Harvesting my Chicken Run Compost - Black Gold!

[gtaus]

This is my compost sifting machine View attachment 3129663View attachment 3129758View attachment 3129770View attachment 3129741
Unfortunately it does not come with an off button.

Thanks for the wonderful pictures. Love your setup and all the better that it works for you so well.

 

[Tinypahomestead]

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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

Ingenious!

 

[aart]

my cement mixer compost sifter

One of the best inventions I've ever seen.
I think of it often.
Wish I had the energy to build one.

 

[gtaus]

Ingenious!

Thanks for the compliment, but like so many other things, I just stole and borrowed ideas from others. Sometimes, like with the cement mixer compost sifter, I was able to make some modifications and improve on the design.

Just a quick update for anybody reading this thread, I got my new raised beds completed, filled, and planted. I use 1 part chicken run compost with 1 part high quality top soil for the last 6-8 inches, and already my plants in those beds are about twice as tall as my plants out in my main garden. Looks like I'm off to a really good start this year.

 

[Idaho Chicken Bungalow]

Have you planted yet?

 

[gtaus]

One of the best inventions I've ever seen.
I think of it often.
Wish I had the energy to build one.

Thanks. I post the pics of the cement mixer compost sifter every once in a while in case someone new has not seen it. Might give them an idea to reduce their labor if they find themselves in a situation where they too have too much compost to sift manually on the good old 2X4 frame system.

Having too much chicken run compost is a great problem to deal with. Although I have saved myself all kinds of labor in sifting the compost by using my cement mixer compost sifter, I think I redirected all that saved labor into expanding my gardens and raised beds. I now have almost twice the gardening space I tend because I have better access to my chicken run compost. Like I have mentioned before, my raised beds filled with chicken run compost are also yielding 2-3X as much produce as my main garden. Thank you chickens!

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

The chicken run compost is gold. My wife commented today how the shrubs around our back deck have never bloomed before, but are an explosion of color this year.

Yep…they got top dressed with a few wheelbarrows full of chicken run compost this spring.

 

[Tinypahomestead]

I love chicken compost and rabbit manure. I don't like to fertilize my garden; just like to feed the soil and worms with manure and compost.

 

[gtaus]

Yep…they got top dressed with a few wheelbarrows full of chicken run compost this spring.

Me too. Using chicken run compost as top dressing and mulch in some of my beds. Looks really good and expect all that good fertilizer stuff in the compost will filter down when it rains.

 

[gtaus]

I love chicken compost and rabbit manure. I don't like to fertilize my garden; just like to feed the soil and worms with manure and compost.

I'm not anti-artificial fertilizer, per se, but I do prefer to use my own organic chicken run compost. Like you, I have tried to live by the motto of feeding the soil and the soil will feed the plants. I think most artificial fertilizers feed the plants and do not help the soil at all.

Also, over the years, I have gone to less and less tilling as I have heard that it disrupts all the good living organisms in the soil that we want to encourage. Having said that, the first few years I attempted gardening here at the lake, I was tilling in as much organic material I could throw on the sandy soil garden. I think you have to have a good healthy base soil before the no till method makes sense.