787junglist
Songster
If you rotate the trenches all around the garden is like nutrient stations all aroundAlso have chicken tractors running all around the garden
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If you rotate the trenches all around the garden is like nutrient stations all aroundAlso have chicken tractors running all around the garden
Composting can be OCD...
Ive been doing the same with my Chickens...they really love veggie scraps and extra ripe bananas and breadfruit. Cutting on waste and cutting the feed budget is good tooI imagine it could be. I know I don't throw away anything organic that could be used for composting. I chip it up, cut it up, or shred it up and let the chickens do the rest of the work for me. I got myself into a good position that I now have more chicken run compost ready to harvest then I could use.
For me, it's not just about making compost. It's also about reducing the amount of material that gets hauled out to the dump/recycle center/landfill.
Another option is let the chickens do the work. I see several people mentioned that already. Chickens will aerate and mechanically break down matter by scratching and their run is inoculated with bacteria from their poop that will help break down matter too. The problem I have with this method is it requires conditioning still because their going to airways be fresh chicken poop if chickens are present. You either move your chickens to a new area and let the area they were in previously sit for a periods of time (often months) or muck out the run and pile all the matter in an area away from the chickens to let it compost and cook off the excess nitrogen and hopefully kill nasty things like parasites and bad bacteria in the process.
Do you clean poop out of the coop in a separate manner? I have 9 chickens, and I can fill a 5 gallon bucket with poop from their poop board in about 2 weeks. Chickens poop A LOT. If all of their poop is going into the run, you might be surprised how much poop there actually is mixed into all that bedding you mentioned. If the majority of their poop (produced while roosting typically) is being removed and dealt with separately, then I would agree with your statements above that the run likely contains little poop in perspective to a 12-18 inches of bedding.I mainly harvest my chicken run compost in the fall and put it on the garden beds to winter over. That way, there should be more than enough time for the chicken manure to cool off. In the spring, the beds are ready for planting.
Also, there is so much organic compost in my chicken run that I seriously doubt that a small amount of fresh chicken poo would be enough to burn any plants. In my chicken run, the compost is about 12-18 inches deep and I only had 10 chickens (now 7), so not very much poo relative to the amount of wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves in the compost litter.
I suspect most of the warnings to let chicken poo cool off for months is probably referring to concentrated amounts of chicken manure. In my chicken run compost, I would suspect that a 5 gallon bucket of my chicken run compost has less than 1/4 cup of poo mixed in. Also, when I harvest the chicken run compost, I usually rake off the top few inches to get down to the black gold, which is already many months old by that tme. Again, I am not worried about that compost burning my plants.
I have seen some people who have only a surface layer of compost and chicken poo, and at that point, I would say it needs to age out before use. My compost is much deeper and the lower layers have been composting for months. Which is why I say I can harvest and use as much chicken run compost any time I want.
Off topic I know, but what a beautiful home your chickens have!We are building a 75-foot garden bed against the retaining wall beside our chicken greenhouse. Our coop/run is open air (in Florida) with a natural sand floor and I rake and scoop every day or so to fill a bucket 1/3 full of feathers and poop.
Then I rake away some soil against the wall and bury the waste. After 6 months, it's safe for planting. Although the soil has been scraped of turf, it has microbes and earthworms, so the process is fast. I tend to cover it with Spanish moss to keep it damp, since it is set up just beyond the reach of the irrigation system, so it holds some moisture just below the surface. There is no smell in the coop or the "ditch" of compost.
I don't add a lot of other material, since our food is thrown to the chickens or Gopher tortoises on our property (forest). I don't think composting food waste is a big deal on our land because I can toss it out for wildlife if it's not chicken-safe.
Chicken waste is part of our composting process, and the waste "rests" in the soil until it's turned into the garden.View attachment 2958155
Not OT at all, imho. I'm finding the photos to create an article about the yearlong voyage.Off topic I know, but what a beautiful home your chickens have!