Turning Trash Hauls Into Feed

[Altairsky]

If you could free range your chickens that would be ideal. You toss everything in a pile and the chickens will self regulate and eat what they need. The pile will also attract bugs and worms, and the chickens will get protein for that.
However there are 2 things you need to pay attention to:
- Protein must be around 18%, and they should be animal protein to be 100% sure you're feeding your chickens a complete amino acid profile.
- Vegetables, fruit and greens, are mostly water and have a horrible amount of calories. Your chickens need calories. Make sure you're providing the calories they need.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Oh great! I have been wanting someone wit experience to talk to about it. We are allowed talapia in my state, but also blue fin. Since blue fin carp have a wider temperature range and pH (we are zone 6, so they will need to tolerate beliw 40) thats my pick for now. I was going to route the water pipes through a 5ft section of ground dug 4ft deep, so the geothermal effect would make the water going back in warmer, or colder in summer, apx 50° year round where we live. Between that and the black paint on the tote in a green house it should stay plenty warm for the bluefin, but hopefully cool enough in summer. The ph I havnt quite planned out yet. I'm not sure how much the shrimp and duckweed will change things. I know duckweed is very efficient at converting nitrogen. I was also going to grow tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries in it since they are all acid and nitrogen loving/absorbing, with a plot of greens towards the end. The best nitrogen absorber is melons, but i think their aggresive root growth might break things. Past that im not really sure.

That's not enough length for sufficient heat transfer. You will have very little geothermal effect there. Ground loops are often HUNDREDS of feet. The math is complicated. Very complicated actually - more complicated than when i did rocket science.

The slower your water moves, and the smaller the diameter of the pipe, the greater the opportunity for heat transfer. I'm likely to bury 100' of 3/4" pex in a coil myself, and if that doesn't do the trick, I'll add another loop, monitor, adjust as needed. My seasonally adjusted temp average is around 68*, my groundwater temp is about 10* cooler (and 200' plus below me, or I'd just have a shallow well dug and closed loop transfer heat to the aquifer). You also have friction loss to account for, which is a problem on pump sizing/longevity.

On pH, the key is to find a substrate (rock aggregate, etc) which is slow to wear and close to pH neutral. We have readily available limerock in the area. One of the worst things you can use as substrate. Erodes rapidly and keeps making the water more basic. I'll have to up my costs and go for a bluestone or granite as my substrate. Obviously, I'm building a bit bigger than you if you are only starting w/ one tote. I assume you are cutting part of the tote off, flipping it over, going flood and dump?

Interesting trade off. The smaller your water reservoir, the cheaper it is to adjust pH w/ chemicals or to heat the water, should it be needed - but the system is also more susceptible to temp shock of being overwhelmed w/ N. A bigger system, like I am planning, is much more stable - but also much harder to dial in initially.

 

[Rillowen]

That's not enough length for sufficient heat transfer. You will have very little geothermal effect there. Ground loops are often HUNDREDS of feet. The math is complicated. Very complicated actually - more complicated than when i did rocket science.

The slower your water moves, and the smaller the diameter of the pipe, the greater the opportunity for heat transfer. I'm likely to bury 100' of 3/4" pex in a coil myself, and if that doesn't do the trick, I'll add another loop, monitor, adjust as needed. My seasonally adjusted temp average is around 68*, my groundwater temp is about 10* cooler (and 200' plus below me, or I'd just have a shallow well dug and closed loop transfer heat to the aquifer). You also have friction loss to account for, which is a problem on pump sizing/longevity.

On pH, the key is to find a substrate (rock aggregate, etc) which is slow to wear and close to pH neutral. We have readily available limerock in the area. One of the worst things you can use as substrate. Erodes rapidly and keeps making the water more basic. I'll have to up my costs and go for a bluestone or granite as my substrate. Obviously, I'm building a bit bigger than you if you are only starting w/ one tote. I assume you are cutting part of the tote off, flipping it over, going flood and dump?

Interesting trade off. The smaller your water reservoir, the cheaper it is to adjust pH w/ chemicals or to heat the water, should it be needed - but the system is also more susceptible to temp shock of being overwhelmed w/ N. A bigger system, like I am planning, is much more stable - but also much harder to dial in initially.

Yes, i know bigger would be more stable, but also gets alot more difficult and expensive fast. I dont want it to be bigger than the small green house, plus I think just 200 gal for the main tank should be plenty for us. I planned on routing it through Alot of plants, to help with the nitrogen. I knew the heat wouldn't completely transfer, but I had thought it would at least partially, i figured just raising/lowering by 10° would be enough? I was going to use fairly large pipes and low speed. Maybe I was was overly optimistic on that. I have been a bit concerned about too much heat in summer. I havnt done the math yet though, yes it does look complex. I looked at it and said "for another day" although it doesnt look too much different from my physics of engineering course I took.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes, i know bigger would be more stable, but also gets alot more difficult and expensive fast. I dont want it to be bigger than the small green house, plus I think just 200 gal for the main tank should be plenty for us. I planned on routing it through Alot of plants, to help with the nitrogen. I knew the heat wouldn't completely transfer, but I had thought it would at least partially, i figured just raising/lowering by 10° would be enough? I was going to use fairly large pipes and low speed. Maybe I was was overly optimistic on that. I have been a bit concerned about too much heat in summer. I havnt done the math yet though, yes it does look complex. I looked at it and said "for another day" although it doesnt look too much different from my physics of engineering course I took.

You are doing a single tank chop & flip, right?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Mine is going to look a bit more like this in concept:

Only my main tanks are outside my greenhouse (which measures roughly 16' x 24', so a little bigger than the typical).

 

[Rillowen]

Mine is going to look a bit more like this in concept:
View attachment 4302034

Only my main tanks are outside my greenhouse (which measures roughly 16' x 24', so a little bigger than the typical).

Kind of a mix, I saw both but wanted different lol. I'm doing the single tank chop, but the removed portion is going next to it on the ground, to auto dump the fry into the smaller tank, which will be stocked with shrimp and duckweed to provide an initial N and algae cleaning and provide food for the main tank.

The smaller tank will then lead to the garden substrate areas, which will be on a ramp so gravity can do all the work, about 5 ft of this. At the end it will go down into the ground and be routed into the bottom of a 4ft deep 4ft wide small frog pond that will also be stocked with shrimp and duckweed and used as the emergency overstock for the carp (this will also be free chicken/goose foraging area). There will be my pump in the bottom of the pond to pump it back through the ground and into the greenhouse, up some pipes to do strawberry pipes, then into a final floating bed above the main carp tank, which will also have shrimp underneath and a unfiltered hole for them to occasionally fall through to the carp. Like I said, I havnt done the math yet though. I'm not sure how strong a pump/high my strawberry pipes will need for instance.

 

[Yardmom]

NatJ had a informative post that hopefully gave you some great ideas. I feed commercial feed for simplicity, but I like to follow along with home grown food ideas. Many times "recipes" don't put enough animal protein in. If you can find meat and fat scraps and give a few directly to your chickens it should give you a jump toward meeting their nutritional needs.

 

[Perris]

The firm that uses food waste to feed layer chickens (who help make the compost by their action) is the Vermont Compost Company.

"The Beginning
We start out by blending raw manures, bedding, bark, and oxidized silage. Mature compost is added as an inoculum to guide the process. This blend of farm and forest-sourced material is used as bulking to manage the carefully source-separated rescued food from community schools, stores, restaurants, and homes. The porous, carbon-rich bedding, bark, and manure help to mitigate the odors and absorb the nutrient-dense liquids associated with these food residuals.

The combined ration is placed in windrows inside simple high tunnels for our layer flock to forage upon. A complex sequence of metabolic processes are in motion; chickens tumble and agitate the mix searching for bugs, grubs, and bits of cooking food to feed on—all the while depositing their protein-rich excreta. Every five days or so, the pile is turned further down the hoop-house."
More here https://vermontcompost.com/our-process

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The firm that uses food waste to feed layer chickens (who help make the compost by their action) is the Vermont Compost Company.

More here https://vermontcompost.com/our-process

THANK YOU for finding this. I couldn't remember the right keywords.