Composting chicken run

[RUNuts]

I'm not in a hurry and put whole flattened boxes in the run on the ground. The bugs will make bugs homes under them. Either I'll turn the flattened boxes over for chicken treats or it will rain and the paper shredders will get the treats themselves. If you are in a hurry, shredding helps, but not necessary. I will put junk mail in the compost and by the time I open the bin for use, very little is recognizable. It does dissolve quick. Having said this, it rains a lot here.

I'll put boxes in the coop and fill them with hay for nest boxes. When they get too soiled, the hay, box and precharged poop all get set in the compost bin and covered. Never to be seen again.

 

[Finnie]

@gtaus - Not sure why the picture of my current pile didn't come through. Trying again:

Wow! What a pile!

I’m only on page 13, so I don’t know if this has already been addressed, but how do you keep critters out of there? If I had a tenth of that much food on the ground, it would be raccoon and opossum heaven.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Wow! What a pile!

I’m only on page 13, so I don’t know if this has already been addressed, but how do you keep critters out of there? If I had a tenth of that much food on the ground, it would be raccoon and opossum heaven.

Not sure if I talked about that or not. Our property is fenced, that may help some, as does the chicken and goat activity.

We live in an area that’s right on the suburban/rural border, so we are in a neighborhood of sorts. Lots of neighbors have dogs, which may also help.

If I was concerned, I’d probably make a point of burying food waste into the pile at the end of the day, or add fresh carbon to cover (to reduce odor).

But we’ve had a few skunks, one opossum...but nowhere near the amount of animals we saw when we lived “in the city”, where packs of raccoons are everywhere.

 

[Finnie]

Not sure if I talked about that or not. Our property is fenced, that may help some, as does the chicken and goat activity.

We live in an area that’s right on the suburban/rural border, so we are in a neighborhood of sorts. Lots of neighbors have dogs, which may also help.

If I was concerned, I’d probably make a point of burying food waste into the pile at the end of the day, or add fresh carbon to cover (to reduce odor).

But we’ve had a few skunks, one opossum...but nowhere near the amount of animals we saw when we lived “in the city”, where packs of raccoons are everywhere.

That’s interesting. Suburban/rural border populations of critters most likely fluctuate according to the circumstances. That’s how I would describe where we live. 17 years ago, there was only a handful of places like ours with 4-10 acres each. Now we are surrounded by neighborhoods and all the empty land has been filled in. That does mean lots of neighborhood dogs to scare animals away, but also lots of small pets to feed coyotes. And, all the neighborhoods have their pipeline right of ways, retention ponds and common areas, which make pockets for animals to live and travel.

I have noticed a decline in hearing coyotes at night, but I still see their tracks on occasion. Haven’t seen (or smelled) a skunk in a few years. But foxes, possums and raccoons abound. And there are deer tracks once in a while. I do think the raccoon population goes up and down, because some years they are less of a problem. Last year, the rabbit population skyrocketed. It will be interesting to see how that goes this year and whether we get extra coyotes because of it. Hopefully it just meant that the coyotes were leaving last year.

I saw some fence in the background of your photo, so I thought maybe you were going to say that you had electric fence and livestock guardian dogs to keep critters at bay. I m sure the fence helps some. But I think you are mostly just lucky!

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Yes, not entirely sure why we haven't attracted any pests, other than it feels like there are some animals we see out here (deer, wild turkey, squirrels, rabbits) and those I used to see in "the city" (racoons, rats, opossum, skunk). I'm sure we have racoons here, they just avoid the people, maybe. In the city, they have figured out we're food sources.

We did see a lot of rabbits this year, as well. Other years, it was squirrels, or more wild turkey. I don't know that I saw any deer this last year. Ebb and flow, as you said, I imagine.

But yes, I might just be lucky and I'm destined for some trouble in the future. I hope not but a real possibility!

 

[gtaus]

But yes, I might just be lucky and I'm destined for some trouble in the future. I hope not but a real possibility!

I don't have the massive amount of waste food like you do, but when it comes to predators, I am mostly concerned with nighttime threats. My chicken coop is like Fort Knox and I lock the girls up every night to keep them safe.

My chicken run has 2X4 welded wire with bird netting on top. Just enough to keep the neighborhood dogs out in the daytime unless they really want to get at the hens. Fortunately, my hens are pretty "chicken" and retreat inside the coop if a stray shows up during the day.

I will sometimes throw fish guts and such into the chicken run after cleaning fish I caught. If there is still fish left uneaten by the time they head into the coop to roost, I will typically bury the fish in the chicken run compost so it does not smell and attract varmints. So far that has worked well for me.

There are pros and cons to any method of caring for a backyard flock. I think it's great that you get all that waste food for your hens. I know I would throw that stuff out for the chickens to eat and leave it in the run as I lock up the chickens every night in the coop. If you have varmints getting into your run at night, then that would be something to fix. But it sounds like you have a nice setup going there and I hope you don't have any attacks.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

There are pros and cons to any method of caring for a backyard flock. I think it's great that you get all that waste food for your hens. I know I would throw that stuff out for the chickens to eat and leave it in the run as I lock up the chickens every night in the coop. If you have varmints getting into your run at night, then that would be something to fix. But it sounds like you have a nice setup going there and I hope you don't have any attacks.

Knock on wood, I think I've lost ONE chicken to a non-aerial predator since 2015 or 2016. A small number since then to hawks, but very few due to our tree cover.

 

[vpatt]

We have trees but of course that doesn't stop those foxes.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

We have trees but of course that doesn't stop those foxes.

Right...the tree cover helps with hawks, at least the large ones. When I’ve had hawk issues in the past, it’s been smaller Cooper hawks that are willing to come in close in tight spaces.

 

[vpatt]

Right...the tree cover helps with hawks, at least the large ones. When I’ve had hawk issues in the past, it’s been smaller Cooper hawks that are willing to come in close in tight spaces.

I'm hoping the barking dogs this year will help keep the foxes away. Other than that I don't know what to do. They cannot get in the coop at night....But they came and got the chickens out of the yard in the daylight. I saw them several times. I don't want to shoot because I haven't shot a gun in many years. On one side we have the neighbors cows and the neighbors on the other side have EIGHT kids. I wouldn't like to shoot around them. I am keeping the chickens in the run now so that should help....But I think they could get thru the fence if they tried. But not into the coop at night.