i have a question about food/compost?

[kagedgoddess]

i read about using your chickens to work your compost piles, i wanted to do this, but i was wondering if they should be a certian age first? and are there things you shouldnt put in there that chickens shouldnt have?? and i guess the eggshells now have to be broken up really good too, huh? thanks ya'll

eta:compost to title.

 

[katkat92]

My compost pile is a source of endless entertainment for my flock. We keep the pile out in the chicken yard, and dump all the kitchen scraps, garden scraps and lawn clippings onto the top of the pile. We toss in eggshells, coffee grounds, veggies, fruit....you name it. They will spend hours in the pile, and every week we give it a stir and shoot it with water and that's about it. When we are ready to use it, we shovel the remains out and mix it with the hay and poop shoveled out of the coop and let it age a few months until we have rich, black compost.

They especially love it after we mow the lawn and dump the grass on the pile. The spiders and bugs and lizzards are like crack to the birds. My birds started laying eggs at 16 weeks, and I do think part of the reason is the excellent nourishment they get from the compost pile.

And there is nothing special I do to treat the scraps, we keep a bucket under the sink for scraps and eggs get cracked and thrown in the bucket as-is. I have never had any problems with it, so I think it's a matter of opinion to wash your egg shells before you feed them to the birds. Why go thru the trouble? My birds don't eat their own eggs, just the shells I toss in the pile.

 

[kagedgoddess]

thanks! better safe than sorry ya know!

 

[Autumn Mama]

katkat92, I dream of being able to manage my flock this way! It seems so sensible! Currently we are tenants on a farm and have some do's and don'ts to follow, but I would love for my chooks to be able to forage through my compost. And just to place everything in the pile without too much worry about balancing the greens and browns. Lots of stirring by chicken feet, too! I can just picture how happy they must be in the place they live.

Are you putting your kitchen scraps out there daily? Ours gets slimey and kinda

fairly quickly. So whatever goes in, you just dump out for them? Messy and everything?

Really awesome ideas, thanks for sharing that!

 

[katkat92]

Even if I don't make it out to the yard with the compost bucket daily, they eat it all.....doesn't matter how icky the bottom of the bucket is. They're like hogs, with feathers.

 

[New adventure]

I started a long narrow compost pile along one side of my free range area. I started with a layer of wet newspaper (10 sheets thick) then the coop wood shavings, then sprinkle of dirt, then layers of everything else. It's about 30" x 20' and I can keep extending it along the fence line. The paper keeps weeds from growing and the chicks from digging too deep and it will compost also. After just a few weeks its doing better than any of my previous composts! The chicks LOVE it!