Brick floors and deep litter beds

[kellybee]

Following on from the deep litter thread, my barn has brick floors. No concrete or cement or anything, just rows of bricks. I've pulled up a few misaligned ones, trowelled out the space and dropped the bricks back in. I'm guessing this means they'll make for good drainage on a deep littered bed, but I'm not the best judge when it comes to these things! I've deep littered on concrete before, but am wondering if it'll be okay with these ancient floors!

 

[JustKickOn]

Drainage would depend of what is underneath the bricks, I presume earthy type stuff if you have troweled it out to level.

If the bed is deep enough it should be fine, only problem I can see occurring is when you come to clear the whole bed out and having some shavings lodged between bricks.

 

[kellybee]

It's soil underneath. And they're in tight, tidy rows. No gaps or anything, they've been there over a hundred years

 

[flirtygerty]

Sounds nice, but would the urine not soak into the earth and smell

 

[kellybee]

I didnt realise that would be a problem, it would soak into the shavings anyway i just thought the bricks would give some of it chance to drainaway

 

[glamourpuss]

I think it sounds ideal. Perfect for a straw deep litter (if you wanted to make even cheaper) as the urine can pass through the bricks.
No good deep litter bed smells. Mine are straw straight onto an earth floor & this works brilliantly

 

[kellybee]

Cool, thanks! Straw is easier tbh (I hate mucking out with a shavings fork).

Am wondering now how the heck to "bed in" a deep litter straw bed. With the shavings I always just put a big bed down and skipped out for a week or so until the base was heavier. Do I just do the same with the straw? Put shavings down firset then bed over with straw?