saw dust and wood shavings from my coop

[tomfromsc]

Hi ...I use saw dust and wood shavings from my wood shop for deep litter bedding in my coop mostly the shavings are very small either from my planer or from my lathe and are oak and cypress. I have been storing the litter I clean from the coop in 55 gal drums along with the straw I use for nest boxes .My plan is to spread it on top of my garden and not mix it into the soil and use as mulch and the chicken manure as fertilizer when I water or when it rains. I have read a lot about wood shavings and saw dust robbing nitrogen from the soil so I thought this approach may work . I was wondering if anyone has tried this Thanks for reading....

 

[dheltzel]

I have a degree in horticulture and your plan is sound. This used to be referred to as "sheet composting", though I haven't heard that term for a long time. Rather than storing it in drums, if you have a place to pile it outside, it will start the composting process even over winter. I put my used wood chip bedding around mature trees, as one would put bark mulch. Don't put it on too heavy at once, I sprinkle more on top with each cleaning. Rain washes the urea from the manure downhill through the lawn. The only drawback is the grass grows much faster and greener in the area downhill of the bedding pile.
The urea is the main nitrogen component of manure and highly water soluble. As bacteria decompose it, some is off-gassed as ammonia (making the urine-like smell), but much is locked up in the bodies of the fungal and bacterial digesters. They can go after the wood much more readily when there is a ready source of nitrogen to go with the carbon from the wood, hence the idea of balancing those 2 components in a compost pile.
Also, be careful not to overdo the amount of manure on crops that don't produce well if overfertilized. Tomatoes and peppers come to mine. Some is good, a lot is not better, you might get 10 ft tall tomatoes with few fruits.

 

[Latestarter]

Really nice that you have a ready made source of litter for your coop! I understand that aromatic cedar is bad for chickens in enclosed areas. Other than that you have a great set up!

 

[Smuvers Farm]

I am using aged sawdust in our run, along with hay and pine shavings. Is there a reason the run litter can't be used for compost? Because of the sawdust? I was under the impression that people were using their coop and run litter as compost.

 

[Latestarter]

Why wouldn't you be able to use the run litter? I'm of the belief that ALL of the litter is great for compost... The sawdust should actually break down much faster than wood chips...

 

[Kusanar]

I am using aged sawdust in our run, along with hay and pine shavings. Is there a reason the run litter can't be used for compost? Because of the sawdust? I was under the impression that people were using their coop and run litter as compost.

You can, the problem is, that litter materials are mostly carbon and in order to break down, there needs to be a certain carbon to nitrogen ratio, if you put a lot of carbon heavy stuff directly into the garden, it WILL suck nitrogen out of the soil to get it's ratio correct and can starve your plants if that happens enough. It is always better to hot compost things before putting into your garden anyway, it's broken down, the nitrogen isn't so "hot" that it will burn the plant roots, the carbon has already gathered up all of the nitrogen it needs so it won't suck any more from the soil, plus, you get the benefits of the heat killing the weed seeds (if you feed scratch, do you want the stuff in your scratch growing in your garden??) and it will also kill most bacteria that are in the bedding which can be important if growing leafy veggies like lettuce (if it rains hard or you water and soil splashes onto the plant, it will take the bacteria in the soil with it and can contaminate the plant which is how spinach got that big e. coli issue a while back)

Why wouldn't you be able to use the run litter? I'm of the belief that ALL of the litter is great for compost... The sawdust should actually break down much faster than wood chips...

You would think that... but, for some reason, sawdust doesn't break down as fast as mulch even, maybe because it doesn't have enough or large enough air gaps in it.

 

[Smuvers Farm]

You can, the problem is, that litter materials are mostly carbon and in order to break down, there needs to be a certain carbon to nitrogen ratio, if you put a lot of carbon heavy stuff directly into the garden, it WILL suck nitrogen out of the soil to get it's ratio correct and can starve your plants if that happens enough. It is always better to hot compost things before putting into your garden anyway, it's broken down, the nitrogen isn't so "hot" that it will burn the plant roots, the carbon has already gathered up all of the nitrogen it needs so it won't suck any more from the soil, plus, you get the benefits of the heat killing the weed seeds (if you feed scratch, do you want the stuff in your scratch growing in your garden??) and it will also kill most bacteria that are in the bedding which can be important if growing leafy veggies like lettuce (if it rains hard or you water and soil splashes onto the plant, it will take the bacteria in the soil with it and can contaminate the plant which is how spinach got that big e. coli issue a while back)


You would think that... but, for some reason, sawdust doesn't break down as fast as mulch even, maybe because it doesn't have enough or large enough air gaps in it.

This is VERY good to know. So, what would be the best way to hot compost the litter that's raked out of a deep litter coop and run?

 

[Latestarter]

... You would think that... but, for some reason, sawdust doesn't break down as fast as mulch even, maybe because it doesn't have enough or large enough air gaps in it.

Since he said it was mixed with other stuff (pine shavings and hay) and in a run where the chickens would routinely mix it all up, including some dirt from below, I didn't expect a "big pile of wet sawdust"... More a mix of sawdust in the overall deep litter.

 

[Kusanar]

This is VERY good to know. So, what would be the best way to hot compost the litter that's raked out of a deep litter coop and run?

You can get super technical or do it the easy way... the easy way is to make a pile 3 cubic feet in size, smaller than that and it can't maintain it's own temperature very well, you can also make a wooden bin for it to be in (you actually should have several bins as while one is "cooking" you need somewhere to put the new stuff), get your carbon to nitrogen ratio correct, lots of technical ways to do this, but the easy way is, if it smells like hot manure, you have too much nitrogen (or water), and if it's not breaking down at all and little to no smell you have too much carbon (or too dry). A compost pile should smell like freshly dug dirt when it is cooking correctly and should be about as moist as a well wrung out kitchen sponge).
Compost needs air gaps, so, if you are doing mostly wood shavings or sawdust without much other stuff mixed in, it's a good idea to get a piece of PVC pipe, drill a bunch of holes in it, and shove it in the middle of the pile to give it a good way for the middle of the pile to breathe. If you turn the pile, it introduces oxygen into the pile and will actually make it heat up as long as you don't overdo it (once every other day is about as much as you want to turn it), this is also where having a 2nd bin is a good idea, you can simply shovel the stuff from one bin to the other to turn, or, they make a nifty thing for turning the pile in place, it's kind of a spiral pitchfork and you shove it in the pile and turn it (kind of like a blender in slow motion).
The only thing I would suggest that you somewhat NEED is a compost thermometer, you can do without, but, it's nice to know the temperature of your pile. They aren't super expensive and they will tell you if you are hot enough to kill the bad stuff and will also alert you if the pile starts getting TOO hot and is in danger of catching on fire.

Check out this link for more detailed info, there is a LOT of helpful information on this website (and they also try to sell you stuff) http://www.homecompostingmadeeasy.com/carbonnitrogenratio.html

Since he said it was mixed with other stuff (pine shavings and hay) and in a run where the chickens would routinely mix it all up, including some dirt from below, I didn't expect a "big pile of wet sawdust"... More a mix of sawdust in the overall deep litter.

True, just wanted to put it out there that sawdust isn't the best at breaking down which is really weird because generally, the smaller it is, the better/faster something breaks down and it doesn't get much smaller than sawdust.

 

[Smuvers Farm]

I had been under the impression that doing a DLM coop and/or run had already taken care of any composting issues. I've read a lot from others posting here that use the DLM method, and use their litter straight from the coops and runs into their gardens.