Can chickens dig through compost with manure in it?

[Chickiechickieboomboom]

Just wondering if this is safe...my chickens love to poke around my compost bin. It's a mix of pine shavings, chicken manure, egg shells, and all my "green" scraps from the kitchen. There is an occasional avocado pit or peel in the mix, but it breaks down quickly in the heat and humidity lately.

It seems super gross to give them access to it, but they love poking around it trying to get in. Should I let them have a go at it?

 

[muddy75]

yes chickens will turn compost and they love it. tagging a couple people that may be able to give additional info based on experience..... @aart @RUNuts @Compost King

 

[RUNuts]

Just wondering if this is safe...my chickens love to poke around my compost bin. It's a mix of pine shavings, chicken manure, egg shells, and all my "green" scraps from the kitchen. There is an occasional avocado pit or peel in the mix, but it breaks down quickly in the heat and humidity lately.

It seems super gross to give them access to it, but they love poking around it trying to get in. Should I let them have a go at it?

Most definitely. I'll build a pallet compost pile. Wood chips, coop clean out, paper, cardboard and what not. Water it and let it heat up. At some point, the chickens will attack it. Don't know what the trigger was, but they kicked a 4 foot tall pile out of the pallets.

I normally take a side down to let them spread it. This one they spread with the sides up.

Earwigs, pill bugs, grubs, ants and all kinds on little num nums crawling around it there. Cut back on the feed bill that week.

Kitchen scraps get put on the ground, picked through and scooped into the compost bin. Amazing what they will pick out. They love black avocado and leave the skins.

 

[Compost King]

Chickens are great for turning composts but if you are a compost perfectionist they will ruin the composting process. I am not a compost perfectionist I prefer chickens turn my compost and feed off of them. Problems with the finished compost product if chickens are allowed to scratch through it is that weed seeds will survive, and supposedly pathogens but the 2nd part I believe is more of a paranoia issue. Unless you compost Human manure I would not worry about it. I have weeds that pop up in my horticultural endeavors due to letting chickens have access to my compost piles for food. Small price for feeding the chickens. If you want to have a perfect compost and still use chickens to turn a compost have them turn the materials in their runs before adding them to the compost piles, I do this with leaves and mulches. Then you have to keep your actual perfect compost pile fenced off from Chickens. Another way that may or may not work is to allow access to the pile on days you are scheduled to turn your compost piles. The Chickens will flatten the pile if you have enough chickens. Then close it back off from chickens and pile it back up. I am not a compost protectionist or expert I am just a guy who loves to compost and grow plants. Probably never should have put the word King in my screen name, I wish I picked a more humble compost screen name.

 

[Compost King]

I forgot to add, yes its safe for chickens, in fact its beneficial to chickens

 

[muddy75]

thanks guys for your wonderful and “entertaining” expertise!!!

 

[archeryrob]

Chickens love manure alone. My daughter used to have a horse and the horse would crap and before it was cold they were shredding it looking for grain she forgot to chew. There is next to nothing they will not scratch and move to look for food.

 

[MarkJr]

Mine wait for cow pies to ‘ripen’ then shred them for fly larvae and other nasties.

Doesn’t make the eggs taste different though!!!!

 

[Compost King]

When I take in a truck load (small truck) of hot fresh horse manure, I always plop in a pitch fork or 2 into chicken runs for chickens to scratch up, eat bugs and seeds they find in the poop, and with in a day its all mixed in with the bedding. Eventually that bedding get compacted down , shoveled out and goes to the giant compost mountain where I keep my breeder meat birds, and they forage through that on a regular basis. If you restrict feed to a CX hen and pen her in with a large heritage (or mutt) rooster who is good at foraging, she will start foraging to the point where she won't stop foraging when you bring feed. Compost foraging is a great way to feed chickens.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I’ve had good luck walking the line with “inside of pile hot enough to kill pathogens and weed seeds, but outside cool enough to supply bugs, fungi, and worms to supplement food waste.”

The key as far as I can tell is a big pile!