Chickens & compost

[Petect]

Hi all
I’m going to start letting my birds out of their run (free range) pretty soon. They are going to get into the compost pile, which is fine with me. My only concern is that I have been putting the litter from the coop into the pile, and there is a lot of it in there, and I plan to continue putting the litter into the compost. Base on the fact that they are doing fine after constantly fouling their feeder and waterer ( both situations now corrected ), I suspect that it won’t be a health problem, but I thought I’d ask. I could fence them out if REALLY necessary, but I’d prefer not to.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance….Pete

 

[carlf]

If they decided to scratch in the compost pile, they will turn it & pick out the worms & bugs.
Other than making a mess out of your compost pile, good source of protein, IMO.

 

[Den in Penn]

Chickens have been scratching through piles like that as long as there have been chickens. Mine have done so and seem to have lived.

 

[donrae]

It's fine. chickens scratch through and ingest some of their own poop all the time. No problems.

 

[lazy gardener]

When Mama hen takes her chicks out of the nest, some of the chick's first snacks are chicken poop! That helps them get a healthy gut flora established.

 

[Petect]

Thank you for the feedback!
It's pretty obvious that chickens aren't very big on hygiene yet manage to stay healthy so I didn't think that poking around in a compost pile full of it would hurt them, BUT it's good to know for sure.
Pete