confused: compost piles

[coldinnh]

In Hobby Farms Chickens it talks about 'employing' your chickens to turn your compost heap... but have read on here that it is unsafe.... sooo should I allow the girls to turn a heap or not?

 

[Imp]

Quote:
Mine are in the compost daily. My compost is just yard waste.
I think if it was a pile of rotting moldy garbage I would not want them in it.

Imp

 

[Mark & Nique]

I have been composting for years, and if your pile is 'healthy' (no meat scraps, no pasta, etc) that is frequently turned and doesn't smell 'swampy', there is nothing in it that would harm a chicken.

 

[crossedwires]

compost heaps are a great supply of bugs for chickens therefore all kinds of amino acids etc that commercial feed just dosnt have. BUT with bugs comes the danger of things like worms and other internal parasites that have a "BUG" as a host in part of its life cycle. now in the normal balance of things worms and parasites are just part of the general fauna and in a wild situation birds would generaly have access to herbs and plants that would keep the balance of parasites living in them down.
in our non wild situations generaly theese "WEEDS" arnt about or not the right ones etc, so as long as you worm the flock reguarly (you do that anyway DONT YOU!

) then to be honest a compost heap rummage will do more good than harm to the birds. we have thousands of chickens on the farm and they spend hours having a rummage in the muck piles

so i am in favour of compost heaps

 

[Organics North]

Mine play in compost that does not contain chicken droppings or meat scraps. I am comfortable with my birds eating worms as long as the worms did not live on chicken poo.

Break the parasite cycle.

Nothing scientific, I am no expert, just "farm boy logic"

ON
(And yes, as mentioned above if it smells good it is good.)

 

[crossedwires]

the internal parasites carried by worms,slugs and snails etc are not species specific, so not composting chicken poo dosnt make any difference in reality. the worm eggs dont care if it ends up in a chicken duck goose sparrow or whatever nice warm instine it finds. and lets face it ALL chickens have internal parasites and worms, when i did my biology degree many moons ago

we did a couple of experiments includeing worming a chicken and then culling it 3 days after withdrawl. it still had a nice healthy bunch of worms and nemotoads etc inside. as long as they are in balance then you dont get problems,
i would always advise regular worming with a good wormer and i am sorry to upset the organic crowd but most the so called exspensive organic stuff you buy to worm chickens isnt as good as its cracked up to be. infact out of all the rubish they put in it there is only 2 herbs in the preps that have any affect on parasites. one is garlic and the other is thyme. interestingly tho a little while back we had to move a pen of chickens to another pen that hadnt been used for maybe 2 years, the run was totaly overgrown with nettles, and the chickens were in there for about 6 months.
when a couple of them were harvested i noticed theese birds had far far fewer parasites internaly. now i am not saying thats proof that nettles fed to chickens helps keep worms down but its something i been meaning to investigate further (should i ever loes the computer and find more constructive things to do)

 

[Organics North]

the internal parasites carried by worms,slugs and snails etc are not species specific, so not composting chicken poo dosnt make any difference in reality. the worm eggs dont care if it ends up in a chicken duck goose sparrow or whatever nice warm instine it finds.

Very interesting crossedwires, thanks for the wisdom..

No way I am worming my chickens.. Chemical poison man.......Kill the earth and give us all brain tumors... Nope I will rely on my birds being healthy and free range, with herbal, and folk remedy ways to keep the worms in check...

ON​

 

[TheMainException]

Quote:
Very interesting crossedwires, thanks for the wisdom..

No way I am worming my chickens.. Chemical poison man.......Kill the earth and give us all brain tumors... Nope I will rely on my birds being healthy and free range, with herbal, and folk remedy ways to keep the worms in check...

ON

I would only worm if I saw a problem. I worm the cats if I see they are having a problem, but I'm eating chickens, so I'd very much so only worm if the chicken was having issues with too many worms. Besides that, just deworming for the heck of it is never good for any body.

 

[crossedwires]

again worming issues can be very contentious. and there are so many factors to consider, for a start the size of flock and ammount of ground they have is a important factor, for example 20 hens in a small coop with a small run would seems to be a likely candidate for worms, but for argument sake those 20 birds came from eggs you hatched and the run is now so scrated that slugs and snails rarely venture on to it then the chances your birds have high levels of parasites are lowish, however add a bird with a high population of worms in it to the flock and you get a masive increase in the chances of all birds having worms. then there is the free range situation of say 3 hens roaming 1/3 acre all day unhindered. the chances of contact with parasites are very very high however that dosnt mean a high intestinal population worms, as those birds may well have access to natural plant feeds that help purge the worms.
so whats the answer??? well thats an easy one. do what most chicken keepers already do..........watch your birds get to know them well and there behaviour, occasionly look at the odd poo and see if there are worms in it. if you do find worms in the poo and the birds appear totaly normal and are laying well (for layers) then do nothing, if they arnt being normal and you suspect worms treat them, very simple. we do use wormer here but we have thousands of birds although most (except breeding stock,growers and chicks) free range over a very large area, so we pick and choose those we worm, for example if we are going to pen a smallish floch for a couple of months to breed from we tend to worm those birds before penning this stops the pen from getting a heavy worm egg l;oad that could be passed on.
we also give our flocks garlic powder in feed for 3 days every month, i swear by this for internal parasites yet i dont have a shread of proof it makes any difference, but my great great grandad did it, my great grandad did it, my grandad did it and my dad did it so i guess i do it

personaly i think a certain brand of very very exspensive organic wormer is a utter pile of chicken poo and a waste of money, if you want the organic root great but save the money and give your birds access to herbs like tyhme and nettle and garlic, let them pick and choose when they want a nibble

anyway i wasnt trying to say do this or do that or dont do this or dont do that, merely trying to pass on what little i know

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
Spectacular post..

Well said.. CW

TheMainException, yes I hear what you are saying it sounds sensible to me.


ON