Calling all composters...

[Acre4Me]

I've tried using pallets for compost bins, but the chickens scratch it all out as soon as I put it in. Any suggestions to keep it contained while still allowing them access?

Attach some kind of fencing to the inside of the bin. Chicken wire, but if holes are larger, maybe double layer. Maybe some kind of HWC. Just reduce the size of the openings. Oh, and put a lip on the front of the bin - ours is about 20+" high, but any lip will help.

 

[Compost King]

I've tried using pallets for compost bins, but the chickens scratch it all out as soon as I put it in. Any suggestions to keep it contained while still allowing them access?

I use compost piles to feed chickens, they tend to flatten and widen them. Either let them flatten the pile (and not have that perfect compost) or you have to grab the pitch fork and pile it back up again so they can flatten it again. I just let them flatten it and on occasion when I will pile it up in an attempt to help the chickens find more foraging materials.

You can use netting to keep chickens out of it if the pile is more important than the chickens feeding off of it.

 

[CindyinSD]

I was worried that chicken wire would eventually rot in the moist, acid environment of the piles... and they would eat it. HWC would likely last better... Maybe I can find some soon. I ordered some and finally got it, but it's already allocated to another project. I did get some plastic poultry netting though, thinking it might work in still another project... but it won't. It's too textured. I'll bet it would be just the thing. Thanks!

I think I'm gonna put my new compost system right in their yard. I'm really tired of carting or tractoring heavy litter up the hill to my garden area.

 

[Compost King]

I found that using bird netting worked better for a task like that. I prefer bird netting for chicken containment but if you are trying to keep out more than just chickens chicken wire might be your best option.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

My current composter has welded wire fence on three sides.

The bigger one I'm going to build this fall will be long pallets with scrap wood filling in the gaps.

Both will still be open on one side, so the chickens do scratch the pile down, a little at a time.

When composting with chickens, that's kind of the point....they tear it down, you build it back up. It's a good amount of work, but you get chickens who supplement their diet with compost pile goodness, well-turned compost, and "high nitrogen additions" courtesy of the birds.

You end up with great compost, happy chickens, and as someone mentioned above, great forearms!

 

[gtaus]

@CuddleNest, thanks for informative post. Enjoyed reading it.

 

[gtaus]

Good afternoon chicken lover friends,

We have been wanting to start composting for a while, and now that we've got the peeps it makes perfect sense to fire it up! We've done read some research, but would super appreciate any practical advice you all might have to offer! To give you an idea, we have six clucky ladies and currently our coop + run situation have vinyl floors with sand. We live in a cold, dry climate! Some of the topics we are wondering about...

• Pile V.S. Barrel?​
• Will the sand remnants be okay in the compost?​
• What's a good location for the compost? Is it okay close to the coop or will it smell/bother the ladies/attract detrimental pests?​
• Any general basic advice?​

Thanks for reading! We look forward to your thoughts/suggestions. Have a lovely day

I have tried a number of different composting methods. I too live in a cold climate and it can take literally years for a compost pile to break down. Our winters are long and our summers are not very hot compared to the southern states.

In the past, I have attempted to speed up the composting process by running my kitchen scraps through a waste disposal unit I mounted outside on a old kitchen sink sitting on a 2X4 frame. There was a bucket below the garbage disposal for the mashed up kitchen scraps to fall into. The mash from the garbage disposal composts in about a week because it was so chewed up. I would just throw that slurry on top of my compost pile and put another layer of browns on top of it. It helped, but in a cold climate, the browns don't break down very fast.

I have also done a lot of trench composting where you just dig a hole/trench in the garden and dump your kitchen scraps there and cover it back up with dirt. Things seem to compost well in a few weeks if you have good worm activity in your soil. You just let the worms turn the compost for you. Makes for a nice patch to plant your garden seeds next spring.

Since I got my chickens, I now feed all our kitchen scraps to them. I use a dry deep bedding system of wood chips in the coop, and I have now made my chicken run into a deep litter composting run where I dump all our grass clippings, leaves, wood chips, etc.... and just let the material compost in place. I started out turning the material in the chicken run myself, piling up the material into heaps that the chickens would tear apart and flatten out in no time. That was a lot of work for me, so now I just throw some chicken scratch or kitchen scraps wherever I want the chickens to turn the material over some more. They enjoy scratching and pecking for food more than I enjoy breaking my back piling up the material.

My chicken run material is about 18 inches deep now. This time of year there is a lot of grass clippings from mowing the yard, but I usually try to balance that out with a layer of wood chips as needed. The material should not smell like rotten slimly grass decomposing. If you mix in enough brown material, like wood chips, it will smell like a nice earthy forest floor.

This fall I will be harvesting the chicken run litter compost for the first time. It will go out into the garden to winter over and age. Next spring, I should have a better start to my garden.

Given time, everything will compost, even in our cold climates. Seems to me that if you want finished compost faster, you need to put more work into the project. In my case, I am attempting to use my chickens to turn the material instead of me. I don't know of anybody in my area that uses the composting barrels. It's just too cold for where I live and you can't build up the mass needed to get it warm in those standard sized barrels.

When I was composting kitchen scraps in a pallet compost bin, it would attract animals that you might not want around your chickens. However, feeding the kitchen scraps to the chickens directly solves that problem. Compost should never smell foul, but if it does, it usually is corrected by a generous dose of brown material and maybe a good remix. So far, my chicken run compost system using layers of browns and layers of greens seems to be working for me. No bad smells at all.

 

[CindyinSD]

Sometimes when I dig up the chicken run, it literally smokes when we've had some rain. As in there are ashes. Same with the little mounds of hay the cows have decided for some reason they don't want to eat. I know ya'll are colder than we are (though I'm a little over a mile up, so maybe not as much as you might think), but our compost areas—both accidental and on purpose—do heat up significantly. I wonder what the difference is. ‍♀

 

[Mis pollitos]

Very glad I found this thread. I am a new "chicken tender" this year, my gals are 4 months old. I have been using hemp in the coop & loving it...no smell! It's been in the coop since I moved the chicas in at the beginning of July. My question is: when I clean it out, should it be composted before spreading in the garden? I was thinking of cleaning it out & putting it directly in the garden this fall (pretty soon, I live in Minnesota). Is that the right way to go? Or should it be spread in the spring? Ok, I've rambled enough...any recommendations? Thanks!

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Very glad I found this thread. I am a new "chicken tender" this year, my gals are 4 months old. I have been using hemp in the coop & loving it...no smell! It's been in the coop since I moved the chicas in at the beginning of July. My question is: when I clean it out, should it be composted before spreading in the garden? I was thinking of cleaning it out & putting it directly in the garden this fall (pretty soon, I live in Minnesota). Is that the right way to go? Or should it be spread in the spring? Ok, I've rambled enough...any recommendations? Thanks!

You can put it down in the fall but not in the spring. Chicken poop is high and nitrogen and needs time to break down. In addition it can contain pathogens which require 6 months of composting to ensure they died off. So either compost it or put it down in the fall, and plant in the spring.