How to start composting with chickens?

[Sg4]

Hi! I've been reading some on composting with my chikens. I have 4 chickens so I want to start small with a setup in the run. I've read about using a small container (to prevent it from going everywhere). How do start this? Can I begin with some of the old pine shavings and kitchen scraps? Do I need to start with dirt, grass, and leaves? There is so much information out there! Any suggestions would be appreciated

 

[IamRainey]

Composting is easy. All you have to do is collect "green" and "brown" materials and layer them. Then, depending on how fast you want your humus, you water it and turn it (for the fastest results) or let it sit and let Old Mother Nature take care of it (this can take a year or more). Your chicken poo and the pine shavings are excellent for accelerating the process.

So what is "green" and what is "brown"? "Green" stuff is materials that are moist and are high in nitrogen: your chicken poo, kitchen trimmings, fresh weeds from the garden and lawn clippings. Also, ironically, coffee grounds are "green". "Brown" stuff is the stuff that's dry and high in carbon: dried leaves, desiccated vines, sticks, cardboard & paper, those pine shavings.

Things that accelerate the process are breaking the stuff that goes on your pile into the smallest possible pieces, keeping the pile moist (not wet, but moist), letting air circulate through it, keeping a ratio of 20-30 times more carbon than nitrogen, keeping the temperature up around 115˚ as much as you can. Turning your pile will keep the population of bacteria and beasties evenly spread through all the materials in your pile. Turn your pile when it's cooled down. When it's hot, leave it alone.

What do you NOT put in your compost pile: anything that you've sprayed with a poison (though I grow veggies in oleander that's been composted), anything with a soil-borne pathogen like fusarium and other tomato wilts and blights, bones, meat, oily or greasy waste, truly noxious weeds you don't ever want to see again. I live in any area infested with nutsedge. I wouldn't wish that stuff on my worst enemy so that all goes in the trash!

Now, that said, I've been composting for 20 years or more. I don't pay a damned bit of attention to most of that fussiness. I do what's called passive composting. Everything I've got from my kitchen, yard and gardens goes into an active pile and when the pile is broken down into black humus I dig it out and put it in the garden beds. I can do it this way because I keep 4 big piles going all the time so how long the newest pile takes is of little concern to me.

A couple other tips I'd pass along is assess your yard and your needs when you locate the pile. You don't want it too close to your house or too close to neighbors. A compost pile WILL attract rodents. They're opportunists and it's inevitable but if they're far away from the house you don't need to see them and they don't need to try to get inside when they can burrow into the warmth and nutrition of a compost pile. That's why you don't want your pile too close, now, that said, everything that comes from your kitchen, garden, flower beds, lawn and coop should go on the pile and the humus needs to go out to your garden and beds. So look for someplace that you won't mind trekking out to every few days. Also, the bigger the pile is, the more heat it can generate and the more efficient it will be at destroying weeds and disease and making those rodents uncomfortable.

All of my piles are at least 5'x3'x4'. At least they build to that size before they break down into something more like 4 1/2' x 2 1/2' x 2'. The cute little composting containers you can buy have minimal capacity and really produce mulch rather than humus. But there's nothing wrong with mulch either. Finally, you don't need anything expensive or fancy to contain a pile. It can be merely a pile or have 3 sides fashioned from pallets or be surrounded by heavy plastic or rest against 2 walls of a cement or cinderblock fence. You'll find lots of ideas online if you google "composting".

Above all, keep in mind that this is nature's purifying and recycling method. And you'll get the best soil you'll ever see -- INFINITELY superior to anything you can get in a sack at the nursery -- from stuff you're throwing away.

 

[Sg4]

Thank you so much! This is amazing information!

 

[IamRainey]

Did you know there's a gardening sister site if you page all the way down and they have a forum on composting and soil building. Here's a link to it https://www.theeasygarden.com/forums/composting-soil-building.15/

My composting has turned my adobe clay -- that's adobe as in the stuff they build houses from! -- into arable soil. It's taken years but the difference is amazing.

 

[lazy gardener]

The easiest way to compost is simply putting your materials in the chicken run. A bare soil run is an unhealthy run. So, put your shavings that you clean out from the coop, lawn clippings, dry leaves, any yard debris, aged wood chips, hay, straw, kitchen debris... The goal should be to build a deep litter that is at least 6" deep. The chickens will do all the rest of the work, and they will thank you for it.

In addition to DL in both coop and run, I also sheet compost to start a new garden plot. Any weedy/seedy yard debris that I don't want to put into the chicken run or into the sheet compost area gets dumped in a low spot at the edge of my lawn. I am also working on building up a good deep compost on my Hugel Kulture mound.

IMO, one can never have too much yard refuse to compost with.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

The easiest way to compost is simply putting your materials in the chicken run. A bare soil run is an unhealthy run. So, put your shavings that you clean out from the coop, lawn clippings, dry leaves, any yard debris, aged wood chips, hay, straw, kitchen debris... The goal should be to build a deep litter that is at least 6" deep. The chickens will do all the rest of the work, and they will thank you for it.

In addition to DL in both coop and run, I also sheet compost to start a new garden plot. Any weedy/seedy yard debris that I don't want to put into the chicken run or into the sheet compost area gets dumped in a low spot at the edge of my lawn. I am also working on building up a good deep compost on my Hugel Kulture mound.

IMO, one can never have too much yard refuse to compost with.

When you say you put everything in your run, do you put it in a pile and pile it back up as they spread it out? Or just toss things out here and there? I've been putting my cleanouts in a pile in another area, and the chickens always go straight to it and spread it out for me I never though of putting it in the run, though. Curious how to implement this method!

 

[lazy gardener]

Simply toss it into the run. Initially, you should work at getting a good layer in there: aim for 6" deep. I plan ahead. Every fall, I take the truck to a neighboring town which does DPW leaf clean up. I cruise the streets before the town trucks get started, and collect leaves which are all neatly bagged and sitting at the curb waiting for me. I collected about 60 bags last fall. We have a bagger on the lawn mower, so when hubby mows the lawn, we dump the grass clippings straight into the run. Hopefully, I will have some extra bags of leaves, so I can spread some leaves over the grass clippings. Garden debris: dumped into the run. When I clean up in the fall, I usually put about 6 huge wheel barrow loads of debris into the run. I pick up aged wood chips from my town compost area. Some of those go in the garden, or orchard, and some make it into the run. When I clean the DL (leaves and grass clippings, garden debris) out of the coop, it simply gets pushed into the run. I do some hay bale gardening. Some of those old bales get dumped into the run. I never worry about "piling it up". It does get piled, only b/c I am dumping such huge loads. But, I simply dump it and then walk away. I pay no attention to it once it's out of my wheel barrow, unless I'm going in to harvest some beautiful black compost!!!

The ideal DL is made up of a wide variety of materials, and different shaped and textured materials. Take a walk in the forest. Get down on your knees and look at what is on the ground: Leaves, twigs, bits of bark, the occasional fallen tree limb. All shapes and sizes, and all of it is actively decomposing. If you start digging, you will find that it is dry on top, but nice and moist underneath. It will most likely be black spongy material, about as damp as a wrung out kitchen sponge. And, you will encounter worms and other tasty little creepy crawlies. (tasty to the chickens, maybe not to you!) That is what your DL in your run will be like if you start to build it! No more stinky bare soil spattered with stinky chicken poop!

 

[Meg-in-MT]

Simply toss it into the run. Initially, you should work at getting a good layer in there: aim for 6" deep. I plan ahead. Every fall, I take the truck to a neighboring town which does DPW leaf clean up. I cruise the streets before the town trucks get started, and collect leaves which are all neatly bagged and sitting at the curb waiting for me. I collected about 60 bags last fall. We have a bagger on the lawn mower, so when hubby mows the lawn, we dump the grass clippings straight into the run. Hopefully, I will have some extra bags of leaves, so I can spread some leaves over the grass clippings. Garden debris: dumped into the run. When I clean up in the fall, I usually put about 6 huge wheel barrow loads of debris into the run. I pick up aged wood chips from my town compost area. Some of those go in the garden, or orchard, and some make it into the run. When I clean the DL (leaves and grass clippings, garden debris) out of the coop, it simply gets pushed into the run. I do some hay bale gardening. Some of those old bales get dumped into the run. I never worry about "piling it up". It does get piled, only b/c I am dumping such huge loads. But, I simply dump it and then walk away. I pay no attention to it once it's out of my wheel barrow, unless I'm going in to harvest some beautiful black compost!!!

The ideal DL is made up of a wide variety of materials, and different shaped and textured materials. Take a walk in the forest. Get down on your knees and look at what is on the ground: Leaves, twigs, bits of bark, the occasional fallen tree limb. All shapes and sizes, and all of it is actively decomposing. If you start digging, you will find that it is dry on top, but nice and moist underneath. It will most likely be black spongy material, about as damp as a wrung out kitchen sponge. And, you will encounter worms and other tasty little creepy crawlies. (tasty to the chickens, maybe not to you!) That is what your DL in your run will be like if you start to build it! No more stinky bare soil spattered with stinky chicken poop!

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain it so well. I've wondered about how to fix my run (which is pretty much what you described...) but hadn't figured it out. I add sand to it a couple times a year to fill in the holes and give them something to scratch around in. Although, it's more like a small pea gravel. They generally are only in the run to eat and drink, sometimes they mill about in there, otherwise they are out free ranging. They are let out every day. I'm going to have to give this a go! Would you be willing/available for questions about it come spring?
Thanks again!

 

[lazy gardener]

Yep.

 

[Redguitar77]

Composting is easy. All you have to do is collect "green" and "brown" materials and layer them. Then, depending on how fast you want your humus, you water it and turn it (for the fastest results) or let it sit and let Old Mother Nature take care of it (this can take a year or more). Your chicken poo and the pine shavings are excellent for accelerating the process.

So what is "green" and what is "brown"? "Green" stuff is materials that are moist and are high in nitrogen: your chicken poo, kitchen trimmings, fresh weeds from the garden and lawn clippings. Also, ironically, coffee grounds are "green". "Brown" stuff is the stuff that's dry and high in carbon: dried leaves, desiccated vines, sticks, cardboard & paper, those pine shavings.

Things that accelerate the process are breaking the stuff that goes on your pile into the smallest possible pieces, keeping the pile moist (not wet, but moist), letting air circulate through it, keeping a ratio of 20-30 times more carbon than nitrogen, keeping the temperature up around 115˚ as much as you can. Turning your pile will keep the population of bacteria and beasties evenly spread through all the materials in your pile. Turn your pile when it's cooled down. When it's hot, leave it alone.

What do you NOT put in your compost pile: anything that you've sprayed with a poison (though I grow veggies in oleander that's been composted), anything with a soil-borne pathogen like fusarium and other tomato wilts and blights, bones, meat, oily or greasy waste, truly noxious weeds you don't ever want to see again. I live in any area infested with nutsedge. I wouldn't wish that stuff on my worst enemy so that all goes in the trash!

Now, that said, I've been composting for 20 years or more. I don't pay a damned bit of attention to most of that fussiness. I do what's called passive composting. Everything I've got from my kitchen, yard and gardens goes into an active pile and when the pile is broken down into black humus I dig it out and put it in the garden beds. I can do it this way because I keep 4 big piles going all the time so how long the newest pile takes is of little concern to me.

A couple other tips I'd pass along is assess your yard and your needs when you locate the pile. You don't want it too close to your house or too close to neighbors. A compost pile WILL attract rodents. They're opportunists and it's inevitable but if they're far away from the house you don't need to see them and they don't need to try to get inside when they can burrow into the warmth and nutrition of a compost pile. That's why you don't want your pile too close, now, that said, everything that comes from your kitchen, garden, flower beds, lawn and coop should go on the pile and the humus needs to go out to your garden and beds. So look for someplace that you won't mind trekking out to every few days. Also, the bigger the pile is, the more heat it can generate and the more efficient it will be at destroying weeds and disease and making those rodents uncomfortable.

All of my piles are at least 5'x3'x4'. At least they build to that size before they break down into something more like 4 1/2' x 2 1/2' x 2'. The cute little composting containers you can buy have minimal capacity and really produce mulch rather than humus. But there's nothing wrong with mulch either. Finally, you don't need anything expensive or fancy to contain a pile. It can be merely a pile or have 3 sides fashioned from pallets or be surrounded by heavy plastic or rest against 2 walls of a cement or cinderblock fence. You'll find lots of ideas online if you google "composting".

Above all, keep in mind that this is nature's purifying and recycling method. And you'll get the best soil you'll ever see -- INFINITELY superior to anything you can get in a sack at the nursery -- from stuff you're throwing away.

So helpful!! Thank you!