Changing the way we feed... (and deep bedding and compost)

[chanceosunshine]

We currently have a small mixed flock, one rooster, three hens and a duck in denial. We travel out of state at least three weekends a month so I have kept from changing my feeding routine, but I want to try to implement some better practices. My fear is that it won't be healthy for the duck. So, that's my first question. My second question is related to feeding but also related to deep bedding and compost. Here's what I'd like to do.

Currently they have a free feeder with flock raiser in it (cause of the duck). They free range 4 days a week (because we're gone on weekends). They are really spoiled and like their crumbles. I'd like to pull their feeder during the week and only provide them with food scraps (including over cooked chicken bones) and a portion of fermented feed. Any reason why this would hurt the duck? (If my elderly neighbors didn't love him so much he'd be confit!) Then I would give them their feeder back for the weekends when we are gone.

The other thing I'm thinking of is lining their run with 8 inch boards and filling it with wood chips and then throwing food scraps on top of it and letting them work it all into compost for me. Does this sound like it would work? The run is 6x12.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

No reason you can't feed Flock Raiser/All Flock all of the time - its good for the rooster, too. You should have oyster shell in a pail, bin, or bucket to suppliment calcium for your layers.

it is HIIGHLY unlikely, unless you have deliberately crafted your free range area, that your birds can meet their nutritional needs with your pasture. Speaking as someone who has a little experience with that, and a much longer growing season. So, free range or not, you need to feed your birds a commercial nutritionally complete feed daily. I've tried fermented feed, I'm not opposed - say days I do it, some days I don't (more in the winter) - I don't find near the claimed benefits in feed savings, while my free ranging (flock in sig below, my birds have 4.5 acres to roam, of which 1.75 acres is the pasture, the rest is underbrushed highland hammock) cuts my feed bill, seasonally, between 15 and 35%. Until the goats decided they loved the flock feed, I was offering just 11-12# daily with over sixty birds of mixed age.

Deep litter works best when droppings, and your litter material (mixed leaves, straw, pine shavings, whatever) is in contact with the ground. No point in putting boards down, unless you want to encourage termites for some reason. and yes, if you deep litter compost, you absolutely CAN throw kitchen scraps whatever on top. What you can't do is throw lawn cuttings on top. Deep litter is a slow compost method of mostly dried/brown stuff, because the chicken droppings are very high in nitrogen. Adding a bunch of green to the already "hot" (high nitrogen) chicken droppings will add a lot of moisture (and thus more ammonia), greatly accelerate decomposition (and the need to keep refilling the litter), promote molds/mildews if you end up with a trapped/encapsulated mat of compressed green in an area the chickens aren't turning frequently (terrible for their sensitive respiratory systems), and make it less effective for odor mitigation.

 

[chanceosunshine]

No reason you can't feed Flock Raiser/All Flock all of the time - its good for the rooster, too. You should have oyster shell in a pail, bin, or bucket to suppliment calcium for your layers.

it is HIIGHLY unlikely, unless you have deliberately crafted your free range area, that your birds can meet their nutritional needs with your pasture. Speaking as someone who has a little experience with that, and a much longer growing season. So, free range or not, you need to feed your birds a commercial nutritionally complete feed daily. I've tried fermented feed, I'm not opposed - say days I do it, some days I don't (more in the winter) - I don't find near the claimed benefits in feed savings, while my free ranging (flock in sig below, my birds have 4.5 acres to roam, of which 1.75 acres is the pasture, the rest is underbrushed highland hammock) cuts my feed bill, seasonally, between 15 and 35%. Until the goats decided they loved the flock feed, I was offering just 11-12# daily with over sixty birds of mixed age.

Deep litter works best when droppings, and your litter material (mixed leaves, straw, pine shavings, whatever) is in contact with the ground. No point in putting boards down, unless you want to encourage termites for some reason. and yes, if you deep litter compost, you absolutely CAN throw kitchen scraps whatever on top. What you can't do is throw lawn cuttings on top. Deep litter is a slow compost method of mostly dried/brown stuff, because the chicken droppings are very high in nitrogen. Adding a bunch of green to the already "hot" (high nitrogen) chicken droppings will add a lot of moisture (and thus more ammonia), greatly accelerate decomposition (and the need to keep refilling the litter), promote molds/mildews if you end up with a trapped/encapsulated mat of compressed green in an area the chickens aren't turning frequently (terrible for their sensitive respiratory systems), and make it less effective for odor mitigation.

Thank you for the reply. The chickens have ten acres of our land, but since they are not respecters of property lines they have a fenced in area of about a quarter acre of mostly grass and brush with a arbor of wisteria, a lilac bush and a locus tree. They routinely jump the shorter portion of the fence and have access wherever their hearts desire. I would definitely plan to give them the fermented food morning and night, but rationed instead of free fed.
I thought the boards would help keep the bedding in place. The run has 1" fencing. If that sounds like enough to hold the bedding in I'm good with that. The coop portion is about 40"x6'. I already have wood chips there. I have tried many methods of making compost and I have failed every single time. Thank you for the heads up regarding the grass clippings.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yep, don't need much to keep the bedding in - I use graduated livestock fence for my run - even the "small" holes in that are huge, but it provides enough immoble support that the litter material will pack up around the verticals, until not much escapes.

and no, chickens don't much respect property lines, though I find that the distance they range increases with their relative predator comfort - mine usually stay w/i 50 feet of me, or 300' of the run and hen houses. You seem to have some very fortunate chickens, it will be years before I've cleared enough that they can range so far on my 30a.

 

[chanceosunshine]

Yep, don't need much to keep the bedding in - I use graduated livestock fence for my run - even the "small" holes in that are huge, but it provides enough immoble support that the litter material will pack up around the verticals, until not much escapes.

and no, chickens don't much respect property lines, though I find that the distance they range increases with their relative predator comfort - mine usually stay w/i 50 feet of me, or 300' of the run and hen houses. You seem to have some very fortunate chickens, it will be years before I've cleared enough that they can range so far on my 30a.

Thanks, that's less work for me!

Honestly, my chickens are so aloof and I don't really care for this bunch. In the past I could actually enjoy my chickens but these ones run like I'm a predator when I come out. They're giving me a complex.

Back to the deep bedding, along the lines of NOT adding grass clippings, Is it ok to continue to add things like coffee grounds and such?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Absolutely. Throw coffee grounds at mine all the time, when I don't throw them around the blueberry bushes.

It comes down to quantity and relative "greenery". If its really wet and really green, i.e. grass clippings, you don't want much in your deep litter because its "double bad" - high in nitrogen and high in moisture. Coffee grounds are "single bad" - they are high in moisture, but were once dried and roasted - making them mostly "brown", which is a good thing. Chicken droppings are also "single bad" - high nitrogen, the moisture isn't really an issue (unless its hot out, when their droppings tend to become looser due to additional water consumption by your birds).

Then its a matter of relative quantity. I'm a coffee addict. One pot a day. But I'm not a Starbucks. The amount of wet coffee grounds I generate in a day is insignificant next to all the "brown" of my deep litter. Likewise, the amount of nitrogen my chickens drop in a day in their feces is insignificant next to all the "brown" of my deep litter - so it works.

OTOH, if you mow even a small yard, say 1/3 acre, that's what, 9 bags of grass clippings, very wet, very much full of nitrogen? and your going to dump it all at once, maybe in a few spots, but you sure aren't going to rake it out and turn it in. That's where the problems start. Compared to that, some carrot skins, a cantaloupe rind, half an underripe watermelon, and the celery tops from the macaroni salad you made for dinner can't begin to complete.

The goal in hot composting is a 50/50 mix of brown and green. Deep litter, otoh, is based on almost entirely brown - the chickens, kitchen waste, and occasional garden trimming provide all the "green" - and because, relative to all the brown, there isn't that much of it, the process happens much slower, at much cooler temperatures, without the odor associated with a hot compost pile - and with considerably less odor than piling up chicken droppings on their own.

 

[chanceosunshine]

Thank you for the advice. I'm going to start the deep bedding today. Is a minimum of four inches enough or should I aim for 8"?

I heard that if it begins to smell it's because it needs more wood chips, but if I'm adding more wood chips, when do I ever get to the point of having compost? Or does it just not get to the point of being "pure" compost and you eventually shovel it out and let it finish without the chickens?

 

[Missceegee]

Absolutely. Throw coffee grounds at mine all the time, when I don't throw them around the blueberry bushes.

It comes down to quantity and relative "greenery". If its really wet and really green, i.e. grass clippings, you don't want much in your deep litter because its "double bad" - high in nitrogen and high in moisture. Coffee grounds are "single bad" - they are high in moisture, but were once dried and roasted - making them mostly "brown", which is a good thing. Chicken droppings are also "single bad" - high nitrogen, the moisture isn't really an issue (unless its hot out, when their droppings tend to become looser due to additional water consumption by your birds).

Then its a matter of relative quantity. I'm a coffee addict. One pot a day. But I'm not a Starbucks. The amount of wet coffee grounds I generate in a day is insignificant next to all the "brown" of my deep litter. Likewise, the amount of nitrogen my chickens drop in a day in their feces is insignificant next to all the "brown" of my deep litter - so it works.

OTOH, if you mow even a small yard, say 1/3 acre, that's what, 9 bags of grass clippings, very wet, very much full of nitrogen? and your going to dump it all at once, maybe in a few spots, but you sure aren't going to rake it out and turn it in. That's where the problems start. Compared to that, some carrot skins, a cantaloupe rind, half an underripe watermelon, and the celery tops from the macaroni salad you made for dinner can't begin to complete.

The goal in hot composting is a 50/50 mix of brown and green. Deep litter, otoh, is based on almost entirely brown - the chickens, kitchen waste, and occasional garden trimming provide all the "green" - and because, relative to all the brown, there isn't that much of it, the process happens much slower, at much cooler temperatures, without the odor associated with a hot compost pile - and with considerably less odor than piling up chicken droppings on their own.

This is helpful to me as I just moved my flock into their large covered run/nest area with deep litter. Previously they were in a mobile coop with open floor so this litter thing is new to me. Thanks.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

as I've said elsewhere, happy to share my experiences, so others need not repeat my mistakes.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

To harvest compost in this system, you rake away the layer of unbroken down material and dig into the good, broken down material underneath. Depending on how you’ll use the compost, you may want to screen it.