Chickens geting into the compost?

[PandoraTaylor]

compost piles!

 

[kathyinmo]

I highly recommend you do not let your chickens in the compost. There is mold and fungus and other toxins in it. We feed our animals fresh clean food, wash out the waterers, add fresh clean bedding, etc; Why allow them in garbage?? I nearly lost a chicken due to a toxin ... possibly rotting vegetation. Please don't feed your animals rotten food, fungus, mold, etc. Here is a link to the emergency situation ..

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=219553

 

[CarolynPerth]

Maybe it depends what you put in your compost but I'd think that since chickens are omnivorous, scavengers that evolved scratching about in forest litter they would be fine with a compost pile. Forests are full of moulds, bacteria and bugs and many of the fruits would decay before the seeds can be accessed (and part of the ecosystem is birds eating and spreading seeds). Having said that we put coffee grounds in ours which is in a closed bin and I haven't let the chickens scratch over a pile because I'm not sure about the coffee. We do a reverse sort of thing, throw all scraps in the chicken yard then rake it over into a pile each day which they again pick over, then I rake it and put the resulting mess in the compost along with coffee grinds and roost litter once a week. Also, our soil is sandy and poor so I don't really want them picking off the worms.

 

[journey11]

Mine do too, and LOVE it. They eat all my red wriggler worms.

They seem like they go for the cooked areas mostly, easier to turn (nice of them to stir it for me, huh). Anything really yucky I bury pretty deep, meat scraps, etc. I don't know if it's OK for them to do it, but after all this time, I can say that mine have not gotten sick or taken on a heavy worm load. I don't see any harm in it.

 

[darkmatter]

All my compostable material goes into the chickens, either the pen or the coop, ( its a below ground level dirt floor with deep litter). In the spring, the compost gets placed in the garden. During the fall/winter the chicken fence gate to the garden is open and the chickens do a bang up job of cleaning up my garden and tilling the rows. I fill the tomato cages with lawn mower clippings of grass and leaves which the chickens spread out and incorporate. I've never noticed any problems with the chickens picking through food and kitchen scraps along with whatever the lawnmower sucked up. (see my BYC page)

 

[Ladyhawke1]

Since I have started a garden and compost pile…I have read that there are certain things you DO NOT put in a compost pile. I suggest that you read what the experts say about that. Since I do not put those things in my compost pile….I allow my chickens in there to “stir’ it up and enjoy themselves.

 

[MuranoFarms]

I'm with you Ladyhawke, I go by the composting 'rules' lol In my woods we have tons of raccoons/opossums /ground hogs. I even saw a bear on my street a few days ago! I'm afraid to attract them with meats and carbs, so I stick with produce/egg shells/tea bags and such. Also, the moron that we bought the house from used to 'feed' the wild animals. the neighbors told me he would take all the kitchen scraps outside and sit in a cage thing and watch for hours. This cage is so big and well built I cover it with plywood and use it as a holding pen! Seriously...who trys to attract bears to their house?? I digress....

His wife however, had a composting area built out of cinder blocks, which works great. I'm wondering if I should take the front blocks off though so my birds can find it? I'd hate to deprive them of a treat because they can't find the thing.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I guess it maybe depends what your compost pile is like. Mine is no different than what they'd find all over the place if they were free ranging. Nature is *full of* decomposing vegetation and fungi, generally quite harmless and in any case basically unavoidable. It'd be different if you had very bored chickens in a bare run and you chucked in last week's garbage... but I do not think that compares at all to simply letting loose chickens have access to a normal well-managed compost pile, not at ALL.

JMHO,

Pat

 

[possumqueen]

Compost is the REASON I'm getting back into chickens in the spring.

Not only do they turn a compost pile faster and better than I can, but chicken poop is THE best ingredient to really make a pile cook, and I cannot get it from the local poultry farms anymore. Because of biosecurity concerns, they won't let me have it for love or money.

Chicken poop makes the pile really hot -- as in up to 165 degrees -- and that is what kills fungus and weed seeds.

And besides, the eggs are better.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Don't get me wrong, I am big on the benefits of chickens *and* of composting; but I am maybe missing something here on how you can combine having the chickens turn the compost AND having it heat up real good? You need a fairly large compact thick pile (say a cubic yard, ish, in a vaguely cubic or tall-pile shape) in order to get temperatures up to 160 F in the center of the pile. Yet when I dump compost type stuff into the chickens' run (several times a week during the gardening part of the year), they immediately commence scratching it apart into a layer two inches thick and two miles across

I suppose you could then scrape that all back together and form it into a new pile but it's not obvious to me that would have actually saved any labor.

So, am I missing something here? Or are you planning on two sets of compost piles, some fairly cold-composted and chicken-aerated, others protected from chicken activities but utilizing their poo to accelerate the composting process?

Just curious, always looking for better ways of doing things,

Pat