Eat with chickens

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

If you are going to throw food for the chickens to compost for you, works wonders IF you do it properly. Be careful, you don't want to dump 50 lbs of slop in there and expect they will take care of it. Be careful of runny foods, juicy fruits, stuff like that, because not only do chickens like it, but so do rats, and other nasties you do NOT want. If it's getting all moldy funky and nasty, go in moderation.

Aaron

The key is really to have sufficient amounts of carbon in the system to absorb the excess nitrogen and whatnot. For a handful of scraps, it's pretty easy. For any larger amount, it's a decent amount of work to keep sufficient carbon in the system.

 

[Ascholten]

Hence the theory of the chickens, keep dumping leaves etc on it and let them mix it up as they dig thru to get the treats. The farm where I volunteer at, we do this fairly often but more of the leafy type of foods, some squashes, some fruits, but heap it in, let them dig and poop through it, and once every few weeks, shoo them out and drag it around with the tractor / drag it out, mix and back in with more greens. What we do take out goes into another compost bin to finish off.

Aaron

 

[drmolarmagic]

Wow reading this thread convinced me, I just ordered a new compost bin from Amazon for my outdoor run area.

 

[Ascholten]

Black soldier fly. I have not read a ton on them but from what I did read they are seasonal? I may / probably am wrong so take it as that.

I have a 5 gallon bucket that all the kitchen scraps go into, along with some coffee waste. The coffee I generally keep in it's own compost. Anyways the bucket is allowed to have liquid in it so that about an inch or so of the top of the entire heap, is above the liquid. This bucket sits outside, I do NOT want that in the house!!

Lots of stuff love the compost and it bubbles, stews, blurps and blorps away. usually every few weeks to a month it'll be alive and just moving with many larvae of whatever. What I do then is i fill it up with water so it is about 2 to 3 inches above ALL the solids in there. Some may float but they sink in short time. Basically I cover everything in water.

At this point, most if not all the larvae's will float to the top. I will then take a strainer and scoop it across the top of the water to gather all these larvae up. At which point, I lift it out of the water, the water drains and I am left with a strainer full of chicken treats wiggling and squirming all over the place.

IF I was lucky and they were not around when I did this, I click my tongue and they all come running and I give them a not only tasty treat, but soldier fly larva is incredibly nutritious from what I have read on it. Most of the time tho, it's like they can read my mind and they are standing right there, literally trying to jump up into my hand to get the strainer and I end up swatting them back a few times until I can finish !

Drain the compost back down until a bit is above the water again, (this makes excellent compost tea for your garden!), wait a few days, a week or so, and repeat as it happens.

After a few weeks, the compost tends to be towards the end of it's run and is ready to dump into your garden, soil heap, etc and ready to be used. The tea you drain off if you don't just dump the entire thing into your pit, is incredibly potent and nutritious for pretty much all of your plants. A little bit of that goes a LONG way.

Aaron

 

[alcarl]

Black soldier fly. I have not read a ton on them but from what I did read they are seasonal? I may / probably am wrong so take it as that.

Yes, they are seasonal.

There's nothing wrong with your way but one of the neat things about BSFL is that they "self harvest." They don't want to pupate in their food so if you build them an exit then they will crawl out and drop into a container. This way you are only feeding the biggest ones to your chickens and all of the smaller ones stay in the compost and continue growing. You can leave some to grow into adults and they will come back and lay hundreds of more eggs.

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

I just wanted to say this is a very cool thread Learning a LOT!

 

[Ascholten]

Yes, they are seasonal.

There's nothing wrong with your way but one of the neat things about BSFL is that they "self harvest." They don't want to pupate in their food so if you build them an exit then they will crawl out and drop into a container. This way you are only feeding the biggest ones to your chickens and all of the smaller ones stay in the compost and continue growing. You can leave some to grow into adults and they will come back and lay hundreds of more eggs.

Oh man, I really need to read up on this it seems. I kind of glanced at it but now I am really interested. Great aaron, ANOTHER project to add to your already full 'im retired' day.

Enjoy your 13 hour wor... umm retirement days

Aaron

 

[alcarl]

Oh man, I really need to read up on this it seems. I kind of glanced at it but now I am really interested. Great aaron, ANOTHER project to add to your already full 'im retired' day.

Enjoy your 13 hour wor... umm retirement days

Aaron

This is the one I built.

https://www.northwestredworms.com/all/black-soldier-fly-larvae-bin-instructions

Well worth the $9 for the detailed plans. When I noticed I wasn't getting any new eggs and started seeing an abundance of birds around then I built a full enclosure for it. That really helped.

 

[Ascholten]

Oh I LOVE IT. I bring coffee to the farmers market out here and give it to the people there. I sell coffee online, and in turn they give me all their scrap / waste veggies, fruits, and often times, stuff that is not selling good, here take the whole crate, ok yes I may have to sift thru a 40 Lb crate of peppers or apples, and pick out a few bad ones, or peaches etc but I get TONS of food that is still good. Freeze Dry it, feed it to the chickens, give it to food banks when I can, it all works out. Now that I have a way to compost, and speed up the process sort of and get more chickie food out of it (I bet the tilapia will love them too) it's even bettter. I know what I am going to work on this weekend.

Great idea on the shelter. Im thinking the same as a chicken coop really, tired of them getting into stuff they don't need to be, so if I get a huge run built, I can keep them in one part, have the other as a green house / grow area etc. I think were onto something good here!

Aaron

 

[alcarl]

Now that I have a way to compost, and speed up the process sort of and get more chickie food out of it (I bet the tilapia will love them too) it's even bettter.

This is exactly why I did it. When I built mine (2016) I didn't have chickens, just an aquaponic garden.