I’ve been toying with the idea of composting inside the chicken run. In the summer/fall I would occasionally toss wheel barrels full of raked leaves in the run for them to play in and every once in a while I give them leftovers along with their feed so I think I am partially there already. My question is……If I decide to start composting with my kitchen scraps, garden weeding, leaves, sticks etc in the run, when I clean the poop boards every week, can I toss that onto the pile as well or is that a no-no? I also have bunnies and I toss their droppings/bedding onto an existing poop pile (which is where I currently toss the chicken droppings). Can I add that to the compost pile too? I was thinking of constructing a two section open front structure from block and old pallets to semi contain the piles. Any opinions on adding their waste and that of my bun buns to the compost pile to let the chickens scratch in it? I guess it’s just a gross thought in my head of the chickens ingesting their own poop and that of the buns as it’s mixed in with the kitchen/garden scraps that they will peck at. Thoughts?
No idea about the rabbit waste, but my run is my compost bin. Wood chip base + grass clippings + garden waste + food scraps + dried leaves + dried pine needles. I use a DLM in the coop and sometimes just drag the coop DL into the run to get mixed up with the materials listed above. Chickens make quick work of compost so it gets turned to usable material faster than I could ever hope to get on my own.
They are going to scratch it all around and fling it out of the pile anyway, so I wouldn't bother constructing bins. I'd just toss the stuff directly in the run and let the birds go at it. As long as you're adding enough "browns" (carbon-rich material) to balance out the "green" poop (nitrogen-rich material), then you should be okay.
Thanks for the input Owen and TalkALittle! Maybe I'll hold off on the bunny waste and keep that in a separate compost area. I only have 3 buns but I have 13, soon to be 23 chickens so not having to schlep the chicken waste across the yard will be a huge help. I will make sure my browns balance the greens to avoid the "ick" factor! Yeah, I guess chickens don't care about keeping things in a neat bin so.....maybe I will just dump in the middle of each run ( I have one for the big girls and one for my bantams) and let them redecorate as they see fit.
