Composting

[chick4chix]

Anyone else out there into composting? I have three different composting systems and the chicken manure goes into all three at some stage:
Bokashi composting - all my kitchen scraps (except what the girls get)
Vermicomposting- three large bins and growing
container composting - 70 gallon trash can -drilled and used for composting.

I love the idea that what is considered waste- is actually resource- food for the soil- food for the soul for me

 

[Rte.66_chicks]

My composting is more casual than yours-bedding from the coop, scraps that I don't think the chickens can handle, and weeds. Keep it moist and that's about it. I built a 3-sided cinder block bin with a removable welded wire fencing front that I put shade cloth on to keep chickens out. Occasionally I remove the front when the girls are free-ranging and let them do a little aerating and turning.

 

[chick4chix]

The girls LOVE getting worms from the worm bin and it's something my grandkids love to do when they come over- get the worms and feed them to the chickens who fight over them and chase each other around for the big worm while there is a whole bowl full in front of them=

 

[chick4chix]

I have a question for you Rte 66- do you have any trouble with vermin in your bin? That was the whole reason I use "contained" systems- because we have -rats- mice- etc that are attracted to anything left out- I bring the chicken feeders in at night too- otherwise they help themselves to the all night smorgasbord

 

[patman75]

I'm not sure I would call it a hobby but I compost. This is my first full year doing it. I throw a little blood meal in to help speed things up. I really need to upgrade the whole set up. My garden is in some serious need of organic matter. Decades of farming the property has left my soil very nutrient depleted. Having heavy clay loam soil doesn't help much either.

Worm composting sounds like fun, maybe next year.

 

[wombat]

Never heard of Bokashi, now I have a new thing to google.

We use a traditional layer'd heap inside a welded wire frame, and barrel composters.

I've been wanting either a few more barrel composters or something else for scraps that aren't fit for the birds, so we don't attract critters to the heap.

 

[chick4chix]

Bokashi composting is using EM (effective microbe) Technology which has millions of beneficial microbes as an inocculant fermented with wheat bran or rice bran then dried, stored, and used to sprinkle on your kitchen waste in the bucket and on your counter in the kitchen. It's an anaerobic system and you can put EVERYTHING in it- even fish and meat. It doesn't smell (well not offensive- it smells like beer and vinegar left out in the sun). I sprinkle it on the bowl of kitchen waste as it is accumulating and there are no bad smells while it's filling before I take it out. After the 5 gallon bucket is full- you sprinkle more on top-seal it up for 2 weeks then bury it. Two weeks later- you have finished compost! Black gold cake mix-it is a miracle worker.
Patman75- that's why it's a hobby to me- I play with the ratios of Bokashi to food- etc- and make my own Bokashi inoculant with food grade EM, and make my own bokashi buckets.
You can even feed it to your chickens - it helps their waste not smell and dries quicker. I add a little EM to their water too.
Oh- and while it's fermenting- you take the "juice" off the bottom, mix it with water and feed your plants- it works miracles on your plants at the same time giving millions of beneficial microbes to the soil

 

[silentrunning]

My chickens love my compost. They get into it and eat the various worms that they find. They act like they are eating cake and ice cream.

Doug

 

[Hoosiermomma]

We don't really have a compost bin per sey but we compost directly on our gardens. I love the book called Lasagna Gardening. We follow very similar principles.

 

[NanaKat]

I've been composting since the 70s thanks to my mother's collection of "Organic Gardening" magazines and her copy of the Victory Garden.
Over the years, I've used round bins made from
chicken wire and posts
big plastic trashcans with holes drilled in the sides
a square of stacked rail road ties
a "formal" post and cattle panel three bin set-up
A cattle panel wired to a post fence in the garden so it was a half circle
a pile in the pasture with hay and cow manure using the tractor to turn it

Now I let the chickens make the compost. I use bags of leaves on the floor of the hen house. The hens break up the leaves and turn it with their daytime droppings. I add kitchen veggie scraps for them to eat and mix in. Over the winter this layer of composting material adds warmth to the dirt floor. In the spring, I move it out to the garden by the wheelbarrow load.
What is under the roost is kept separate by a chickenwire cage that swings up on chains so we can gather that "hot" material to use sparingly when hubby tills up sections of the garden.