perkolator
Songster
From pic it doesn't look like you have much of a slope, I think it just needs more bedding on the ground. I agree, the chicken on the left is a hen, and the two with longer tail feathers on the ground look like roosters. I'd guess the hen will lay white eggs based on earlobes, but she doesn't quite resemble our brown leghorns, feather pattern is different and every leghorn I've seen was a more slender bird.
I'm one of those who's had some bad experiences with ChipDrop, so I stopped using it. Now I just start calling local arborists directly and see who can drop soonest. CD service is good for some people though. I've waited up to 7wks for a drop, part of that I think is my location being semi-rural and many people have space to take their own chips; might be better if you live where nobody keeps their chips on the property and arborists are always looking for drop locations.
When the drops came, several times I didn't know they were coming because I'd been waiting for several weeks by then; get a notification someone dropped chips while I was at work (and without calling my phone number listed and specified in the notes to call before dropping), come home at dusk and see half the pile is sitting on the street that's already only 1.5-cars wide....so you start moving the pile by hand just so the neighbors can drive by...only to discover you can't physically scoop because there are a dozen 90lb logs buried inside the pile.....good times. I gave away those logs and when they picked them up and piled them in their fullsize truck, it was overflowing - that was from three chip drops that were supposed to be all chips and no logs.
That's happened to me twice using ChipDrop - finding it half on the street and the hidden logs inside was 3x. I did have a few Chip Drops that were great experiences though, so they weren't all bad. In comparison, every drop from calling an arborist directly has been great and they communicated when they were coming and where I wanted it, etc - they even told me what type of wood they're bringing!
Wood chips don't exactly "mold" - but they do get colonized by mycelium, which is fungus; fungus is technically a very good thing in terms of soil health. Some piles decompose faster than others, such as those with mostly green foliage/canopy branches, vs ones with mostly woody content. Chips do last quite a while though, I've got a half pile currently that's 6months old and is still good to go. Man, I wish I had a tractor though.....
I'm one of those who's had some bad experiences with ChipDrop, so I stopped using it. Now I just start calling local arborists directly and see who can drop soonest. CD service is good for some people though. I've waited up to 7wks for a drop, part of that I think is my location being semi-rural and many people have space to take their own chips; might be better if you live where nobody keeps their chips on the property and arborists are always looking for drop locations.
When the drops came, several times I didn't know they were coming because I'd been waiting for several weeks by then; get a notification someone dropped chips while I was at work (and without calling my phone number listed and specified in the notes to call before dropping), come home at dusk and see half the pile is sitting on the street that's already only 1.5-cars wide....so you start moving the pile by hand just so the neighbors can drive by...only to discover you can't physically scoop because there are a dozen 90lb logs buried inside the pile.....good times. I gave away those logs and when they picked them up and piled them in their fullsize truck, it was overflowing - that was from three chip drops that were supposed to be all chips and no logs.
That's happened to me twice using ChipDrop - finding it half on the street and the hidden logs inside was 3x. I did have a few Chip Drops that were great experiences though, so they weren't all bad. In comparison, every drop from calling an arborist directly has been great and they communicated when they were coming and where I wanted it, etc - they even told me what type of wood they're bringing!
Wood chips don't exactly "mold" - but they do get colonized by mycelium, which is fungus; fungus is technically a very good thing in terms of soil health. Some piles decompose faster than others, such as those with mostly green foliage/canopy branches, vs ones with mostly woody content. Chips do last quite a while though, I've got a half pile currently that's 6months old and is still good to go. Man, I wish I had a tractor though.....
