Leaves in chicken run turning black, good or bad?

[jreardon1918]

Here are the leaves from my yard and a neighbor's. The piles are a mixture of leaves, pine needles, different vegetable plants from the garden and cut grass. By the end of the fall, therewill be 2 feet of stuff covering roughly 20'x50'. By the end of summer it still be just a new layer of compost.

 

[gtaus]

Sigh. So my leaf experiment was a big fail. Maybe if I had a larger run?

Well, my chickens love the leaves and I now have them about 12 inches deep in the run. I have my rubber watering pan in the run up on a stump, so it is above the leaves. If you don't do that, then everything gets buried in no time. Maybe you had too many leaves at once for your chickens in the size of your run. I am surprised they did not take to the leaves, but I guess different chickens might react differently.

I will say that my chickens seemed to prefer a grassy run, but they ate everything down to the dirt over the summer. So the leaves were probably a welcome addition to the run at that time. To keep them interested in scratching through the leaves, I will throw some scratch down on top of the leaves every day or so.

 

[gtaus]

The hens obviously did dig and throw leaves around. Maybe I'll try lifting the water on some cinder blocks. But with the food - I was hoping the hens would enjoy some hide and seek.

I keep my main feeder and waterer in the chicken coop itself. But that is because my chicken run is predator resistant, not predator proof, and I don't want small critters eating my chicken feed. But no matter where you put the food and water, it is probably a good idea to have it elevated above the floor of your coop/run so when the chickens do scratch the litter is does not get buried. Anyway, if the chickens are scratching and throwing leaves around enough to bury their food and water, they are probably enjoying themselves in the process.

BTW, I started out with just one pile of leaves in a section of my chicken run. They leveled the pile out in no time and I just continued to add more and more leaves over the past 3 weeks. But they seemed to enjoy the process from that first pile of leaves. Oh, I also threw some scratch into the pile for them so they did get a sense of hide and seek for some treats.

 

[gtaus]

Here are the leaves from my yard and a neighbor's. The piles are a mixture of leaves, pine needles, different vegetable plants from the garden and cut grass. By the end of the fall, therewill be 2 feet of stuff covering roughly 20'x50'. By the end of summer it still be just a new layer of compost.

Nice picture. Are the fall leaves ready to use as compost for the garden come spring, or do you have to wait all the next summer for the leaves to breakdown?

 

[aart]

Well, my chickens love the leaves and I now have them about 12 inches deep in the run.

Curious....Have you dug all the way down in places to see what's going on under there?

 

[jreardon1918]

Nice picture. Are the fall leaves ready to use as compost for the garden come spring, or do you have to wait all the next summer for the leaves to breakdown?

I think so. Last fall we filled every inch of that space with leaves, yard, kitchen and chicken waste. At some point this summer it was just a couple inches if rich compost/ soil.

 

[gtaus]

Curious....Have you dug all the way down in places to see what's going on under there?

Yes, I have dug down to the ground. The leaves on top are mostly fluffly and dry and still have lots of color. As I dig down, the leaves become more matted, wet, and black. I doubt there is much active composting going on there at this time of year when our night time temps drop down to about 25F. At least not any hot composting is going on. But I am hoping that in the spring things will really pick up. My chickens like scratching into the leaves and will dig pocket holes down to the dirt. They must be finding things to eat down there, but I really don't know. I do throw chicken scratch, whole corn, and some dry grains into the leaves in the chicken run and that stuff disappears fast.