So do I. Excellent job. And I bet your chickens are happy with it too.
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The stuff that comes out of the chicken pen will be richer but also serve a similar purpose.
Rest assured, my chicken pen looks just like yours. Brown wood chips, dry leaves, cut grass and weeds, dead plants. They love it and it NEVER smells.
This year I switched over to the "pile in the run" method. It started with cleaning out a wet area of the run and piling it up...from there, I found that the "pile" method decomposed a lot faster.
Thanks for the picture. As you noticed, my current run is just over 10X10, so big enough for my 10 chickens but not really all that big. I too considered trying to pile my deep litter in the run for faster composting. However, my chickens will not let a pile stand and they will flatten out any pile I make in less time than it takes me to pile it up. So, I decided to try a layered compost system alternating between carbons and grass clippings.
As I stated, I expected to get maybe as much as 133 cubic feet (bags of compost equivalent) out of my small run, which should be more than I need. But wholly cow, you are getting about 400 bags of compost equivalent from your setup! If you could sell some of that compost, you could buy lots of chicken feed. I used to buy compost in the big box stores for about $5.00 per bag, but was never too impressed with the quality I bought. I always had to sift the store bought compost to remove large items, and yes, even sometimes garbage (metal, plastics, etc...). At least I know the compost I am making with my chickens does not contain garbage.
So, six weeks into a broken forearm has slowed my food waste and compost work by about 95%, I'm seeing that my flock's intake of chicken feed has easily doubled.
I always have food available free-choice to my flock...but without food waste and compost in large quantities....ouch. The folks at TSC are going to know me by name if I'm not healed up soon!
@gtaus - Thanks! Got the go-ahead from doc today to stop wearing the cast/brace. Hopefully I can ease into some compost turning over the next few days and maybe some food waste pickups in in a week or so.
I don't keep an egg log. I kind of figure there's too many variables (time of year, flock makeup, etc.) to make them all that useful. For example, this summer I had old birds, some 2nd year layers, and some 1st year layers come into lay and then hit their stride. I guess I could track eggs/bird/day, but that's too much like math.
That being said, your 40% number sounds about right, based on what I've seen online from people who feed mostly compost/food waste (Edible Acres on YouTube comes to mind).
I agree with you that the chickens just seem happier eating a mix of food waste, compost, grasses, etc.
For me, the motivation is using the chickens to make a positive impact by keeping food waste out of the landfill. And create a lot of great compost. And get some exercise. And donate a bunch of eggs to food pantries. I figure if I can do all that good with some chickens, I can live with less than optimal egg production.