INSTALLING A LIVING FLOOR

Baby Lamb on IDLS Bedding

INSTALLING A LIVING FLOOR

In Korean Natural Farming (KNF), animal housing is designed with a living floor that mimics the natural conditions of a forest floor. This approach keeps animals clean, dry, and safe while respecting their basic living rights. It reflects a commitment to honoring the natural behavior and dignity of each animal — embracing, for example, the “pigness of the pig.”

For this reason, when building the bedding system for pigs, they need an extra layer of logs that other animals do not need. We will look at the construction of an Inoculated Deep Litter System (IDLS) for pigs, then discuss how to build the system for other animals.

Ideally, all bedding systems should be installed on a dirt floor. This provides minerals for both animals and microbes and a connection between Nature and the barn floor via the soil.

PIG BEDDING

The documents and blueprints from the development of the first KNF piggeries in Hawaii indicate that the permitting process required certain adaptations.

The general concepts for building a KNF piggery in Hawaii were not changed. However, some details had to be tailored to the tropical environment and to the special requirements the Hawaii Department of Health demanded.

Notably, regulations in Hawaii prohibit raising pigs in direct contact with soil, requiring the piggery to have a cement floor instead of the recommended dirt floor. To mitigate the lack of soil contact and allow for ventilation, PVC drainage pipes were installed above the cement.

To cover the pipes and cement, the first layer installed was cinder (pumice-like lava, locally abundant and very cheap) with biochar. This was spread about 15 cm (half a foot) deep, enough to cover the concrete and the ventilation pipes.

If you are building on dirt, you won’t need to add a layer for ventilation and to protect the pipes.

A base layer that includes biochar can be helpful, but it is not part of Master Cho’s original design. Biochar can also be added to the IMO layer. Biochar offers habitat for microbes and, therefore, long-term stability.

If you are interested in biochar, the University of Hawaii’s College of Tropical Agriculture (CTAHR) has a free publication on biochar: Publication SCM-30 (Hunt et al. 2010), and is available at https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/SCM-30.pdf.

The second layer is the extra layer added to honor the “pigness of the pigs.” It is a layer of cut logs to allow the pigs to root and rub their tusks. The logs are piled to a depth of 60cm (2 feet). The logs should be at least 90-125cm (3-4 feet) long and a minimum of 5cm (2 inches) in diameter. The larger, longer logs deter the pigs from rooting them to the surface.

The third layer is green waste. In Hawaii, they use large banana leaves and coconut fronds first to cover the logs, followed by assorted green waste. You will use what is available in your region. This layer should be about 30cm deep (1 foot).

The next layer is a scattering of an equal amount of IMO-4 and local soil at a rate of 1kg per 10 m2 (2.2 lb/108 ft2). In other words, 100 ft2 will take about a pound each of IMO-4 and local soil.

The final layer for the piggery is a layer of sawdust, about 15cm (0.5ft) deep. If you don’t have access to sawdust, use something else that is local, and low-cost or free. I did not have access to sawdust, and straw was expensive. I could collect grass clippings for free, so that is what I chose as my bedding base material.

In summary, a total of five layers with a combined depth of 125cm (4 feet) were installed:

1. Cinders and biochar, to cover cement and ventilation pipes      15 cm (0.5ft) deep

2. Log layer, with logs 90-125cm x 5cm (3-4ft x 2in)                         60 cm (2 ft) deep

3. Green waste                                                                                         30 cm (1 ft) deep

4. IMO-4 and soil                                                                                     1 kg per 10m2

5. Sawdust or substitute                                                                        15 cm (0.5ft) deep

CHICKENS AND OTHER ANIMALS

Since chickens and other animals do not have tusks, they do not need the extra layer of logs. Almost all animals, other than pigs, do not need a log floor.

One exception is ducks. Since ducks create excess water, an initial layer of thin logs or sticks can be used to channel water by arranging them in a sloped configuration, allowing excess water to drain out from an appropriate corner.

This drainage layer is built on top of the dirt, under the main layers, keeping the bedding dry. This sloped subfloor can be helpful in any situation where water is going to be a problem.

Cover the drainage subfloor with large-sized green waste (large like banana leaves and palm fronds), as if for pigs, and continue to build in the same manner described above for pigs, although ducks may prefer straw or grass to sawdust.

For all other animals, use a dirt floor whenever possible. Bedding material can be put directly on top of the dirt.

Chickens do really well with cut straw or grass. This layer should be about 8 cm (3 inches) deep. You can go deeper, but it should be at least 8 cm (3 inches deep). If you are forced to use a cement floor (or other barrier to underlying dirt), you will need quite a bit more to mimic a forest floor.

I use about 1 meter (3 feet) of bedding material when I build an IDLS floor on concrete for chickens, which is slightly less than the full depth of the layers for the piggeries, but lacks the log layer.  

Start with a layer of green waste. Top that with a layer of IMO and soil. Then finish with a thick layer of bedding material: sawdust, straw, or grass clippings, whatever you plan on using as bedding.

ACTIVATING THE IMO

To function properly, the IDLS system needs to be inoculated with IMO, and then the microbes in the IMO are activated to bring the floor to life.

Inoculate & Activate IDLS With:

IMO       Indigenous Micro-Organisms                                   1kg/10m2 (1lb/50ft2)    

FPJ         Fermented Plant Juice of mugwort & dropwort 1:500  

LAB        Lactic Acid Bacterial Serum     1:1000                                                                                            

The IMO4 should be layered on top of the green waste. IMO4 has already been cultured with local soil, but more can be added. It offers minerals for the animals and the microbes.

Sprinkle the IMO layer lightly with diluted FPJ (Fermented Plant Juice from mugwort and dropwort) and LAB (Lactic Acid Bacterial Serum). It should be lightly moistened, not wet.

Then, install the layer of bedding material (like straw) on top of the IMO layer.

The bedding is allowed to “ferment” for a week or two before adding animals. When I installed my first IDLS system, I did not have another place to hold the animals, so I had to let them in immediately, but I had no issues getting the system activated.

MAINTAINING THE BEDDING

The IDLS system will need more bedding material added. In my experience, I needed to add additional bedding material (in my case, grass clippings) once a month.

The only time I had issues of any kind with the IDLS was when the tractor was down and I did not have grass clippings to add. I documented this in a very short video I produced to illustrate what happens when not enough bedding material is added and how to fix it.

IDLS VIDEO

 Problems can also arise when there is too much moisture. If that is the case, the cause of the excess water needs to be addressed. The bedding should remain dry.

If the bedding develops smells, it can be misted with LAB. Lactic acid bacteria can function as an aerobic or anaerobic culture. When the bedding begins to smell, it is the anaerobes that cause it. The LAB culture brings the floor from an anaerobic condition back to the preferred aerobic condition, and the smells disappear.

If you see what happened in my barn in the above video, adding LAB would have temporarily fixed the odor problem, but the cause would not have been addressed. It had a problem until more organic material (grass clippings) could be added.

And as bad as the barn floor looks in the video, it actually did not smell at that point. Had I continued to neglect the bedding, it would have gotten stinky and wet and would have needed to be mucked out and cleaned. I was able to rescue it easily by adding more cut grass.

Simple maintenance of adding bedding material (once a month) is all the work needed, over many years, to maintain a living floor for animals, with no smells, no flies, and little to no pests, parasites, and disease.

USING THE BEDDING

Mulched Compost

When using the bedding as a composted mulch for plants or the garden, it is best to take out no more than a quarter to one-third of the bedding in a stall at a time, and it is best to wait six months before taking a large amount again. I had four stalls, so I rotated which stalls I took composted mulch from. The results on plants from using this mulch are going to amaze you.

Inoculant for Feed & More

The composted mulch from the IDLS can also be used to inoculate feed. It can be used in ponds and water features, and anywhere else you want to introduce soil biology.

The upcoming article will go into more details about using IMO to feed animals.