Composting - $500 Lomi v. FREE Chicken Bucket?

[gtaus]

I have been watching kitchen composters for a number of years. The machines basically dehydrate the scraps you put into the machine and grind them into a finer substance that the company calls "dirt" but is actually pre-compost material. A number of brands have come and gone over the years. Recently, I became aware of the 3-gallon Lomi Smart Waste Kitchen Composter which is currently selling for $500.00, for the machine itself. But then you are suggested to buy compost activating pods for each batch, maybe around $0.30 per pod, and the charcoal filter to keep out the bad smells should be replaced after 45 cycles, and that filter costs you $45.00. The company claims that it takes a minimal amount of electricity, about 1 KWH per batch, or less on the economy mode. In short, not including the cost of the $500 machine itself. you can turn 3 gallons of kitchen scraps into a couple cups of dehydrated "dirt" in about 5 hours for about $1.50 per batch.

Without even guessing the results of my truly unbiased poll with no hint of bias in the questions, I suspect most people here on the BYC forums are more inclined to use a FREE chicken bucket in the kitchen and feed their scraps to the backyard flock.

My chicken bucket is just a plain old plastic ice cream pail with a lid. Been using it for about 2 years or more. If it starts to smell, I wash it. No need for a $45.00 charcoal filter every 2 months. The lid keeps any smelly stuff inside, but since I feed the scraps to the chickens every morning, there is really no time for our kitchen scraps and leftovers to get rancid and smelly. If Dear Wífe is cooking fish for supper, she puts the guts inside the chicken bucket and I feed the girls the fish parts that night, so it does not sit in the kitchen for any length of time.

My chickens love it when I show up with a bucket of kitchen scraps for them to pick through. One chicken will pick up a particular nice morsel of food and the others will chase her around the chicken run trying to steal it away from her. It's fast food of a different kind!

As far as composting, my chickens will eat the kitchen scraps and leftovers, process it internally, and poo it out a few hours later. That's even faster than the $500 Lomi composting machine!

Another benefit of feeding kitchen scraps as "snacks" to your backyard flock is that it will reduce your commercial feed bill. Plus, the chickens will give you fresh eggs every day. No matter how much you spend on the Lomi composting machine, it will never reward you with fresh eggs!

As far as actually making compost, the Lomi composter only dehydrates the kitchen scraps and grinds it up into a handful of "dirt" but does not actually compost anything in 4 hours. It is a pre-compost substance that you can mix into your soil, but it still takes time to compost. My chickens make my chicken run compost in about 3-4 months, but that is real compost full of life.

After having provided you with my totally unbiased observations on the merits of each method, I would like to share a very good YouTube video of the Lomi composter and who it would work best for. The CEO of the Lomi company tells you up front in this video that he believes feeding scraps to the chickens and making compost with the chickens or in old fashioned bins is still the best method. But his machine is aimed at people who live in towns and areas where you cannot have chickens and/or compost bins in your backyard. In theory, he states that it is good for the planet for composting whatever material you can to avoid flooding the landfills. Also, he states that their goal is to decrease the cost of the machine significantly over the next few years to make the machine a more attractive alternative to tossing those kitchen scraps into the garbage can.

 

[Sally PB]

There are always people with more money than sense. SMH.

Even when we lived in the city, sans chickens, we had a compost bucket in the kitchen.

 

[Dinoroar]

I think those devices have there place as they open up accessibility to composting for Types and situations that otherwise just wouldn’t compost. Which needs to happen right. Personally I’m a bucket girl lol.

 

[gtaus]

There are always people with more money than sense. SMH.

Even when we lived in the city, sans chickens, we had a compost bucket in the kitchen.

It's probably a very biased poll for me to take on a chicken forum. I suspect most members here are already very pro chickens and natural composting.

A few years ago I read an article on some Asian country - I think it was Japan - that businesses were using this type of dehydrator system on a commercial scale to reduce the amount/weight of their very costly garbage disposal where they were charged by the weight of the trash. Obviously, if you can remove 95% of the water from your restaurant food disposal, that would mean a large savings in garbage disposal costs. Makes good sense to me in that situation.

IF I didn't have chickens or lived some place where I could not have a compost bin, then I think a small, inexpensive, kitchen composter like the Lomi would be an attractive alternative to tossing the kitchen scraps into the garbage - maybe around $100 or less for the machine on par with most other kitchen appliances.

I think they still have to find a way to reduce the additional expenses of the activating pods and the charcoal filter that is recommended to be replaced after 45 cycyles. That extra $1.50 in expenses per 3 gallon kitchen scrapes bucket seems to be pretty darn high. Do you reeally need those activating pods and why can't you have a filter that is washable and reuseable?

If you had a chance to watch the YouTube video, I do give lots of credit to the Lomi CEO who states up front that it's much better to feed the kitchen scraps to the chickens and compost your stuff naturally if you can. I appreciate his honesty in that respect, and therefore, I don't think the company is out to rip off or scam people.

It's just a very expensive alternative to composting at their current price of the Lomi machine. Like many products, he is hoping the early adopters will help establish the product and keep it alive until they can work down the initial costs of developing the product and getting it to market.

In many senses, I hope Lomi succeeds in their target market because I'm all for people trying to reduce the amount of garbage being sent to the landfills, polluting our planet Earth.

 

[gtaus]

I think those devices have there place as they open up accessibility to composting for Types and situations that otherwise just wouldn’t compost. Which needs to happen right. Personally I’m a bucket girl lol.

If it encourages some people to attempt composting, then I agree that's a good thing. This device is aimed primarily at urban city dwellers that have limited, or no other options to compost.

Maybe what we need in our society is community chickens to process restaurant scraps and leftovers, provide fresh eggs for those who might not otherwise afford them, and to make compost for community gardens. It might work in some communities. I'm lucky in that I live outside of town limits and can have a backyard flock and enjoy all the benefits at my home.

I'm a bucket guy since my first laying chicks left the brooder for the big coop. Dear Wife has been supportive of the backyard flock, and that has made everything possible.

As far as chicken composting, I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system. So, all the grass clippings, weed pulling, raking leaves, chipping of wood, shredding paper along with the kitchen scraps and leftovers get tossed into the chicken run. I compost just about everything I can and that has reduced our garbage disposal from 2-3 garbage bags per week to about 2 bags per month.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

For that $500 you could probably subscribe to a food scrap pickup service for two years. Some of those services even give you back some compost each year.

But yeah, I'm a chicken composter.

I often joke that if I invented a machine that converted waste food into fresh, healthy food and organic nitrogen fertilizer, I'd be a millionaire. But chickens already exist.

 

[gtaus]

I often joke that if I invented a machine that converted waste food into fresh, healthy food and organic nitrogen fertilizer, I'd be a millionaire. But chickens already exist.

Well said.

 

[WillowHillChickenMom]

I’m jumping on this thread as a new chicken mom and novice hobby farmer. I bought the Lomi as a good way to keep food scraps out of the trash and thus keep my dog out of the trash. I have to say that I love the ease of it. I’ve had it for 6 months and just got chicks 5 weeks ago. Now that my flock (4 Prarie Bluebelles) has a coop it occurred to me that the food waste from the Lomi looks a lot like chicken feed. I only put food waste in it and have started omitting onions. Since i only have 4 chickens putting whatever I clean out of the fridge every week in their coop seems like a lot of volume. Since it’s basically a food dehydrator does anyone think there’s any reason I can’t give the chickens the “dirt” that comes out of the machine? Thanks!

 

[gtaus]

I’m jumping on this thread as a new chicken mom and novice hobby farmer. I bought the Lomi as a good way to keep food scraps out of the trash and thus keep my dog out of the trash. I have to say that I love the ease of it. I’ve had it for 6 months and just got chicks 5 weeks ago. Now that my flock (4 Prarie Bluebelles) has a coop it occurred to me that the food waste from the Lomi looks a lot like chicken feed. I only put food waste in it and have started omitting onions. Since i only have 4 chickens putting whatever I clean out of the fridge every week in their coop seems like a lot of volume. Since it’s basically a food dehydrator does anyone think there’s any reason I can’t give the chickens the “dirt” that comes out of the machine? Thanks!

Thank you so much for adding to the conversation. I put the link to the CEO of Lomi on my post because he tells you upfront that his target customers are those who really don't have many other composting options, such as a traditional compost bin or backyard chickens.

FWIW, now that you have chickens, I would suggest that you just feed any kitchen scraps and leftovers to the chickens every morning. I have an ice cream pail on the kitchen counter next to the sink, and I take it out every morning and give the chickens whatever is in the bucket. There is only a very small list of food items that you cannot give to your chickens, and basically it is stuff that humans cannot eat either.

I toss onion scraps into my chicken bucket. I don't think my chickens really like the onions, so they often just get ignored. However, I have turned my chicken run into a chicken run composting system so whatever the chickens do not eat gets composted in all the litter with all the other organic material.

I have 10 chickens, and only Dear Wife and myself at home. So, we don't have massive amounts of kitchen scraps or leftovers to offer our chickens. However, what we have is offered as treats to the chickens and not as their main commercial feed. There are some people who collect restaurant scraps and that is the only feed their birds get. They make it work, so I guess just about anything is possible.

As to the Lomi "dirt", I would suggest offering the fresh scraps to the chickens first because any fresh, hydrated food, is probably much easier for them to digest. But, commercial feed is pretty much dehydrated and so if you continue to use the Lomi to make "dirt", heck yeah, I'd toss that to the chickens and see if they eat it just like commercial pellets or crumble. Chickens will eat just about anything. That's what makes them such great composters.

If I had a Lomi and was making "dirt", I'd probably just mix it directly in a planter or garden bed. But now that you have chickens, you might consider feeding all those kitchen scraps and leftovers to your birds first. Your chickens will love you for it.

FYI, a number of years ago, I was looking at those kitchen composters just like the Lomi, but under a different brand name. They dehydrated the food and ground it up into bits and pieces. I read a university study where they took the "dirt" from the composter and put it on top of the ground in some flower beds. When it rained outside, the "dirt" rehydrated and became moldy. Not so good in that application. So, if you use the composter "dirt" it would be much better to mix it into the soil. As the CEO of Lomi states, the Lomi "dirt" is actually a dehydrated pre-compost material and it will still take nature and time to break it down into actual compost.

In any case, I would love to hear if you feed the chickens or feed the Lomi with all the scraps after a few months or so as you settle into having chickens. So far, I think you are the only one who actually has and uses the Lomi. Your opinion has some weight and I think others would love to hear about your experience.

Again, thanks for your input.

 

[Stephoney]

I helped crowdfund Lomi on indiegogo and got it for $300. We have 15 chickens and a large compost bin in our backyard and we compost a lot of yard waste and chicken manure. My hens don’t necessarily like the foods I put into Lomi. I do toss the food scraps they like outside for them while they’re free ranging. Otherwise the scraps go in Lomi. It’s very convenient and keeps the fruit flies from accumulating around my compost pail (I used one before Lomi). I run it once a week and toss the results in the greenhouse where the coops are. The girls love digging through it and I’ve noticed so do worms if they get a chance to find it before the girls scratch it up. I think owning a Lomi is just a question of personal preference. For us, it works great as a part of our composting systems.