Results from First Year with Deep Litter Method

[Beekissed]

You get the funniest looks when your picking up bags of leaves from someone's house. Especially if your outside alone, like people are trying to decide if your stealing something.LOL.

Yes!!!

Usually, though, someone asks me if I'm getting leaves for my garden and tell me about where I can get more or tell me to come back on such and such a day and they'll have me some more. Folks really like the idea of the leaves being used instead of thrown away....it gives more purpose for their hard work of raking.

Here's a little picture of how many leaves I've scavenged so far this year, with many more in the coop and in storage....181 bags thus far. Going back out this week and get more if I can.

 

[paintedChix]

OK, between the rain (which FLATTENED the loads I put in each pen Sat and Sunday) & BeeKissed photos - my first foray into the DLM is quite pitiful and I paid for it too - the cold is back w/ drainage & sore throat/cough in full swing today. My job revolves around a phone for 10 hours/day - folks were either laughing or hexing me away today! And I struggled to return the 38 phone calls left over the weekend, and the 100 calls that came in today (not including calling 45 folks for reminders for appointments tomorrow & answering the phone in between making the calls)... I'm tired, now just rethinking about my day.

And let me tell you - if my friends & neighbors opted to bag leaves or pine straw for me, I'd let em!

I can tell what I'm going to be doing all this winter! AND next week the motor goes in to be serviced on the cyclone rake. Then I will pick up the leaves and it'll be chopped pretty fine for the chickens to go thru... More raking will have to wait until my chest doesn't hurt so much.

BeeKissed - 2 ?s -

1 - do U let your chickens in the garden area on those leaves &

2 - do U till those leaves in before planting?

O & 1 more - 3 - how do U track the number of bags of leaves????

OK ROFLMAO IS not good for the VERY SORE chest and ribcage!!! But I feel better overall, thanx, chickie friends.

 

[Beekissed]

OK, between the rain (which FLATTENED the loads I put in each pen Sat and Sunday) & BeeKissed photos - my first foray into the DLM is quite pitiful and I paid for it too - the cold is back w/ drainage & sore throat/cough in full swing today. My job revolves around a phone for 10 hours/day - folks were either laughing or hexing me away today! And I struggled to return the 38 phone calls left over the weekend, and the 100 calls that came in today (not including calling 45 folks for reminders for appointments tomorrow & answering the phone in between making the calls)... I'm tired, now just rethinking about my day.

And let me tell you - if my friends & neighbors opted to bag leaves or pine straw for me, I'd let em!

I can tell what I'm going to be doing all this winter! AND next week the motor goes in to be serviced on the cyclone rake. Then I will pick up the leaves and it'll be chopped pretty fine for the chickens to go thru... More raking will have to wait until my chest doesn't hurt so much.

BeeKissed - 2 ?s -

1 - do U let your chickens in the garden area on those leaves &

2 - do U till those leaves in before planting?

O & 1 more - 3 - how do U track the number of bags of leaves????

OK ROFLMAO IS not good for the VERY SORE chest and ribcage!!! But I feel better overall, thanx, chickie friends.

1. Yes. I'll be counting on them to distribute them even further if they can....it's raining right now so it may be impossible for them to move them much after that.

2. No, I don't till, nor will I ever till again, Lord willing. My garden is a deep litter garden, or more commonly known as a Back to Eden garden. I've placed wood chip on this garden all season, which composts down into a new layer of top soil so I won't need to plant into my hard packed clay soils any longer. Here's a vid on it: http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/
These leaves are just another layer of composting materials to aid in developing that new soil layer.

3. I simply counted them as I unloaded them and kept a running total on an old envelope in the truck. These were all gathered in 2 1/2 day's time. And what you see there isn't even all of them...some are in the coop, some bags are being used as a warm~temporary~dog house for the winter, some are stored in the shed for winter bedding.

 

[paintedChix]

Hmm, thank you for the link! I will be checking that out.

I had decided years ago that I didn't want to till (back breaking doing it w/ shovels/hoes & didn't have a rototiller or tractor/plow/disk etc). So I've started, here in this new place, putting together raised beds and containers for gardening. Next spring, I want to be able to plant (means I have a lot more work to do!). The raised beds will be/are being set up with landscaping timbers, other logs that are on our property and tires. Also, plan on making some long "run" type covers that I can put chickens in - should work great with bantams (don't have yet) and some of the smaller barnyard mixes that I have now. Several areas that I plan on doing the raised beds are in 8' increments along our backyard fence (4 increments is 32' long by 3' wide). In the bottoms of those raised beds, I'm starting with pony manure/hay from our pastures (a lot of it with 26 head in different paddock/pasture considerations), then for planting this spring (before I have amendments from the DLM), will be purchasing good seed starting soil/fertilizer from Home Depot/Lowes - maybe directly from garden nurseries (have a few in the area - haven't really been to any yet).

Now that I know I can add leaves directly to these areas over the winter, WOW!! SOOOO cool. Just NEVER thought about that!

And the reasoning behind not planting directly into the pony manure/hay mix? Because everyone in this area of the Carolina's uses some type of herbicide on that hay. Takes up to , sometimes more than, 2 years of composting w/o adding new to break that herbicide down to where it won't stunt or outright kill broad leafed plants in the garden (tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons etc). I was so UPSET when I couldn't get anything to grow or kept killing off plants I'd purchased and planted! When I was growing up in VA and in CO/MT, horse manure directly from our pastures (put in the gardens like your leaves & tilled in in the spring before planting) grew the BEST gardens!

Then I started doing research on the hay when someone else said something... And I've asked everyone I've purchased hay from - no one uses "nothing". The "prettier" their hay, the more expensive it is AND the more herbicide they've used to keep up with the weeds that grow like mad in our areas. Everyone that I have purchased from DOES get soil testing done every few years and will work to balance out their fields (lime, different mixes of fertilizer, etc). A lot of the hay growers either have commercial chicken houses of their own or have access to the litter from neighboring ones that they then use the litter to spread on their fields. Most seem to know that it has to be done early in the hay growing cycle, so there is no actual heavy nitrogen "right there" when the hay is cut/baled (there have been farms/individual owners who've lost horses due to drought when no rain helped to disburse the litter into the ground)... The last 15 years have been interesting learning and it took a long time for me to put some things "together" to understand. I now believe in and hopefully take better care of our own property.

We even compost both dog (from the yard - 6 dogs) and cat "manure" (un-medicated chick starter or pine pellets used for litter now - only 1 cat "full time" in the house, but 3 that come in now and then & will use the box) and in my "barn" set ups I have composting "humanure" bucket toilets (w/ mostly just me & two young grand daughters using them, 1/2 mile to the house is TOO FAR when the body says must go now, may take a while to do that composting, LOL). Right now, none of that is used/or will be used directly on plants that have fruit/veggies in the ground, but would be used on flowers and to mulch around the trees in the front/side yards (still don't know what all these trees are). I figure that I have a few years, yet, to learn all of this and apply it to what I want to grow...

 

[paintedChix]

Now, guess I need to start learning about fermenting my feeds for the chickens... ahhh, always a learning process!

 

[Beekissed]

You'll get all kinds of dire warnings about composting dog and cat feces....people just don't have much common sense on such things....well...on ANY thing nowadays.

For some reason they feel pig, cow, chicken and horse manure is safe and cat and dog manure on a garden or compost bin isn't. Human manure? Get outta town...why it would be full of all kinds of medicines that people take!!!!! Tell them you don't take any meds and they won't believe you...everyone pops pills now, don't they?

In truth, the average American ingests more fecal matter from strangers and pets in their daily life than they will ever get from a vegetable grown in such compost or soils. They seem to believe that the manure stays in its natural form throughout the composting process and still has the same properties no matter how long it's been under compost or mulch in the garden. Don't they realize that the manure is EATEN by many worms, bugs, bacteria, molds/yeasts and THEN crapped out again by those organisms before it's ever taken up as nutrients by the vegetable plant itself? It is then converted into other nutrients that form the actual fruit or vegetable. One is not eating the manure, nor are those vegetables being splashed with feces during a rain storm unless someone is placing raw feces next to each plant.

I get the same reasoning when I described using human urine for fertilizer.

For some reason they think the urine lies in puddles on the ground next to the plant and gets on the veggies in some way.

I like your style, PC! Grow on!

 

[sophiaw00]

Having trouble finding leaves. I've used up all the ones in my yard and some how the bedding keep disapearing from my coop. Not sure if the chooks are eating it or what, but it was up to 5-6 inches at one point and now I can see the floor in some spots. I can't find leaves anywhere. I live in a community that burns them and so at this time of year there is always the smell of burning leaves. How do I go about asking strangers for their leaves? I can't imagine the strange things people would think if someone came and asked to take their leaves

 

[lynnehd]

Having trouble finding leaves. I've used up all the ones in my yard and some how the bedding keep disapearing from my coop. Not sure if the chooks are eating it or what, but it was up to 5-6 inches at one point and now I can see the floor in some spots. I can't find leaves anywhere. I live in a community that burns them and so at this time of year there is always the smell of burning leaves. How do I go about asking strangers for their leaves? I can't imagine the strange things people would think if someone came and asked to take their leaves

Maybe you should put a sign in front of your house: 'Crazy person who lives here will bag and remove your leaves'?

 

[FarmerPhronc]

I have lots of leaves, so do my neighbors, of course traveling to Colorado to retrieve them may be out of the equation.

 

[Beekissed]

Having trouble finding leaves. I've used up all the ones in my yard and some how the bedding keep disapearing from my coop. Not sure if the chooks are eating it or what, but it was up to 5-6 inches at one point and now I can see the floor in some spots. I can't find leaves anywhere. I live in a community that burns them and so at this time of year there is always the smell of burning leaves. How do I go about asking strangers for their leaves? I can't imagine the strange things people would think if someone came and asked to take their leaves

Each and every person I asked for leaves was very kind and eager to see that I got more, so would tell me about some down the block or that they would have more next week so to come back then...one fella saw me getting leaves from one curb and told me about the ones at his house. When we drove to his house to get them we had a great conversation about his garden, how good it did with the leaves on it, etc. Nice older feller.

Ye receive not because ye ask not.

A lot of those folks would be tickled to death that their hard work was being used for something besides burning or going in the land fill.