videos of the inside with birds to help people understand chicken houses better. Who knows if that day will ever come though. I’d just ask your service man and see what he says about it.

[@BryantsFamilyFarm]

How long are your houses? I have a 6 house farm, and we grow a small bird as well.

[@FarmerHunt]

My houses are all 40' x 500'. We raise about 30,000 birds per house. What size houses do you have?

[@BryantsFamilyFarm]

@@FarmerHunt I have 2- 40x500, 2- 42x600, and 2-50x600. We have 30k in the 500ft houses, and a little over 38k in the other 4.

[@tboy9817]

Do you windrow?

[@FarmerHunt]

I usually do in the warmer months. I didn’t windrow this time. What about you? Do you do any windrowing?

[@btn972ify]

@@FarmerHunt we Windrow all the time. Sanderson Farms make us!