Catch 22 Composting

[IamRainey]

I know this is an older post, Rainey, but I would love to see a pic or two of your finished compost, just to know what the goal is.

BTW, I really love your avatar. I so admire that whimsical, light-hearted style. Did you paint it? I just cannot seem to let go and have that much fun with an image.

Thanks for the compliment to the avatar. I really like it too and I wish I could credit the person who did paint it but she/he is unknown to me. I just googled "chicken" images and selected the one that tickled my funny bone.

I'm glad to see jthornton and Ridgerunner answered your question first. You'll know when you've got finished compost when it looks dark and granular and smells like rich organic dirt. It's really a miracle and enormously satisfying to see the groddy stuff that went in there turn into something that feels good in your hand and smells like the potential to grow!

 

[CindyinSD]

Thanks for the compliment to the avatar. I really like it too and I wish I could credit the person who did paint it but she/he is unknown to me. I just googled "chicken" images and selected the one that tickled my funny bone.

I'm glad to see jthornton and Ridgerunner answered your question first. You'll know when you've got finished compost when it looks dark and granular and smells like rich organic dirt. It's really a miracle and enormously satisfying to see the groddy stuff that went in there turn into something that feels good in your hand and smells like the potential to grow!

We have really nice black soil and a tractor to dig some up for my prospective garden beds, but I am excited about composting, chiefly to feed chickens. This thread was perfect. I don’t have a lot of plant material to toss in except spoiled hay. Cows are distressingly wasteful with grass that I have to pay for. OTOH, they’re very good at mowing grass “on the hoof”.

Nevertheless, despite the lack of diversity in materials, I do have cow & chicken manure, bedding and spoiled hay... and maybe that’s enough. You all are making me think I really may be able to do this!

 

[paintedChix]

Hey JThornton -

Check out David the Good's you tube videos on composting. You might get quite the kick out of it and want to then read some of his books (some are phamlet type). Fun to follow.

David the Good

I kinda follow a wide mix of things as far as composting. I'm now ready to close off the pile we've been using for several years. This past year I worked hard at adding composting materials to it. Like the other one who had 4) reasons, I also compost dog/cat feces. The dogs' are what are picked up from the littles & oldsters starting to have "holding" issues w/ paper towels, the "bombs" left in walking areas in front, back and side yards, the cats have corn husk litter or use chick crumble (actually cheaper than decent cat litter and clumps just as well & goes right into the compost - no issues) and our own bathroom waste (don't have a composting toilet yet) - but the tissues, toweling, feminine stuff, hair from both human & pet brushes, the pony hair (Shetland ponies shed enough to create another pony each, LOL), paper plates, napkins, hamburger grease, etc, etc. The pile that's being covered now will not be used until at least well into 2021, then will be used only around the actual fruit and nut trees but that's ok, too. I also don't turn the pile - if I did, could probably use it sooner. And like stated previously, plastics that don't degrade get pulled as the larger, undigested parts are added to the new pile... We are also starting a compost pile right where some of our garden beds are being installed. This will not have some of the "no-no's" of composting and we will allow chickens acess at times to turn it/ pull it out of the bin, then we will pitch it back in. That should make for faster composting, we'll see.

We are doing as much deep litter composting in the chicken coops/runs as we can - got behind this fall/winter so far and have quite a bit to remove from the runs and also to restock the runs. But it's all good... Last year was the first year I've actually used what's been composting in the chicken runs/pens since 2015 - and the plants went CRAZY (herbs, flowers, fruit plants - though all my kiwi plants died and so did some others- think was competition from too many plants in too small space? Still learning the gardening things, but sure had/have some nice compost)... So - the paper trash isn't very pretty, but I don't have a lot of visitor traffic and since the weather was what it was, I wasn't worried about it as I wanted/needed bedding in that tarped coop/run. You had very little to no idea there had been actual unshredded paper trash here just 7 days later. These hens were quite vigorous in tearing through it all - especially with the apple cores and some veggies mixed in... I wish I had gotten more pics - a week later. This coop has been un-occupied since March of last year - it has a nice, small build up of compost we can use.



I run cardboard through our Staples brand paper shredder (can take 15 sheets of paper at a time). Shred gets composted, used in nest boxes & brooders, used as DLM and currently doing long runs where I will be planting grapes this spring.

I also left a stack of flattened cardboard out and between several rain storms and 13 free ranging barnyard bantams - it's almost completely shredded where I can easily use it directly around established plants as mulch... or add to the compost pile.

 

[paintedChix]

Since this topic has been so active and there seems to be real interest I thought I'd share how it works for me. As I've said before, I do all the no-no's. I do completely lazy "passive" composting. And I still get mounds of wonderful soil year after year.

Hope this gives someone some ideas and some encouragement.

Wow!! Thank you for sharing your pictures! That is awesome. It also shows me that what I'm doing IS working and will continue to work. EVERYBODY keeps telling me that it won't work, when I don't have a tractor w/ bucket and don't usually turn it all (not lazy, BUSY)... I do get compost (as I described earlier), just not in 3 - 6 months.

I also have done the DLM method - somewhat... This fall/winter has been short on time with people sick and not wanting/able to collect all the pine straw and leaves we have right here - free for the gathering. Working on that again - now that chest colds and walking pneumonia are gone.

 

[paintedChix]

Two weird questions:

• can I put horse, dog and human hair in my piles
• and where would horse manure fit into this game plan? Is it better off dumped in its own pile in the pasture after mucking the stalls?

Thanks to everyone contributing to this post, especially @ChocolateMouse, @IamRainey and @Ridgerunner.

Haven't finished reading this thread yet, so not sure if you got answers. Yes, you can add all kinds of hair.

Horse manure - depends! A lot of hay farmers now use broad spectrum herbicides on their hay. Makes it pretty - no doubts there. BUT even composted, those compounds take, if I remember right, several years to actually break down.

I learned the hard way at my previous property - the compost outright killed tomatoes and peppers and a lot of other things struggled to grow... I thought I had a "black thumb" until someone else pointed this out to me. Yet some weeds - now out in our pastures from the round bales - proliferated and sure were a PITA to keep on top of with mowing!

This property, I found a supplier that isn't using those same herbicides. The hay isn't always weed free, sometimes we have lots of weeds, too, but I definitely haven't had the same issues with using the composted pony manure. And we are slowly transforming 7 cleared acres of sand pastures, into grass. Can't do like the bigger horse farms are doing (all at once and so, so beautiful), but slowly, 1 area at a time - with no herbicides and no chemical fertilizers.

The chicken tractors in the pastures are now helping to develop the sand into soil as well... The most sandy areas also get straight wood chips dumped on it now that I've found a service and the chickens, ponies & sometimes a hired tractor with a bucket help to spread the large piles out.

 

[sjmjrgkmg]

My buddy dropped off a book that had a chapter on composting. It states to build a compost bin 3' x 3' x 3' and fill it with alternating layers of leaves (carbon) and grass (nitrogen). This seems to be a Catch 22... leaves fall off the trees in the fall when the grass stops growing and grass grows well in the spring and summer when the leaves are green.

Last winter all I had was dead leaves and chicken poop, the result was not ideal compost, it was wet and formed balls but was not stinky. I've been adding grass a bit at a time to those bins and they are coming around and looking and smelling more like compost every day, you know that earthy smell.

The one thing I have year round is chicken poop which I assume is nitrogen??? So for those that compost poop what do you do year round?

My compost bins are 4' x 4' x 2.5' or so...

JT

My buddy dropped off a book that had a chapter on composting. It states to build a compost bin 3' x 3' x 3' and fill it with alternating layers of leaves (carbon) and grass (nitrogen). This seems to be a Catch 22... leaves fall off the trees in the fall when the grass stops growing and grass grows well in the spring and summer when the leaves are green.

Last winter all I had was dead leaves and chicken poop, the result was not ideal compost, it was wet and formed balls but was not stinky. I've been adding grass a bit at a time to those bins and they are coming around and looking and smelling more like compost every day, you know that earthy smell.

The one thing I have year round is chicken poop which I assume is nitrogen??? So for those that compost poop what do you do year round?

My compost bins are 4' x 4' x 2.5' or so...

JT

I have been composting my chickens' bedding and waste for over a decade, and it is amazing for the garden! I use wood shavings in my coop, so when I add the used bedding it is a nice blend of carbon and nitrogen. If your compost isn't coming out quite right, and if you don't have any carbon-heavy material other than dead leaves (and you will want to add them when they are dry and crunchy), might there be a good source of wood chips near you? Our city gives out free mulch in a park and you can just load up as much as you want. Also, I know we all give our table scraps to our hens, of course, but anything they won't eat will help your compost a lot.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

@paintedChix - thanks for posting!

While cardboard, junk mail, and napkins/paper towels may not be “pretty”, they do make great compost!

And if you believe composting and returning carbon to the soil can help sequester carbon (and I do), then composting things that would otherwise end up in the landfill or our failing recycling system is key.

Composting leaves, grass clippings, and shavings/manure is great...but composting food waste and paper based materials takes it to the next level!

 

[jthornton]

I have been composting my chickens' bedding and waste for over a decade, and it is amazing for the garden! I use wood shavings in my coop, so when I add the used bedding it is a nice blend of carbon and nitrogen. If your compost isn't coming out quite right, and if you don't have any carbon-heavy material other than dead leaves (and you will want to add them when they are dry and crunchy), might there be a good source of wood chips near you? Our city gives out free mulch in a park and you can just load up as much as you want. Also, I know we all give our table scraps to our hens, of course, but anything they won't eat will help your compost a lot.

My compost is great! I use sawdust from my wood working projects, shredded paper and dead leaves to offset the chicken poop and coffee grounds. Look at the photo I posted a few replies back.

JT

 

[Mimi13]

Y’all, I have to confess, I’ve absolutely laid down on the composting job. For whatever reason, I just can’t keep it up. It seems as though having a “compost pile” only puts more work on me trying to find enough “browns.” Now, I definitely am not a lazy person, but that is one chore I’ve decided against. #noneedtomakemorework

 

[jthornton]

Even my hens have their own composting enterprise going. A big pile of leaves in the winter and a couple of bales of straw in the summer. They keep scratching in the pile till it's leveled out then I pile it back up. Eventually it's so broken down and composting that I put it in the compost bin and they start a new batch.

This batch is about ready for the compost bin. And that's just leaves and a tiny bit of poop. It gets wet when it rains I never add anything to the piles but some scratch for the hens to have more reason to scratch the pile down to the ground.



A close up of the hen rooster tail of leaves


JT