I have three backyard chickens, what is the easiest way to compost?

[Lori J]

I have a neglected compost pile ( made out of one of those huge plastic planters that we got for free !) That I have always put vegetable/fruit scraps in, but now I would like to try composting the chicken manure. We don’t get a lot With three free range chickens, only what’s under the roost every morning. Do you have any quick and dirty chicken manure composting tips? Can I just start adding it gradually To what I have? I looked up how to do it online and it seemed to require a little more work than I wanted. We don’t use our compost very often. Nowadays it’s mainly a chicken scratch Area lol.

 

[Aerliss]

The easiest way to compost is to just throw everything in a pile and let nature do its thing. But that's not necessarily very efficient. So there are a few things you can do that still keep composting in the easy column, but speed it up a bit.

Keep it covered, keep it damp. I've got straw over one pile, and just some old cardboard on the other.
Turn it now and then. Get the air in, move everything around. Chickens are way better at this than we are, so let your girls have a go at it. They love digging out the crawlies.
Try to keep a good ratio of green, fresh items and brown items. Iirc, chicken poop is classed as a green. Food scraps are green, so you might want to add some dry garden waste in autumn, straw, saw dust, or even cardboard. Any ratio WILL compost, so don't get hung up on it too much. My piles are mostly brown, as they're predominantly rabbit poop, old hay, and stove pellet litter.

My system before the chickens was just to have three rotating heaps (I have a lot of rabbit litter) and they'd take over a year to compost. Now I have two rotating heaps and the chicken run. I tip a bucket or two from the oldest heap into the run once or twice a week, while adding new material to the other pile. The girls literally come running when they see the bucket. Toss a few handfuls of fresh straw on top, and their treats, and they work the compost up. It composts a lot quicker than it used too. I haul out what I need when I need it, or pull a lot out and put it in a pile, then start a new.

You probably won't need or ever build up two or more piles, so I'd just let the girls have a go at the pile. Might require a bit of raking if you have just a pile, as they'll kick it everywhere. But if you keep it in the container you might keep it all contained. Depends on how big your container is.

 

[Aerliss]

Oh, if your compost tub does not allow the compost to touch the soil, add a few spades of garden dirt to it. You need crawlies to break everything down. Bacteria, woodlice, slugs, worms...

 

[lazy gardener]

It's very difficult to create compost in a pile that is not big enough. The minimum size for a back yard compost operation is 1 cu. yd. Any thing less than that does not allow enough heat build up to allow the microbes to work at their peak performance.

How big is your coop? How big is your run? If either are a walk in style, you could compost right there. My coop and run are BOTH DL. It's taken me 3 years to build the DL in the run up to a nice 6" depth of soft, spongy, fragrant composting DL.

Other ways to compost: trench composting, sheet composting, composting in a dedicated bin on top of the ground, composting in a dedicated perforated trash can partially or completely buried (except for the lid) in the ground, vermiposting, pile it and leave it composting, composting in a hay bale bin. Or, you can make manure or compost tea.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

The deep litter method would probably be the easiest. However they sell compost rotating bins if you want to shell out some cash. Theyre nice and you just chuck the compost in there and rotate. We are cheap though and just dug a hole and chuck it in. We rotate it with a shovel every now and again

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

Heres a link to some diy tumblers. Im thinking of making one myself. Sorry i didnt include it in the previous post. Im on my celly and i hate having multiple tabs open. https://homesteading.com/compost-tumblers/