How to compost?

[gachickenmama]

Question...I want to start a compost pile, but will dogs get into it to get the food and chicken doo? I have three that are VERY curious about these feathered girls and their smells as well as liking to try to get into the trash for scraps of any sort. Thanks in advance!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The dogs won't have any interest in the chicken poo. They will, however, try to dig out any chicken parts that aren't buried deep enough.
My piles are pretty big so I can compost almost anything if buried deep enough and turned regularly.

 

[gachickenmama]

Thank you!

 

[Ole and Lena]

Find 5 discarded shipping pallets. One will be your floor, 3 sides and one on top to hold down your tarp. Lay one on the ground and spike the other 3 around it to make walls. Line the floor with some sticks from your yard or discarded lumber and lay a black plastic bag over the floor. Push several small holes through the bag with your fingers to allow air to vent in and staple it in place. Line the sides with Tyvek house wrap or clear poly.leaving a 3" air gap between the floor and bottom edge of wrap. Staple in place. Fill with your compost, keep it moist but not soaked, drape a tarp loosely over the top and set last pallet on top to hold it down. This construction allows for good ventilation and doesn't need frequent turning. Feed the foodscraps to the chickens, they compost more efficiently than bacteria. Your composter will be most efficient in a sunny, breezy location if you keep it moist.

If you keep it in a partially shaded location and leave it uncovered, it is an ideal bed for wine-cap stromatilla mushrooms which are delicious and help decompose your litter.

 

[Mattemma]

I just do piles,but that means it will take longer to compost. I have seen people doing 3 bins using brick or wood, and you just toss from one to the next,and then harvest your ready compost from that third slot. Far better than the layer bin like my neighbor uses.His new stuff is on the top,ready stuff on the bottom. He has to tear the entire wood bin apart to get at the gold.

Again I just do piles.I let my chickens scratch around in them,but not the dogs.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

44-gallon drum with both top and bottom cut out – that is, a metal cylinder.

Just chuck material in. Every month or two, push the drum over, and chuck everything back in.

It’s cold compost, for the lazy gardener. In about a year, you’ll have over a half a drum of compost. I keep two or even three drums going at once.

Supreme Emu

 

[RJSchaefer]

Find 5 discarded shipping pallets. One will be your floor, 3 sides and one on top to hold down your tarp. Lay one on the ground and spike the other 3 around it to make walls. Line the floor with some sticks from your yard or discarded lumber and lay a black plastic bag over the floor. Push several small holes through the bag with your fingers to allow air to vent in and staple it in place. Line the sides with Tyvek house wrap or clear poly.leaving a 3" air gap between the floor and bottom edge of wrap. Staple in place. Fill with your compost, keep it moist but not soaked, drape a tarp loosely over the top and set last pallet on top to hold it down. This construction allows for good ventilation and doesn't need frequent turning. Feed the foodscraps to the chickens, they compost more efficiently than bacteria. Your composter will be most efficient in a sunny, breezy location if you keep it moist.

If you keep it in a partially shaded location and leave it uncovered, it is an ideal bed for wine-cap stromatilla mushrooms which are delicious and help decompose your litter.

This!

If you can find them, shipping crates make great compost bins. There's a machine tool company in town that gets parts and such from China and Japan. They come in HUGE, very study wooden crates. And then they just toss the crates by the road!!! The Man has been collecting them like crazy for me.

We used 3 for brooding boxes.
Once the birds were out of the brooding box, I re-engineered one to be a 6-compartment nesting box.
I have two smaller ones that will be filled with sand for winter root vegetable storage.
I'm using a medium-sized one now for a quarantine area for the new rabbits.
And, obviously, one will be a compost bin. =)

I'll try to take a picture and put it up. I ran the math once, and I believe it would take 4 pallets to construct one of these boxes.

If you ever see anyone in your area have consistent bonfires, creep on past and ask where they get their wood. We found out about these from one of the Man's friends - he'd just been picking them up and burning them!