- May 1, 2012
- 2
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Hi to all. I've been a member for a long time, but don't post much.
If you're like me, this is the only thing you need to read, everything below this paragraph is overly wordy, and disorganized.
My in ground pool is my chicken coop, it makes eggs, compost, and compost tea. It's filled with free wood chips, and is used as my compost pile, so anything compostable also goes into it. It works great!
I just figured I'd post up my coop that I've been using for about the last three years, maybe four.
It's my in ground swimming pool that I domed hardware cloth over with a simple steel frame of square tube steel. It was originally going to be a greenhouse, but I didn't like it for that, so in went the chickens.
I'm also into organic gardening, so it's been an evolution of sorts. At first,it just ended up the pool was a good place for the chickens to be housed. Of course I wanted to use their manure for the garden eventually, so I used to put some soil mixed with cheap green compost from the local dump in there and called it good. I built a mini rock dam so that when it would rain all the water would drain to the deep end, and I'd use a bilge to pump that out into the garden. I actually even had ducks for a while, but it was a hassle keeping a pool of water and the mosquitoes that go with it. I pumped the water out every so often onto the garden using it as a compost tea.
I ended up watching the "Back to Eden" documentary, and got into using wood chips on everything. So of course it only made sense to start putting them in the chicken coop. I filled the deep end up (that used to be dammed off) with the wood chips too.
Now, I've got this system dialed in pretty good. I fill the pool with free wood chips that the local arborist drops off. I fill it as much as possible right now it's about 1/4 capacity with the chips. The chickens use it as a deep litter, and really there's no maintainace other than maybe forking some chips under their roost once in a while to cover up any large piles of manure. I've got two 5 gallon watering buckets rigged up to my drip system for my garden, so they are topped off every day with fresh water automatically. I check them once in a while to make sure there's no algae, but I haven't had to manually add water in over a year. I've got a simple 5 gallon bucket for feed. It's got a 90 degree pvc pipe with some notches cut in it that dispenses the feed. I only have to refill their food about twice a month for ten birds. I'm a bit ashamed of their actual "coop" which is an old camper shell propped up on some 2x4's with a bunch of natural branches under it. I live in a pretty mild climate, and the birds have never been housed in an enclosed type of room. I thankfully have never had a predator show up, and have only lost chickens from old age, and a few from mystery illness over the last eight or so years. No chickens have been sick or died in the last three years.
I live in the desert, and only get about 8" of rain per year, so I don't get a lot of rain. This year I've decided to let the water sit under the wood chips. The water is about two feet deep at the deep end right now, and almost all the way up to the shallow end where the steps go into the pool. The chickens are digging a foot down into the chips to drink the compost tea that's been sitting below. I know, I know, I know, it's scary to think they're drinking that water that's been sitting. The thing is, it smells delicious! lol. It's a sweet smokey smell (no I don't add any ash). I am getting more eggs than ever this year. Between seven to ten eggs a day from mostly older hens. I do have two one year old hens, but the others are all four years old and older one is eight years old this year. I attribute that more to the fact that I feed them a five gallon bucket full of greens every day from the garden (kale, spinach, swiss chard, mustard greens, and lots of weeds) which this year is the most consistent I've ever been with feeding them like that. I also broadcast Azomite rock pellets every month or two over the entire coop. All of my food scraps go into the pool, coffee grounds, onion peels, pretty much anything organic goes into the pool. The chickens either eat it, or it decomposes.
Early this year I build a bunch of new raised garden beds. I was able to fill the raised beds up with sifted compost from the coop. I used at least five yards of compost from the pool to fill the beds (I also brought in a couple of yards of bulk compost before I realized how much I could get from the pool). The growth has been really good from the compost. At this point, I'm guesstimating I'll have a possible 10 yards of compost by next season after the chips break down more. I will never have to buy a bag of compost again!
The thing is, now that I'm letting the water sit in the chips, I'm noticing for the first time that there are lots of worms working the moist layer between the water and the dry chips on top. There is a lot of fungus growth now as well. I figure those two things will speed the process up, and enhance the finished product.
I also figure I have about 500 gallons of prime compost tea that I can use whenever I want to pump some onto the garden.
The pictures are from a couple of month's ago. I've added a lot more wood chips, and the water level is about double from recent rains.
I'll hopefully get a mulberry tree planted in a huge container in there this fall. I'd really like to add fruit production on the list of things this setup is doing. Even growing stuff directly in the wood chips after they've broken down more, and protecting it from the chickens when it's young.
If you're like me, this is the only thing you need to read, everything below this paragraph is overly wordy, and disorganized.
My in ground pool is my chicken coop, it makes eggs, compost, and compost tea. It's filled with free wood chips, and is used as my compost pile, so anything compostable also goes into it. It works great!
I just figured I'd post up my coop that I've been using for about the last three years, maybe four.
It's my in ground swimming pool that I domed hardware cloth over with a simple steel frame of square tube steel. It was originally going to be a greenhouse, but I didn't like it for that, so in went the chickens.
I'm also into organic gardening, so it's been an evolution of sorts. At first,it just ended up the pool was a good place for the chickens to be housed. Of course I wanted to use their manure for the garden eventually, so I used to put some soil mixed with cheap green compost from the local dump in there and called it good. I built a mini rock dam so that when it would rain all the water would drain to the deep end, and I'd use a bilge to pump that out into the garden. I actually even had ducks for a while, but it was a hassle keeping a pool of water and the mosquitoes that go with it. I pumped the water out every so often onto the garden using it as a compost tea.
I ended up watching the "Back to Eden" documentary, and got into using wood chips on everything. So of course it only made sense to start putting them in the chicken coop. I filled the deep end up (that used to be dammed off) with the wood chips too.
Now, I've got this system dialed in pretty good. I fill the pool with free wood chips that the local arborist drops off. I fill it as much as possible right now it's about 1/4 capacity with the chips. The chickens use it as a deep litter, and really there's no maintainace other than maybe forking some chips under their roost once in a while to cover up any large piles of manure. I've got two 5 gallon watering buckets rigged up to my drip system for my garden, so they are topped off every day with fresh water automatically. I check them once in a while to make sure there's no algae, but I haven't had to manually add water in over a year. I've got a simple 5 gallon bucket for feed. It's got a 90 degree pvc pipe with some notches cut in it that dispenses the feed. I only have to refill their food about twice a month for ten birds. I'm a bit ashamed of their actual "coop" which is an old camper shell propped up on some 2x4's with a bunch of natural branches under it. I live in a pretty mild climate, and the birds have never been housed in an enclosed type of room. I thankfully have never had a predator show up, and have only lost chickens from old age, and a few from mystery illness over the last eight or so years. No chickens have been sick or died in the last three years.
I live in the desert, and only get about 8" of rain per year, so I don't get a lot of rain. This year I've decided to let the water sit under the wood chips. The water is about two feet deep at the deep end right now, and almost all the way up to the shallow end where the steps go into the pool. The chickens are digging a foot down into the chips to drink the compost tea that's been sitting below. I know, I know, I know, it's scary to think they're drinking that water that's been sitting. The thing is, it smells delicious! lol. It's a sweet smokey smell (no I don't add any ash). I am getting more eggs than ever this year. Between seven to ten eggs a day from mostly older hens. I do have two one year old hens, but the others are all four years old and older one is eight years old this year. I attribute that more to the fact that I feed them a five gallon bucket full of greens every day from the garden (kale, spinach, swiss chard, mustard greens, and lots of weeds) which this year is the most consistent I've ever been with feeding them like that. I also broadcast Azomite rock pellets every month or two over the entire coop. All of my food scraps go into the pool, coffee grounds, onion peels, pretty much anything organic goes into the pool. The chickens either eat it, or it decomposes.
Early this year I build a bunch of new raised garden beds. I was able to fill the raised beds up with sifted compost from the coop. I used at least five yards of compost from the pool to fill the beds (I also brought in a couple of yards of bulk compost before I realized how much I could get from the pool). The growth has been really good from the compost. At this point, I'm guesstimating I'll have a possible 10 yards of compost by next season after the chips break down more. I will never have to buy a bag of compost again!
The thing is, now that I'm letting the water sit in the chips, I'm noticing for the first time that there are lots of worms working the moist layer between the water and the dry chips on top. There is a lot of fungus growth now as well. I figure those two things will speed the process up, and enhance the finished product.
I also figure I have about 500 gallons of prime compost tea that I can use whenever I want to pump some onto the garden.
The pictures are from a couple of month's ago. I've added a lot more wood chips, and the water level is about double from recent rains.
I'll hopefully get a mulberry tree planted in a huge container in there this fall. I'd really like to add fruit production on the list of things this setup is doing. Even growing stuff directly in the wood chips after they've broken down more, and protecting it from the chickens when it's young.
