Hot composting with chicken bedding and garden waste

[Amberjem]

How much compostable material will you be producing? I dont know How many animals do you have,15 with the possibility of couple rabbits in the future... what kind of bedding do you use? Pine shaving How many people living there? why?Do you cook daily? mostly How much gardening do you do, will that produce a lot of stuff that needs to be broken down? depends..Any trees that drop leaves you also want to get rid of? There is one tree that drops leaves but it's not the healthiest and is currently being removed Eventually want to plant a few cherry and pear and plum tree's And do you want to turn it to soil quickly (which requires a bit of maintenance), or have a huge no effort slow operation? I like that Option I do also want to set up a worm composting bin(red wigglers)
I've already started some pipe composting towers in my garden, and have tossed in composting worms that have turned up as we've been pruning cleaning yanking blackberrys, raspberry, brush , ivy and doing general clean up on the property since we bought the place..
climates comparision probly like english weather.....Also live on an island and not to far from the beach...partyly surrounded by pine woods
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)

 

[vehve]

Henny, yeah, you need to customize according to what kind of critters you've got. I throw meat and dairy products in the compost all the time, and I think during the 10 months I've had that been cooking, it's only started smelling bad on the outside two or three times. It seems to require certain weather conditions, and the compost needs to be in a state where it's been cool for some time, gathering material, and is starting to warm up. If it's cooking constantly, it doesn't have time to start smelling. I only need to worry about rodents, we don't have much foxes or lynx here, and bears and wolves don't usually come this close to civilization.

Jem, the amount of people affects the amount of kitchen waste produced if you also want to compost that in the same bin. For you, I think something similar as my bin would work very well. I'd build it a bit bigger though, maybe with three 2*3*3 compartments. If you change the bedding for the chickens often, maybe even three 3*3*3 foot compartments. If you want, I can sketch you up some plans for building it at some point.

 

[Amberjem]

Henny, yeah, you need to customize according to what kind of critters you've got. I throw meat and dairy products in the compost all the time, and I think during the 10 months I've had that been cooking, it's only started smelling bad on the outside two or three times. It seems to require certain weather conditions, and the compost needs to be in a state where it's been cool for some time, gathering material, and is starting to warm up. If it's cooking constantly, it doesn't have time to start smelling. I only need to worry about rodents, we don't have much foxes or lynx here, and bears and wolves don't usually come this close to civilization.

Jem, the amount of people affects the amount of kitchen waste produced if you also want to compost that in the same bin. For you, I think something similar as my bin would work very well. I'd build it a bit bigger though, maybe with three 2*3*3 compartments. If you change the bedding for the chickens often, maybe even three 3*3*3 foot compartments. If you want, I can sketch you up some plans for building it at some point.

I generally clean out the bedding in the henhouse once a week, might be twice a week soon lol but I also have the option of doing a deep bedding composting in the henhouse if I choose to......at the moment I'm composting stuff in the couple of raised beds.....but that will end shortly...as I prep that with my last layers of the lasgna levels.... sure i'd like to see what you had in mind....so you dont think setting up a wire type composting system would work for my area?

 

[vehve]

Jem, if you clean the coops that often, then the wire design might be better and some slower composting action. If you can manage a month or two with the same bedding, it might be little enough for hot boxes to be manageable. But not in that kind of quantities. So yeah, the wire design is probably the way to go in your case then.

 

[aart]

vehve...I believe that you're using hemp bedding in your coop?
It's more like hay than straw....and definitely way different than pine shavings as far as how fast it will break down?

 

[vehve]

Aart, yeah, it breaks down faster, but I've experimented with pine shavings a bit too. You can get the pine broken down pretty quickly together with a lot of poop and some green materials, like grass cuttings. The chip size has a significant effect on how it breaks down. Coarser stuff will take longer, and even though it might look ready, it should probably be left to rest for quite some time, otherwise it will leach nitrogen. On the other hand, if you've got a very nitrogen heavy mix, it might be a bit easier on plants, as the shavings would store the nitrogen for longer and release it slowly.

 

[aart]

Aart, yeah, it breaks down faster, but I've experimented with pine shavings a bit too. You can get the pine broken down pretty quickly together with a lot of poop and some green materials, like grass cuttings. The chip size has a significant effect on how it breaks down. Coarser stuff will take longer, and even though it might look ready, it should probably be left to rest for quite some time, otherwise it will leach nitrogen. On the other hand, if you've got a very nitrogen heavy mix, it might be a bit easier on plants, as the shavings would store the nitrogen for longer and release it slowly.

Hmmmmm...maybe setting shavings/poop mix to get real hot to kill pathogens, then let it sit for awhile then put it along plants as mulch would allow nitrogen to feed plants without burning...... or would remaining wood just suck up any other nitrogen present? ......Things to think about.
Maybe I'll take my half composted shaving poop mix from last spring and side dress one row of garlic in the spring, see what happens.

 

[lazy gardener]

I know that they say putting meat in a compost pile is a strict no-no. But, that's where all of the little morsels that the cat brings me go! They become one with the soil quite nicely!

 

[vehve]

Good experiment, aart. I'm eager to see how my stuff performs next season, I used it as fertilizer last fall and it seemed to be pretty potent, I'm hoping letting it sit over winter has allowed it to cool a bit.

 

[vpatt]

I tried composting a few years ago and I did once have some fish....don't remember what it was....but it was small whole fish with bones. Probaably a couple of pounds. I put them in a small heap of compost in the heat of summer. In a couple days I turned it and could not find any sign of the fish. Nothing had been digging in it either. Is that even possible? Lol. But typically you don't add meats because of smell and the smell can draw animals. We are adjoining a national forest....I don't want to draw predators to my chickens or to my family...there are bears in those woods.

I think if the meat or animal is small enough like the mice and fish it can be ok. I have read of people with large tumblers throwing in some animals....but they were large tumblers generating more heat. I would not do it myself because of bears. Lady down the road has seen the bears at her bee hives and they have even ripped some strands of electric wire down.