So if I get a couple bales of straw and a bunch of leaves from last fall and scoop chicken poop into it and dump it all into the run that should make compost sometime within a year? Add a few scraps here and there....
Basically, it's that simple. I have my chicken run compost spread evenly in the run, but at the end of last fall, the compost was about 18 inches deep. There were layers of wood chips, leaves, grass clippings, with kitchen scrap leftovers throw in for good measure. I suspect most, if not all, the kitchen scraps were eaten by the chickens. But I am not afraid to throw in leftover chicken bones, steak bones, etc... into my run and the bones obviously will take longer to compost.
If you do not pile the compost material, it will just break down more slowly. If you want to speed things up, then pile it up in a bin or wire cage. Since my chicken run is outside and exposed to the rain, I don't bother watering it down. But again, if you keep the compost material damp it will break down faster.
Last fall I bought a cement mixer, attached a wire cage to the end, and used that to sift my compost material. I had one screen that was 1/4 inch which makes really fine compost for seed starting. I have another screen that is 1/2 inch and I use that sifted compost for the garden beds. As I said, my chicken run compost was about 18 inches deep last fall. I would just use a pitchfork to throw in a scoop full of compost into the tumbler, and the finished compost would drop into one wheelbarrow and the unfinished compost would be recycled back into the run, or into my pallet compost bins.
As someone said, the top few inches might not be broken down enough yet, but underneath you get black gold. My cement mixer setup with attachments cost me about $200. Over the course of a few days, I sifted more than enough compost to pay for my investment. IIRC, I used to pay about $5.00 per cubic foot of compost at the big box store. Anyway, it takes me about 20 minutes to sift 6 cubic feet of my chicken run compost which is much better than what I had been buying at the big box store.
I'm getting older (60+ now), so I don't work too fast. Still, with the cement mixer sifter, I could make 18 cubic feet of compost per hour - about $120 per hour saved in compost costs if I would have bought the bags from the big box store. I made so much compost last fall that I ended up giving some away to my good neighbors for their raised beds. What's more, is that I barely touched all the compost in the chicken run. So I will have access to that black gold anytime I want to sift out some more compost for the garden.
There are many ways to make faster compost than just throwing everything into the chicken run, but I quickly got to the point where I have more compost ready to be harvested than I can actually use. The great advantage to just letting everything lie in place in the chicken run is that I don't have to bother with watering the pile and turning it over to keep it composting. I just let Mother Nature do it's work over a longer period of time, let the chickens turn the compost in the run as they search for food, and the only time I do anything is when I get to the point of sifting the compost for use.
Not only do I remember glass soda bottles, but I also remember the dairy man delivering fresh milk (in glass bottles), cottage cheese, etc... to the neighborhood twice a week at my grandmother's house.
I believe we need to rethink the way we live our lives with so many one-time-use disposable products, especially plastics which will continue to pollute the environment with no end in sight. It sounds like Germany is way ahead of us in the reduction of plastics used in their country. But, in general, I think the Germans are decades ahead of us on the Green Revolution bandwagon. I'm just happy to see a thread on composting with chickens pop up and read the comments by others.
