I turned my chicken run into a chicken run composting system a couple years ago. I throw all my wood chips, grass clippings, leaves, weeds, spent coop bedding, and just about anything else organic into the run and let the chickens break it down and turn it into compost.
Here is a picture of my run with a large pile of grass clippings I just mowed this afternoon. I don't know if the picture is clear enough, but maybe you can see that in that mowing of grass I pulled up a lot of dead leaves from last fall, lots of dead brown material on the ground, and probably a fair amount of loose dirt got sucked up into those loads. Point is, my grass clippings are not just grass, which is why I was able to pile it so high. If all I had in the bins was grass clippings, then I would never pile them that high because the pure grass clippings would heat up and smell really bad. With all that brown material in the mix I don't have to worry about a stinky pile of grass matting up and going anaerobic.
Here is a picture of the chicken run compost that I was harvesting from the chicken run today. Note that all my chickens were all right there "helping" me as I was forking out the litter into my compost sifter. I hope you can see how darker the lower layers of the compost is. That's black gold in book.
Here is a picture of my cement mixer compost sifter. Notice all the screened, finished compost falls into the wagon below the wire on the barrel, and the unfinished compost and larger pieces fall out the end (where I have the blue muck bucket).
The section of the chicken run I was harvesting today was about 1 year old. In the past, I was getting about 50% finished compost in the first wagon and 50% unfinished compost in the reject wagon. Today, I was getting about 90% finished compost and maybe only about 10% rejects. So, my sifting job was really going fast today - even with the "help" of all my chickens in the area that I was harvesting. BTW, my cement mixer compost sifter sifts out about 6 cubic feet of compost every 15 minutes. I used to buy my compost at the big box stores for about $5,00 per 2 cubic bag. Now I make my own compost and sift it out to the tune of about $60 worth of compost every hour of run time with my compost sifter. Saves me a lot of money.
This year, I have built a few more 4X4 foot galvanized steel panel raised hügelkultur beds. I mix the chicken run compost 1:1 with good Red River topsoil I purchased from a local nursery. That 1:1 mix goes on the top 6-8 inches of my raised beds. Here is one of the raised beds I finished filling up today.
I will be planting peppers in this raised bed this weekend. Where I live, our average last frost date is the end of May, so I'm right on time with my projects.
Love talking about my chicken run composting and gardening projects. Willing to answer any questions you may have, or look forward to comments and pictures of your setups. Thanks for any feedback.
Here is a picture of my run with a large pile of grass clippings I just mowed this afternoon. I don't know if the picture is clear enough, but maybe you can see that in that mowing of grass I pulled up a lot of dead leaves from last fall, lots of dead brown material on the ground, and probably a fair amount of loose dirt got sucked up into those loads. Point is, my grass clippings are not just grass, which is why I was able to pile it so high. If all I had in the bins was grass clippings, then I would never pile them that high because the pure grass clippings would heat up and smell really bad. With all that brown material in the mix I don't have to worry about a stinky pile of grass matting up and going anaerobic.
Here is a picture of the chicken run compost that I was harvesting from the chicken run today. Note that all my chickens were all right there "helping" me as I was forking out the litter into my compost sifter. I hope you can see how darker the lower layers of the compost is. That's black gold in book.
Here is a picture of my cement mixer compost sifter. Notice all the screened, finished compost falls into the wagon below the wire on the barrel, and the unfinished compost and larger pieces fall out the end (where I have the blue muck bucket).
The section of the chicken run I was harvesting today was about 1 year old. In the past, I was getting about 50% finished compost in the first wagon and 50% unfinished compost in the reject wagon. Today, I was getting about 90% finished compost and maybe only about 10% rejects. So, my sifting job was really going fast today - even with the "help" of all my chickens in the area that I was harvesting. BTW, my cement mixer compost sifter sifts out about 6 cubic feet of compost every 15 minutes. I used to buy my compost at the big box stores for about $5,00 per 2 cubic bag. Now I make my own compost and sift it out to the tune of about $60 worth of compost every hour of run time with my compost sifter. Saves me a lot of money.
This year, I have built a few more 4X4 foot galvanized steel panel raised hügelkultur beds. I mix the chicken run compost 1:1 with good Red River topsoil I purchased from a local nursery. That 1:1 mix goes on the top 6-8 inches of my raised beds. Here is one of the raised beds I finished filling up today.
I will be planting peppers in this raised bed this weekend. Where I live, our average last frost date is the end of May, so I'm right on time with my projects.
Love talking about my chicken run composting and gardening projects. Willing to answer any questions you may have, or look forward to comments and pictures of your setups. Thanks for any feedback.
and a golf 
for sure!
For years, and years, I used a manual sifter I made out of 2X4's and some hardware cloth. I just got too old to put all that work into sifting compost manually. The cement mixer compost sifter was a great solution for me as I upped my game with the chicken run composting. I have way too much compost to sift manually, even if I was a lot younger.
