Composting chicken run

[vpatt]

Bananas!? Wow are you in an area that is usually warm?

 

[RUNuts]

Bananas!? Wow are you in an area that is usually warm?

I would like to say yes, HOWEVER, Houston is freezing for the second time this month. the last hard freeze of this magnitude was 2011. We are considered subtropical zone 9b and can get away with some tropical plants, but be prepared to replant if we do freeze. And this was a hard freeze. The ice pellets are only hanging on in the shade. 15°F last Monday, 40°F today, 26°F tonight and 60°F next Monday. Oh, what a roller coaster.

I'm hoping the corms will survive, but the stalks are falling over already. The pallets are the compost pile or hidden nest sanctuary.

 

[vpatt]

Oh I've been watching the weather channel, y'all have had it pretty bad. I'm in Virginia and we are having some snow ice sleet as I type. Snow I don't usually mind but ice is not my fave. we still have some brush from the ice storm a couple years ago. The trees snapping sounded like we were in a war zone. I think we were ten days without power.
How interesting to be able to plant some tropical plants! Sounds like fun, except for these extreme weather spells.

 

[RUNuts]

Freshly taken after the first freeze. Messy melted bananas.

 

[jthornton]

I don't think you can kill banana plants... they just keep coming back even if you dig them up. At least that's been my experience when living in south Louisiana.

JT

 

[jthornton]

Some observations: The compost, or garden box dirt I see in the video was either very finished compost, or maybe you were just sifting out an already established bed.

I have three compost bins, the first one is hot and it's where I add all the fresh compost items like poop, sawdust and grass depending on the season. The second bin is a finishing bin, the third bin I leave open for the chickens to scratch in. When the first bin gets pretty full I start the transfer from finished to bags and 2 to 3 and 1 to 2. Takes about a year to get to bin #3

JT

 

[Raindawg]

It’s a good point. A sizable amount of humanities effort goes to making things NOT decompose (food, homes, etc.)

Rotting is the natural state for any non-living organic matter!

Entropy lives!!!

 

[gtaus]

I have three compost bins, the first one is hot and it's where I add all the fresh compost items like poop, sawdust and grass depending on the season. The second bin is a finishing bin, the third bin I leave open for the chickens to scratch in. When the first bin gets pretty full I start the transfer from finished to bags and 2 to 3 and 1 to 2. Takes about a year to get to bin #3

JT

Yep, your compost looked pretty finished to me. I also have a 3 bin pallet compost setup, but I mainly use it for things I will not feed to the chickens. But I don't plan on turning over one bin into the next. What I am doing is just filling up one bin, then the next, and when the third bin gets full, then I will harvest the compost in bin 1, etc...

The chicken compost run system I have built breaks down the material in about a year, I estimate. This is based on the fact that the first 6 inches may not be turned into compost yet, but underneath that it is. I don't bother turning any of the material in the chicken run. I just harvest it when needed now. The cement mixer compost sifter sifts the finished compost into one wagon and the unfinished compost goes into the other. If I throw the unfinished compost back into the run, then I guess that would be considered turning the material. But I have so much compost material in the run that I have been putting the unfinished compost into my pallet bins to finish off. That way I can continue to add fresh greens and carbon in the run.

I had hoped to harvest my chicken run compost down to the ground this past fall, but I filled every garden bed, barrel, flower pot, and storage garbage cans I had and barely made a dent in the material in the chicken run. I guess it's a good thing to have too much compost on hand. Dear Wife is thinking I should have a bigger garden now.

 

[Sally PB]

Too much compost is like too much chocolate. No Such Thing.

Seriously, I doubt I'll ever have too much compost. Big gardens (two of them), and a friend whose garden is practically beach sand. So I can use all I have and give it away to a good cause.

Now if it would just get warm enough so I could go turn my piles of poop/leaves/scraps. It's all hard as a rock out there.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I hear the “hard compost” thing...I haven’t been able to re-pile or turn in quite a few weeks. It’s supposed to get into the 40’s this week so here’s hoping. My pile could use a blast of carbon.

Too much compost may be something I deal with...hopefully I can share with family, friends, and neighbors - I may also look into donating some to community gardens or organizations that grow food to donate.