Compost pile

[lazy gardener]

Now, you gotta get over that bug issue. Chickens love bugs including spiders. It cuts down your feed bill, my Hubby says that they're making eggs out of bugs... how true. Some folks even RAISE cockroaches for their chickens. Don't burn that wonderful compost in the making! Truth be known, I got chickens to help me with my gardening: tilling, pest and weed control, fertilizing... the eggs are just an extra benefit. Seriously, if I lived in a warmer climate, I'd be all over building a Black Soldier Fly Larvae system.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You killed that spider???? That was free protein for the chickens!!!! Small snakes 6” or so long, that’s free protein for the chickens!!! Turn those chickens loose. They can be part of the solution!

The only problem I find with chickens and compost is that unless you have fairly high sides around the compost pile, they scratch it and scatter it all over. Other than that, chickens and compost go real well together.

 

[Binababy]

It was HUGE!!!!! Haha. My lav orp chickies are less than 6 months old, and it was about 2 acres away before I moved the hay. When they get bigger I sure will let em get to it !
Also though I did let them 5 out to wonder around with me today my T-Bow and Bella did get up on the pile before I wet it, but I have a thousand or more tiny little problems in and around it, ANTS!!:/ I don't know, but don't think its good??

 

[Binababy]

I do have a couple RIR hens age about 6 months and 1 roo age 3 years and 1 blue orp less than 6 months but the blue orp hates me I think because when it was 8 weeks old I put it out with the RIR and it wasn't pretty before I could get to her, but her feathers have all grown back great. Her name is the Black Pearl

 

[lazy gardener]

My girls just love it when I open up an ant nest for them. They go right to town eating all the goodies inside. I think in a couple of years, my sandy loam yard will have the ant problem well in hand. They even settle in and turn it into a dust bath before the ants have all moved out. I think it's their idea of a spa exfoliation treatment. Of course, we don't have fire ants here... yet, but I've heard other posters say that chickens will even eat fire ants.

 

[Binababy]

Yeah these are them little devil fire ants:/ don't want them to sting my babies:/! They eat some but they are so small and so many:/! I don't know what to do!?