Composte Pile Info/Pictures????

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Just let the chickens have access to the pile. I had ant all along my long patio when we got chickens. Not anymore. They free range and I haven't seen an ant since.

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
Hot compost! Ants don't like 150F....AND horse manure has lots of weed seeds that only hot composting will kill.
After the heat has gone down then ants may try and make a home.. Then let the chickens in.

Personally, until manure is hot composted it has a risk of carrying disease and parasites.

Not good for you, chickens or plants. Of course you can cold compost it, but I would not let the chickens in until the pile is decayed in a year or so.

The opinion of the "experts" strongly advises against using manure composts unless they are hot composted at 150F. In order for cold compost to be safe it needs a LONG time.

ON

 

[SurprisingWoman]

This is a great resource for composting:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/soil/

 

[possumqueen]

Quote:
Hot compost! Ants don't like 150F....AND horse manure has lots of weed seeds that only hot composting will kill.
After the heat has gone down then ants may try and make a home.. Then let the chickens in.

Personally, until manure is hot composted it has a risk of carrying disease and parasites.

Not good for you, chickens or plants. Of course you can cold compost it, but I would not let the chickens in until the pile is decayed in a year or so.

The opinion of the "experts" strongly advises against using manure composts unless they are hot composted at 150F. In order for cold compost to be safe it needs a LONG time.

ON

If you have enough carbon base materials -- shredded leaves, old straw, even newspaper -- the manure should heat up just fine. The manure is what makes it heat up, actually. Too much carbon materials, and it won't get really hot.

Anytime I've had a problem with ants it was because the pile needed water. Ironically, it needs water to help it heat up. It just takes practice to get the right balance of water, manure, and carbon base materials, but think of it this way: It's just compost. It's going to break down sooner or later, and then you can use it in the garden. It's not like you got company coming and dinner isn't ready yet.

And, yet again, I can't WAIT to get the chickens in there, eatin' them bugs!!!!

 

[bison]

hot composting coupled with my chickens foraging sounds like a win-win. thanks everybody!

 

[Chieftain]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfW-66zEADU

That's a video of my compost pile taken a couple of springs ago on a cold morning. That's what chicken poop will do for a compost pile; at this point you would not want to put your hand in there for very long...the internal temp that morning was 150 degrees and the air temp was 34...

It's about 8 feet long, 3 feet deep and about 4 feet high. It's actually dug into the ground about a foot below grade. It holds enough finished compost to see us through the entire year. Each fall I collect leaves in the neighborhood and fill it to the top, layering in raw chicken manure and wood ashes. A couple of years ago I invested in 10,000 red worms to innoculate the pile, and we have more red worms in there now than can be counted.

I end up turning it a couple of times a month, but come Spring I take my gas-powered Roto-Hoe and use it to mascerate the pile completely. I usually fill it in November and start pulling finished compost out in April.

My coop is going in 4 feet in front of the pile, so I can just open the cleanout door on the coop and shovel all the poop right into the pile.