Composting with chickens

[Sally PB]

Work? They think that's play! Lucky chickens.

 

[gtaus]

The chicks are showing up to work.

That's a huge compost pile! I'm wondering how long it will take your chicks to level it out? My piles are not that massive, but whatever I pile up, my chickens seem to level it out in no time at all.

I used to re-pile my chicken run compost every once in a while, and watch the chickens tear it all down. But, honestly, it took me longer to re-pile than it takes for my chickens to level it out. Also, even though the compost pile gets leveled, the chickens continue to scratch and peck in the litter all the time, digging holes for both food and for dust bathing. All that activity continues to help speed up the composting process. It did not take very long before I had way more compost ready to harvest than I needed.

It would be great to see a time lapse photo shoot of that compost pile over time. Kind of like where they throw a banana into a worm bin and take time lapse photos of how the worms eat the banana down bit by bit until it's gone. I would think a huge compost pile with chickens working it would be really interesting - in a time lapse presentation.

 

[Sally PB]

It would be great to see a time lapse photo shoot of that compost pile over time. Kind of like where they throw a banana into a worm bin and take time lapse photos of how the worms eat the banana down bit by bit until it's gone. I would think a huge compost pile with chickens working it would be really interesting - in a time lapse presentation.

Wouldn't that be awesome!

 

[esselstyn]

It would be great to see a time lapse photo shoot of that compost pile over time.

Excellent idea. Will do.

The pile represents about 12 pickup loads of arborist chipps, three loads of spoiled hay, and two loads of horse manure. My hope is that the area will be ready to plant by spring, but I really have no idea. There are more chicks (18 total) than are in that frame, so hopefully they work fast. But I'll need to slaughter most of the cocks in a few weeks. I'm afraid that I might have underestimated how many chickens it would take to work the pile. Time (-lapse) will tell.

 

[gtaus]

Excellent idea. Will do.

The pile represents about 12 pickup loads of arborist chipps, three loads of spoiled hay, and two loads of horse manure. My hope is that the area will be ready to plant by spring, but I really have no idea. There are more chicks (18 total) than are in that frame, so hopefully they work fast. But I'll need to slaughter most of the cocks in a few weeks. I'm afraid that I might have underestimated how many chickens it would take to work the pile. Time (-lapse) will tell.

Fantastic compost pile! I bet you will have black gold compost in no time. As to the chickens leveling out that huge pile, it will be really interesting to see how many chickens it takes how many days to work that pile.

I imagine the chickens will love tearing apart that compost pile, but it never hurts to toss some chicken scratch or kitchen leftovers on the pile just to peak their interest in that area. Whenever I want my chickens to work an area a bit more, I just toss some chicken scratch, cracked corn, or dump the kitchen chicken bucket on that spot.