Hot composting with chicken bedding and garden waste

That looks great!

vehve said:

Lazy, exactly, and then they come in, covered in compost.

Click to expand...

And then, roll around on the couch, or even better yet, climb in bed with you.

Lazy, exactly.

Chilis needed larger pots, and I made them a self watering wick system. Still using commercial soil at this point, don't need much, and my compost is probably a bit too heavy duty for them still. I'll switch to that when they're ready to go into their outside pots.

Do they have Pro-Mix where you are? It comes by the bale, and can even be bought inoculated with the bacteria that kills damping off disease.

Is that some soil?

Bin is still cooking away like crazy. I think it might be a bit too hot for the thermometer, the liquid inside is has turned all stripy, like some of it has overflowed from it or something. I think we'll have a nice batch of soil ready in a few weeks.

Yes, it's a potting mix.

The bunny pen looks really nice! How many will you be able to keep in there?


Here is how my compost looked about 4 weeks ago. Not much was going on at, specially with our ice/snow/sleet we had for a couple of weeks.



About 2 weeks ago, we had a nice Saturday, so I got out there and finished the other 2 bins. Then I proceeded to clean out the chicken coop. It filled up the middle bin and put the first bin about half full.



After our monsoon we've had for the last two weeks, it didn't take the compost long before it started cooking. You can see the steam rising from the pile. The smaller one does the same thing even thought it doesn't have near as much in it. I did come to realize that I could not turn the middle bin very well. I can turn the top 3rd, but I was not able to get down to the lower regions of the pile. I made an improvement on it today. I'll have to wait and see if it works very well or not.



I found an old pvc deer feeder my dh had. Hasn't been used in a few years, so I drilled holes in it and stuck it down the middle of my pile. I'm hoping this will help get air/water down into the pile so that I don't have to turn it as much. You can put your hand over the opening and feel the heat rising up.

Looking good, nice steam.

Legally I could keep about 12-15 large 12+ lbs bunnies in there. We're just going to go with one or two adults though, and instead provide them with loads of space.

No compost updates due to skiing trip this week. I bet it's cooling down without turning though. I don't know if the neighbors will turn it while we're gone.

Just got back from a week long skiing trip. Compost has been fine, it was 40C in there. I'll give it a nice turn tomorrow.