compost pile in chicken coop

[Chris09]

Quote:
Baaaad idea.

Why?

I'm not suggesting feeding coffee grounds to a chicken but please point me to a definitive article on why coffee grounds are bad? I did a google search and have now gone back 6 pages. The only references I can find to coffee grounds being bad is in posts just like yours. So my question is why are grounds bad if they are part of a larger system of a compost pile?

The reason I ask is because the bad effects of onion, avocado, and chocolate is well documented in animals but I am curious why coffee grounds fall into the same category.

TIA!

Do a search on the affect of Caffeine on animals.

Chris

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
Thank you ... and YES it will attract worms .. pretty much anything will work.. .plywood works too... but i was thinking a few inches of compost under the .. whatever.. then when i relocate it i could shovel the compost onto the top of the whatever so the worms cant escape to the underworld before dinner time. ..

it appears so far, the only concern is they will ingest something moldy by keeping a compost pile in the chicken pen ... I also free feed them crumbles.

Just for the record, they have had access to my compost pile for about 8 months and so far so good.... but still i am open to what others think. thanks.

Have you thought about raising worms in a compost bin and then serving them up to the chickens? My hubby wants to do that one day.

 

[Terri O]

Here is what I found when I did the search about effects of caffeine on animals...this is the worst that I found:

Long-term effects of a toxic nature do not appear evident when regular caffeine use is below about 650 mg a day - equivalent to about eight or nine average cups of coffee. Above this level, users may suffer from chronic insomnia, persistent anxiety and depression, and stomach ulcers. Caffeine use appears to be associated with irregular heartbeat and may raise cholesterol levels, but there is no firm evidence that caffeine causes heart disease.

The evidence is also unclear concerning caffeine and cancer. Caffeine and some of its metabolites can cause changes in the cells of the body and in the way in which they reproduce themselves, and caffeine certainly enhances this kind of action by some known carcinogens. However, although caffeine is suspected as a cause of cancer, the evidence is contradictory and does not allow a clear conclusion. Some animal studies suggest that caffeine can have anti-cancer properties. For example, in rats it prevents breast cancer caused by diethylstilbestrol (the "morning after" pill).

Caffeine certainly has the ability to cause a variety of reproductive effects in animals, including congenital abnormalities and reproductive failures, reduced fertility, prematurity, and low birth weight. What is unknown is whether these findings are relevant to the use of ordinary amounts of caffeine-containing beverages by pregnant women. Pregnant women have been advised to restrict caffeine intake by both Canadian and United States governments. Pregnant smokers should be especially wary.

I wonder how much caffeine is left in the grounds of coffee after it is brewed? Does anyone know? It seems as though for the amount of grounds that the chickens "might" get in the pile divided by the number of chickens that you have scratching in that pile....the amount of caffeine from used grounds would be pretty low. I think I am going to check further and see what the web has to say. At present I dont add mine to the "chicken bucket" but I sure hate the mess they make when the dogs rip into the trash!!! If I can find nothing significant--into the bucket they will go! Terri O

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

I compost in my chicken run but I use a bin so they can't get to it. This way, what's in there, stays in there.

And it comes apart into three pieces so when I turn it, I can move it. Once I've moved the pile to the new location, the girls can have at the few inches of composted stuff that was at the bottom which is usually full of bugs too. They love it!

 

[lynnemabry]

When I let my girls out for a day of play the first place they go is the compost pile. I could stop them if I tried. At this point I have decided that it is their job to turn the compost.

In our house we compost, worm bin or feed to the chickens almost all garbage but plastics, metal, glass and shiny paper. All of this is to try and make enough mix to amend out soil for the garden.

The chickens love to hunt for worms and bugs and other yummy treats there.

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

Quote:
Yes-

The production of-
Ammonia
Methane
Carbon Dioxide
Moisture (steam)
In normal aerobic composting.

And, if the pile goes anerobic-
Hydrogen Sulfide
Moisture (steam)

Think about air quality - it is one of the first things that adversely affects flock health.

 

[Hollywood Chickens]

Quote:
Why?

I'm not suggesting feeding coffee grounds to a chicken but please point me to a definitive article on why coffee grounds are bad? I did a google search and have now gone back 6 pages. The only references I can find to coffee grounds being bad is in posts just like yours. So my question is why are grounds bad if they are part of a larger system of a compost pile?

The reason I ask is because the bad effects of onion, avocado, and chocolate is well documented in animals but I am curious why coffee grounds fall into the same category.

TIA!

Do a search on the affect of Caffeine on animals.

Chris

By the time the coffee is brewed it has very little caffeine and then it is divided by 25 chickens, most of them don't eat it anyway and just end up burying it while digging for bugs.

As for the rotten food, I bury the rotten food and leave the nicer stuff on top, and if it has not been eaten before it rots I bury it.

Like all animal care it takes time and care to get it right and safe.

As long as you don't have a mega enclosed run the ammonia etc. can escape without harming the chickens.

 

[abhaya]

my ladies run for the compost pile first thing out of the coop lol they free range so they get lots of stuff that could be bad for them. But they are animals and do what animals do. I hope they eat what is good for them but you never know.

 

[Judy]

This thread has been surprising to me. I know I've read that chickens should not have access to compost piles, but obviously, there are a lot of chickens out there who do, and survive just fine, thank you. And mine check daily in a spot I used to have compost.

So I checked on botulism, which requires an anaerobic environment to grow. I imagine it's difficult to get an anaerobic pile going with chickens getting into it daily, but I wouldn't want mine in an already established anaerobic pile. Another thought is, some people do throw some animal parts in compost, and that could be a source of botulism.

http://www.avianweb.com/botulism.html

 

[Carols Clucks]

Our hens rotate the compost pile for us daily. Now Mom is pretty much a vegetarian, so there is unlikely to be any meat products in the pile and we save the coffee grinds for the blueberries.

So far the hens seem to do just fine, the youngest ones are 10 months old, the oldest about 8 years old. We do not just pesticides on the property and have not for decades (we have chickens for pest control)