How fine should chicken run compost be sifted?

[gtaus]

Some of you may know that I have built a cement mixer/compost sifter to sift my wood chips and chicken run compost. For the wood chips, I used a 1/4 inch mesh to sift the compost out of the wood chips. This gave me a very fine compost that I will be using for starting plants and using in my existing raised be gardens. I have heard that large chunks of wood chips would sequester the nitrogen in the soil, so it was important to sift the wood chip compost before adding it to the garden. I think I got that right, but if there are other opinions, please share.

Now I am moving on to my chicken run litter and will be processing it to add to my garden. My chicken run litter is a mixture of wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves. Mostly grass clippings and leaves. I have been watching YouTube videos on finishing compost and a number of people recommend not sifting the compost too fine for the garden. They state that a more chunky, not completely finished compost, is actually better for the garden soil. They state that a finely sifted compost would compact too much and actually prohibit the growth of plant roots. That makes sense to me, but I do have some questions that I hope someone with more experience can answer.

FYI, my cement mixer/compost sifter uses inserts for sifting the material. I have a 1/4 inch insert, a 1/2 inch insert, and the compost tumbler itself is made with 1 X 1/2 inch wire. So those are the sifting options I have.

1) I have raised beds filled with the Square Foot Gardening Mel's mix of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite. According to Mel, you should refresh the raised beds with new compost every year. For me, I am thinking that adding finely sifted composted to these raised beds and working it into the mix is the way to go. The peat moss and vermiculite, in theory, do not need to be refreshed as they don't decompose and are in the raised bed to provide soil structure and water retention. So I am thinking that sifting the compost with a 1/4 inch screen is the way to go. But I am open to other suggestions.

2) I also have a number of raised Hügelkultur beds that have a base of wood logs, branches, twigs, and wood chips. On top of that, I have been dumping grass clippings and leaves, followed by whatever rough compost and soil I could dig up around the garden. I would like to improve the soil content of those Hügelkultur beds and am thinking this is where I could use a more roughly sifted compost, using either the 1/2 inch mesh or even the 1 X 1/2 inch wire screen on the sifting barrel using no insert at all. In my chicken run, the grass is mostly decomposed over the summer, but the leaves take a lot longer and I don't think it would be a good idea to just dump them in the beds. Even a rough sifting of the chicken run litter, in my thinking, is necessary so the larger pieces get thrown back into the run for more processing.

3) I am also considering just dumping a bunch of chicken run litter on the garden as is, but am concerned that the uncomposted leaves and wood chips would sequester nitrogen for composting these items in the spring and rob the soil of needed nitrogen for plant root growth. But maybe I'm overthinking this process because the chicken poo in the chicken run litter might offset any nitrogen sequestration needed to breakdown the remaining large chunks of wood chips and leaves.

4) In the Square Foot Gardening beds, they recommend mixing the compost into the existing material every year. I have a smaller cultivator and/or a tiller that can do this job. Although I like the concept of no till gardening, the Square Foot Gardening concept does suggest that the best way in their beds is to mix in new compost with the old material. You don't just throw new compost on top of the bed.

5) For the Hügelkultur beds, I would just place any new compost on top of the beds and probably not turn it into the existing soil. Do I have that right?

I am open to any and all suggestions. I have had a garden for the past 10 years, but live on a lake with very poor sandy soil, and by and large my garden efforts have not been very successful. I got chickens last year to make compost and will be harvesting that product in the next few weeks. I am hoping to see results of that effort next year in the garden.

A few pictures of what I have to work with on this project.

This is my cement mixer/compost sifter setup. I have a barrel attached to the cement mixer that I can use the 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, or just the 1 X 1/2 inch wire for sifting. The sifted compost falls into one garden cart, and the larger pieces/chunks get filtered out into a another cart for further composting.

Here is a picture of my sifted compost using the 1/4 inch mesh.

The larger pieces and chunks are filter out into another cart. That material will be sent back to the chicken run or a compost bin for further composting.

 

[Sally PB]

gtaus, you and your compost are making me drool. I'm going to think about this and give my thoughts later, ok? It's almost "that time" (dinner) for my dog.

 

[gtaus]

gtaus, you and your compost are making me drool. I'm going to think about this and give my thoughts later, ok? It's almost "that time" (dinner) for my dog.

Appreciate any thoughts when you have time.

 

[Sally PB]

Ok. Some thoughts.

I think of plants in their various life stages as very similar to animals. Tiny little seedlings need fine soil to be able to push those baby leaves up to the surface and out. This depends a bit on the plant; a big ol' bean seed can push through heavier dirt than a delicate little lettuce or carrot seed. So for potting soil, I would use the finest, most finished compost. Baby the babies with the softest, best stuff you have.

I mix my own potting soil, and my recipe is about equal parts peat moss and compost. Then I mix in some perlite and vermiculite so that it looks, um... speckled with it. I sprinkle on enough woodstove ash to dust the surface, and add a cup (?) of organic fertilizer. Mix it all, thoroughly, on a tarp. Usually I make this on a nice day in March when you want to get out and get your hands dirty, but it's waaaay to early to do anything in the garden. (Also the kind of day when I go rake up thatch our of the field. Gotta do something outside when you can get a day like that in March or April.) Then I scoop the potting soil into boxes to save for when I can use it.

I wouldn't hesitate to use a medium coarseness of compost directly in the garden. I too have sandy soil, and I think the chunkiness of the compost I've been adding has helped it to hold water. I use a LOT of leaves -- predominantly oak -- on the flat areas where I plant big sprawly things like butternut squash. Also where I plant potatoes; you have to dig them all up in the fall, so a nice raised bed seems like a waste of energy.

Side note: my raised beds are just soil that is mounded up, not a boxed in bed. I set rocks against the sides to help keep them in shape. I put compost and chopped up leaves/grass clippings on the top of the beds in the fall to break down over the winter.

The leaves do take a while to break down, but they also make a good weed block over the big squash area. Some of the breaking down is from me walking over the dry crunchy leaves, I suppose. This is my first year with chickens, and I will be tossing some bedding/poop out onto the leaves. This is also my first year doing a "hot rot" compost, and I've put a lot of it on the squash bed in anticipation of adding more leaves in a few weeks. I don't till this in. In the spring, I push the leaves off the soil where I'm planting the squash a week or two before I plant the seeds or seedlings so that the soil can warm up. If I have compost available, I would add it and just work it in with a shovel. After the plants are big enough, say 4-6 leaves, I move the leaves back around closer to keep the weeds down.

On my raised beds, I scoop compost, leftover potting soil, chopped leaves, and grass clippings on the top, then work it in with my hands. I get in touch with my inner mud pie maker, and have at it. Some of my raised beds are planted in the fall -- garlic and perennial onions -- so I'll be doing that in a couple weeks. Two more are strawberries, and I'll be adding the coarser compost to the sides of the plants, and then mulching with straw. I figure if strawberries can send a runner out and start a new plant in between two rocks, rough, chunky compost is going to be fine by them.

I try to keep raw wood chips out of growing areas. I use wood chips for walkways and for places I want to keep weeds down. They sit there for a couple years, and when I see weeds poking through, I spread the chips thinly on beds and mix them into the soil. By then I figure they've started composting enough to not rob the soil of nitrogen.

I am eager to hear about your hugelkulter beds. I haven't tried this, but my neighbor is doing a variation of it. Hugel (hill) kulter minus the hill. She dug two foot deep trenches, put some wood in, some other garden/kitchen waste on top of that, buried it all back up to grade. I haven't had the chance to ask if it has been a success, but I her garden was a mass of green this year. I have read that you may need to add some nitrogen the first year to help everything start breaking down, but then you have about twenty years' worth of natural fertilizer taking over. I think what I've read is that you just keep adding compost on top, maybe work it into the top few inches of soil, but mostly just let it RIP (rot in place). My neighbor hasn't tilled her garden in two or three years, I think she said.

I haven't tilled my sandy soil garden in many years. I have a second garden that is totally different soil, so heavy it's almost clay. I did rototill it last spring, to work in all the mulch/thatch that I've been putting on it for the last three years. Sorry worms, but I can't turn all that by hand. I then covered it with more thatch and leaves, and put some compost around the individual plants. I can sure tell a difference in the texture of the soil now, versus when I first turned the soil for the garden! It's still very heavy, but it feels different.

My current pile of compost is about ready to go on the garden and sit for the winter. It's not totally "done," and I'll be pulling a few things out as I fork it into a cart, mostly the bean plants. I'll toss those on the the new pile that is getting big enough to heat up.

I don't sift my compost, and the chickens don't scratch it down for me either. We are going to be moving their coop and run closer to the house for the winter. After they scratch down the fresh grass, I'll be happy to give them some other things to play with. I may buy a bale of pine shavings just for their run, with the idea that they'll make it into something for me.

Your compost sifter is awesome! Five stars!

 

[gtaus]

I am eager to hear about your hugelkulter beds.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I have a cultivator that goes down a maximum of 4 inches and a small tiller that is good to about 6 inches. Both of those tools run off batteries and I can easily use them for small jobs like in the raised beds. I do have a much larger walk behind gas tiller but I have not used that in about 5 years since I switched over to the raised beds and "mostly" do the no till method of building up soil. I am also trying not to disturb the soil life, but this fall I did cultivate my raised beds to mix in the new compost. And yes, I used my cultivator and mini tiller for the job because I don't need to work my old back anymore than I must. Gone are my days of working soil with shovels or by hand trowel.

As to my Hügelkultur raised beds, I made 3 raised beds using 4 foot tall 8 foot long wooden fence panels I had sitting behind a shed. I cut them in half to 2 feet high. Then I made them into 4X8 foot raised beds. I dumped old rotting wood in the bottom, first with larger rounds, followed by smaller branches, twigs, and then wood chips. After all that old wood, I dumped in as much organic material I could find such as old leaves, grass clippings, etc.... Then, for the top 6 inches, I put in a mixture of whatever soil I could get around the garden along with any compost I had available at the time.

Last year I built one Hügelkultur raised bed to give it a try. I was concerned about nitrogen sequestration for the first few years, so I planted Zucchini in the bed. It did well. Over the course of the winter, the volume of material in that bed dropped about 6 inches, which is what I was expecting and is evidence that the material underneath is decomposing and filling in the spaces.

This year, I built two more Hügelkultur raised beds using the same basic design and grew more Zucchini in one bed and filled the other bed with beans. For the first year crop, I was happy with the harvest, but it certainly could have been better on the Zucchini. Having said that, when I made the new beds, I did not have enough good compost to adequately fill the top layer of the beds. So, I used what I had. I am hoping that a good dose of chicken run compost in those beds will yield better results next year.

As you said, the Hügelkultur raised beds need a few years to breakdown and provide that great material back to the plants. In theory, the wood below acts like a sponge and retains water that the plants can tap into during the summer months when it gets dry. Last year I dug down into the bed and indeed found that the soil was moist, so I do believe that the wood is retaining moisture. Compare that to a normal raised bed that dries out very fast if not constantly watered.

Your compost sifter is awesome! Five stars!

Thank you. I had been considering making a cement mixer/compost sifter like that after watching some YouTube videos last year. It was an investment for me, about $200, but already I believe it has paid for itself. I have harvested about 42 cubic feet (42 bags) of sifted compost from my wood chip pile and chicken run litter. Where I live, I have to pay about $5.00 per bag of store bought compost,, which is not as good as I am making at home with my chickens. I can sift a 6 cubic foot cart of compost in about 20-30 minutes, with very little effort. Compare that to my old manual 2X4 frame manual sifter that would take me hours to sift the same amount. I just turned 60, and I guess I'm all into finding better ways to do things than relying on my back to do the work.

So, at this point, I cannot claim that I am getting fantastic results from my Hügelkultur raised beds, but it is still only in the first 2 years of building them. Also, they had substandard soil to begin with as I only used what I had available. I really think that my new wood chip compost and chicken run compost will result in much better yields.

 

[Sally PB]

For the first year crop, I was happy with the harvest, but it certainly could have been better on the Zucchini.

LOL!!! Imagine NOT having enough zucchini!

This is the first year I have ever planted zukes in my garden, and I just wanted them for the chickens. I got three from very late planted seeds (August first). When I was a kid, it was always, "how can we use up the zucchini?!?" Zucchini bread, breaded zucchini, give it away, throw it away, and stories of people leaving it on someone's front porch in the middle of the night.

I just turned 60, and I guess I'm all into finding better ways to do things than relying on my back to do the work.

I'm not far behind at 58, so I know exactly what you mean!

Some other things I've read about hugelkulter... yes, the soil holds lots of moisture in all that rotting wood/compost. It also generates heat, so it can be planted earlier and will last longer into the fall. I saw pictures on a website of the hugel having no snow on it while the rest of the ground still had some.

I had my best ever harvest of potatoes and onions this year. I don't know how many bushels or pounds of taters I have, but they fill up a box that holds about 4 cubic feet. So something is going right in the potato bed.

 

[gtaus]

Some other things I've read about hugelkulter... yes, the soil holds lots of moisture in all that rotting wood/compost. It also generates heat, so it can be planted earlier and will last longer into the fall. I saw pictures on a website of the hugel having no snow on it while the rest of the ground still had some.

I think results vary based on where you live. All my raised beds, regular or Hügelkultur beds, shed snow before ground level. However, where I live, I would not say it makes much of a difference - maybe only days. As to the mounds generating heat, I would think if you put a PVC dome or similar on a raised bed that you could indeed planter earlier and grow longer. I am considering building some domes to try out that theory.

 

[Legamin]

Some of you may know that I have built a cement mixer/compost sifter to sift my wood chips and chicken run compost. For the wood chips, I used a 1/4 inch mesh to sift the compost out of the wood chips. This gave me a very fine compost that I will be using for starting plants and using in my existing raised be gardens. I have heard that large chunks of wood chips would sequester the nitrogen in the soil, so it was important to sift the wood chip compost before adding it to the garden. I think I got that right, but if there are other opinions, please share.

Now I am moving on to my chicken run litter and will be processing it to add to my garden. My chicken run litter is a mixture of wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves. Mostly grass clippings and leaves. I have been watching YouTube videos on finishing compost and a number of people recommend not sifting the compost too fine for the garden. They state that a more chunky, not completely finished compost, is actually better for the garden soil. They state that a finely sifted compost would compact too much and actually prohibit the growth of plant roots. That makes sense to me, but I do have some questions that I hope someone with more experience can answer.

FYI, my cement mixer/compost sifter uses inserts for sifting the material. I have a 1/4 inch insert, a 1/2 inch insert, and the compost tumbler itself is made with 1 X 1/2 inch wire. So those are the sifting options I have.

1) I have raised beds filled with the Square Foot Gardening Mel's mix of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite. According to Mel, you should refresh the raised beds with new compost every year. For me, I am thinking that adding finely sifted composted to these raised beds and working it into the mix is the way to go. The peat moss and vermiculite, in theory, do not need to be refreshed as they don't decompose and are in the raised bed to provide soil structure and water retention. So I am thinking that sifting the compost with a 1/4 inch screen is the way to go. But I am open to other suggestions.

2) I also have a number of raised Hügelkultur beds that have a base of wood logs, branches, twigs, and wood chips. On top of that, I have been dumping grass clippings and leaves, followed by whatever rough compost and soil I could dig up around the garden. I would like to improve the soil content of those Hügelkultur beds and am thinking this is where I could use a more roughly sifted compost, using either the 1/2 inch mesh or even the 1 X 1/2 inch wire screen on the sifting barrel using no insert at all. In my chicken run, the grass is mostly decomposed over the summer, but the leaves take a lot longer and I don't think it would be a good idea to just dump them in the beds. Even a rough sifting of the chicken run litter, in my thinking, is necessary so the larger pieces get thrown back into the run for more processing.

3) I am also considering just dumping a bunch of chicken run litter on the garden as is, but am concerned that the uncomposted leaves and wood chips would sequester nitrogen for composting these items in the spring and rob the soil of needed nitrogen for plant root growth. But maybe I'm overthinking this process because the chicken poo in the chicken run litter might offset any nitrogen sequestration needed to breakdown the remaining large chunks of wood chips and leaves.

4) In the Square Foot Gardening beds, they recommend mixing the compost into the existing material every year. I have a smaller cultivator and/or a tiller that can do this job. Although I like the concept of no till gardening, the Square Foot Gardening concept does suggest that the best way in their beds is to mix in new compost with the old material. You don't just throw new compost on top of the bed.

5) For the Hügelkultur beds, I would just place any new compost on top of the beds and probably not turn it into the existing soil. Do I have that right?

I am open to any and all suggestions. I have had a garden for the past 10 years, but live on a lake with very poor sandy soil, and by and large my garden efforts have not been very successful. I got chickens last year to make compost and will be harvesting that product in the next few weeks. I am hoping to see results of that effort next year in the garden.

A few pictures of what I have to work with on this project.

This is my cement mixer/compost sifter setup. I have a barrel attached to the cement mixer that I can use the 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, or just the 1 X 1/2 inch wire for sifting. The sifted compost falls into one garden cart, and the larger pieces/chunks get filtered out into a another cart for further composting.

View attachment 2373021

Here is a picture of my sifted compost using the 1/4 inch mesh.

View attachment 2373022

The larger pieces and chunks are filter out into another cart. That material will be sent back to the chicken run or a compost bin for further composting.

View attachment 2373023

You have an amazing system! If my focus was compost i would definitely use your system. As is I build about 4 tons of sheep bedding and compost materials per year. It goes into a big pile each year and the chickens range it for about three years. Each year i start a new pile. At the end of three years i scoop it up and drop it on the pasture trying to avoid the buildup of too much nitrogen in any one area. For us this works..and is easy..since the sheep take the most of the time! Compost is an afterthought for us but it does have to go somewhere.

 

[gtaus]

You have an amazing system! If my focus was compost i would definitely use your system. As is I build about 4 tons of sheep bedding and compost materials per year. It goes into a big pile each year and the chickens range it for about three years. Each year i start a new pile. At the end of three years i scoop it up and drop it on the pasture trying to avoid the buildup of too much nitrogen in any one area. For us this works..and is easy..since the sheep take the most of the time! Compost is an afterthought for us but it does have to go somewhere.

Well, I don't have 4 tons of compost per year. I don't know if I could sift through 4 tons of compost each year even with my cement mixer compost sifter. But my system works great for me, especially when I can use different screen sizes for the fineness of the sifted compost I want to use.

Just wondering how you spread out 4 tons of compost into the pasture each year? I know some farmers where I grew up used a manure spreader to fertilize their fields, but I don't know if they used straight manure of if it was mixed with bedding. At any rate, they called it sunshine fertilizer.

My chickens are getting older now, and I only get maybe one or two eggs total per day from 8 hens. So they still work making compost, but their egg laying ability seems to have passed. I'll have to get a new flock of chicks next spring if I want more eggs.

 

[Legamin]

Well, I don't have 4 tons of compost per year. I don't know if I could sift through 4 tons of compost each year even with my cement mixer compost sifter. But my system works great for me, especially when I can use different screen sizes for the fineness of the sifted compost I want to use.

Just wondering how you spread out 4 tons of compost into the pasture each year? I know some farmers where I grew up used a manure spreader to fertilize their fields, but I don't know if they used straight manure of if it was mixed with bedding. At any rate, they called it sunshine fertilizer.

My chickens are getting older now, and I only get maybe one or two eggs total per day from 8 hens. So they still work making compost, but their egg laying ability seems to have passed. I'll have to get a new flock of chicks next spring if I want more eggs.

I use a backhoe to pile it up about 6’ high and 8g wide by as long as it needs to be. The chickens and time do the rest. I find the chicken scratching and manure cause about triple the rate of decay that i experienced before i introduced them! I can tarp the piles in Winter to accelerate the decay and build up heat during the snow and freeze. I have a broadcast spreader but for the big distribution i load the pickup and my wife drives real slow as I pitchfork it evenly across the pasture. I disk that in thoroughly just before seeding. Before I had to use about 300-800lbs of 16-16-16 fertilizer per year to keep the pastures going..even then i had to reseed every 3-4 years..all told about $3500 per year on 10 acres. Now I no longer use chemical fertilizer or pesticides..i use chickens! I’m getting older and had 2 back surgeries this year with the promise of more plus the obligatory artificial joints that wear out every decade or so.. So this year I bought the broadcast seeder (the big ‘Wig-Wag’ Italian model to carry 1000lbs of seed at a time) and am looking for a manure spreading wagon (the old type that flings the crap) to pull behind my 60 year old diesel tractor. I don’t care for high tech…nor can i afford it! I will hire out the first harvest cutting and baling for Winter feed then break out sheep on the pasture to keep it mowed the rest of the year. I compost the straw, hay and poop all together. The chickens do an amazing job scratching up as i add it through the Summer but it is the high acidity of their poop that causes the accelerated breakdown into a rich black soil filled with worms and other useful bacteria and insects. I use my local Ag university for a resource as there is a constant flow of eager Doctoral students in the Ag Program willing to work for free and even pay for my soil lab work in exchange for permission to use the data collected as a case study for their thesis. It’s a great exchange and most of them are extremely helpful (with the occasional nutter that pushes me to give the land back to the earth and get rid of the farting critters). I patiently inform them that termites are the greatest threat to the environment as the single greatest greenhouse gas contributor on earth…a few have gone and done the research and found this to be true..it changed their entire outlook…and a few are so thoroughly indoctrinated with the green propaganda that all they can see it hatred for the traditional farming effort and farming in general..their loss.
at three - four eggs per day my 10 hens keep ahead of our consumption and we sell the rest (1-2 dozen per week to help with the chicken food bill). Unless you have hundreds of chickens they are a cost center and non-profitable until you figure in the work they save in the composting and fertilizing of fields. Then they are worth more than any number of egg they might produce. My estimate is a savings of $3000 per year in cash expense, 60 gallons of diesel/or electric equivalent and about $500 in food production. So when i deduct the previous $3500 that i spent on fertilizer and $600 in fuel and maintenance and tarps the total saving of cash and in-kind for 10 chickens is about ‘$7,600.00 less the $500 in feed costs and a reduction of labor of about 200 hours. More than a fair deal.