Hot composting with chicken bedding and garden waste

[Amberjem]

you want me to take a picture of the area I am thinking of doing the compost pile @vehve?

 

[vehve]

No problem. Yeah, that's him, Mark is his real name.

Start with one barrel though, and please report how it works. If you surround it with sand, the water should almost be drinkable even. Oh, and be sure to wash any residue from the barrels. I might avoid drinking it anyway.

 

[vehve]

Jem,yeah, and same questions. I won't answer until tlmorrow though.o stupid phone is horrible to write on and makes typos.

 

[Ravynscroft]

No problem. Yeah, that's him, Mark is his real name.

Start with one barrel though, and please report how it works. If you surround it with sand, the water should almost be drinkable even. Oh, and be sure to wash any residue from the barrels. I might avoid drinking it anyway.

I will update, no prob! Will wash it out, not looking for us to drink it, just for compost, maybe garden water, and think it'd be ok for the chickens at all? It's free, so just trying to use it in any way we can, lol.

 

[Amberjem]

Jem,yeah, and same questions. I won't answer until tlmorrow though.o stupid phone is horrible to write on and makes typos.

sorry bit confused same questions?

 

[Amberjem]

about where I was thinking to do the compost area either the sie where the wood is or the other side....that direction looking at it is south

 

[Ravynscroft]

How much compostable material will you be producing? How many animals do you have, what kind of bedding do you use? How many people living there? Do you cook daily? How much gardening do you do, will that produce a lot of stuff that needs to be broken down? Any trees that drop leaves you also want to get rid of? And do you want to turn it to soil quickly (which requires a bit of maintenance), or have a huge no effort slow operation?

Is the water from the spring used for anything, is contamination an issue? What's the gradient there, where will run off from the pile go? Do you have a simple way of adding water to the pile? (If not, I might have a cool way to use the spring and the barrel to your advantage)

I'm guessing cold isn't too much of an issue in Tennesee?

Oh, and I should add to my questions, are you planning on composting foodstuffs, something that will attract rodents and other scavengers?

@Amberjem Felix wants you to answer these questions too, but about your area, climate, etc...

 

[HennyPennyCO]

. . . Imagine what a fish carcass smells like when it's been at fridge temps spoiling for a few weeks and then suddenly starts to warm up... I try to bury that kind of stuff a bit deeper in there, but because I'm turning it daily the smells do escape a bit.

The general recommendation is to NOT put meat, fish, fat or dairy items in the compost, for the very reason of smell. If I have anything rotten like that then I freeze it, and put it out frozen on our garbage pickup day. If it's too liquid (but not fatty) then it's run through the disposal in the sink and got rid of that way. My compost does NOT smell, BTW, except for that nice earthy smell. Keep the additions well-chopped, turn the heap often, and watch your carbon to nitrogen ratio. (Around here (Colorado) it's 2 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. Check with your state agricultural extension office.)

In our part of the US, another important reason for not putting meat/fish/fat/dairy in the compost is that those items attract predators such as mountain lions, bears, coyotes, foxes, raccoons and even the occasional loose dog. I don't want these creatures sniffing around my place and getting interested in my chickens (or me).
And yes, definitely no cat or dog poop.

Great discussion here, everyone.
Penny

 

[Amberjem]

@Amberjem Felix wants you to answer these questions too, but about your area, climate, etc...

lol ok ty

 

[RichnSteph]

Ok, @vehve , so this is what I have to work with... area is behind and to left of our house and back deck... can't go more left, cousins house is too close and can't safely go more right as we have an underground wet weather spring at other side of house...




My pallet stack... was thinking of filling in the slat spaces with fencing wood slats...


My original idea was to turn this sideways and cut out door to make a tumbling composter, but Jim said it wasn't big enough for our needs... any and all thoughts are greatly appreciated!

If it was me I'd use the pallets like you intend for a large compost pile/containment and the blue barrel (and yes I mention this in almost every compost or chicken feed thread I'm subscribed to) would be come a Black Soldier Fly bin. With the 100 chickens you have you could use some of that waste along with a little of your garden/kitchen waste and crank out pounds of free feed for the chickens. As others have said don't use any meat in the compost pile but you can put those scraps into a BSF bin and the little larvae will eat it up. There may be a small amount of time (a few days) where the meat scraps can attract regular house flies. Don't worry much about them since once the BSF larvae are on point they'll not only eat the maggots (I've watched them do this in my bin) but they'll also produce a pheromone that will drive out any flying insect other than the BSF Oh and dog/cat poo is a huge no-no in a compost pile or BSF bin. My guess is that in TN you have BSF flying around that you've just never noticed. Once established you'll also have them in the regular compost bin and trust me in that they turn waste into amazing soil amendments in a hurry. You'll probably also end up with red worms in the compost on the ground and they'll amend anything that the BSFs don't so soon you'll have rich dark soil for your garden and feed for the chickens all made out of stuff that most folks just toss into the trash.

Ok I'll stop singing praises to the Black Soldier Fly now.