Turning Trash Hauls Into Feed

[CraziChknLady]

Actually, in Oklahoma it is illegal to throw out food that could otherwise be consumed. The same day they passed that law, they passed another law which gave a double state tax credit for donating food. So, if you donate $100 of food, you can write off $200 on your taxes. Also, I am aware of the glass and objects. I actually have kitchen knives that I found in the trash

Each state is different. But good to know they are trying to curb the wastefulness and trying to get food to those who need it.

 

[charlie1051]

Howdy!

This is going to be one of the craziest posts on the forum. I am a trash diver. I am so efficient at it that I can feed my family of 4 in about 20 minutes of work dumpster diving once a week and about an hour or two of cleaning the food (yes, I wash everything thoroughly). This provides a tremendous amount of food. Let me show you 3 hauls worth.

Pics!

https://imgur.com/a/QQ3s5Vz

The thing is, if I spent about 4 hours, two or three times a week, I could bring home 200-300lbs of scrap food every single week by hitting more locations. I am attempting to start a food share program where I am basically gifting some to people in need. But, that leaves a tremendous amount of vegetable product leftover in both scraps and just flat out stuff we won't eat. There are days when I could grab literally 100lbs of potatoes, bananas, apples, greens of all type, and more. I am genuinely not kidding when I say 100 lbs.

I have a flock of 24 birds. I have been feeding them scraps from my hauls on a treat basis. Albeit, probably more than I should, but the majority of their diet is feed. I want to figure out a way to turn large quantities of food scraps into legitimate substitutes for feed where I can cut back their store-bought feed to only 20-30% of their total feed. Granted, I will still supplement with calcium and grit as needed.

A couple of avenues here. Any feedback is great.

I can put rotting meat scraps into a 50 gallon drum, let flies infest it (or I purchase some type of bug that would infest it- any ideas?), cut holes in the bottom, and let the bugs come out into the coop and get eaten all but immediately.

I would use an industrial apple crusher to grind products into much finer "chips". I add them to 275 gallon totes to create worm towers. Where I am stuck here is the labor involved in getting the worms to the chickens. Reproduction speed isn't the issue. I could have 10-20 of these totes and just let it go slowly but surely. It's how to transfer the worms efficiently and then also the time to harvest the casings. All of these products I can sell, but really I am just after quickly turning food scraps into protein and this seems like alot of work.

What else am I missing. Has anyone tried to harvest significant amounts of trash to supplement feed? I am also going to have rabbit hutches which seem easier to substitute feed, but I sure do like eggs and chickens. Also, I should mention that production volume is of virtually no importance in this system. The trash is basically a free byproduct for me. I'd rather have 1/2 egg production and not use any feed if it were possible.

You don't have to slice or chop up the apples. I know what you're doing. I've done some similar things for years. Lets talk later mater.

 

[charlie1051]

MY BAD - HOWDY

 

[SeanKriger]

Some interesting ideas on here.

I agree on the black soldier fly larvae- If you google them, once you get the right set up for them (if the temperature is right where you live) you build them little ramps or pipes, the older ones crawl (no legs, but they wiggle) up ramps- you can set up their home in or around the chickens, and let the BSF climb the ramps and then “suicide” onto the floor where the chickens will eat them- or maybe over the fish, if you go that way. I keep a bucket of coffee grounds in my garage and grow them all summer, I “catch” them naturally and just sieve the bucket to get the bugs for my girls as a treat. I believe you could also keep them with dry products like cereal and grains. There are lots of reptile owners with pet geckos and frogs that raise their own bugs, BSF have I believe the most protein, but there may be other things you could grow.

An old timey way to feed up fish (rather gross but maybe you could adapt the idea) was to hang a dead horse/cow etc head over a fish pond or river, flies would lay eggs on it, and the maggots would drop off into the water- the fish would learn to come to the source making them easy to catch. I wouldn’t do this near the house tho!

I compost and my chickens do a lot of turning (and eating) in my bins. I have seen a large round compost bin made of fencing with plastic chicken wire or a smaller hole wrap around it- the chickens will throw a lot out of the bin otherwise. They also need a way to get into the bin- a door or a ramp up and in. Do be aware that if you get a lot of rain the compost could get too wet and nasty- depending on your room, a tarp/tent/carport etc could help with that. And for compost, ideally you want 70% brown (leaves, shredded paper, shavings from the coop, chipped up branches (get free sometimes from a tree service- they pay to dump so might give to you free), coffee chaff (ask at a local coffee shop that has a roasting machine- not Starbucks), etc. 30% green (veggie scraps, grass clippings, actual chicken poo, coffee grounds (balance them with a little clean wood ash unless you want to feed acid loving plants). Again, if you keep adding to the same bin it’s harder to get to the bottom layer if you want to use the compost in your garden, so plan more than one bin- fill one for a year, then leave it for a year (turning occasionally) and it’s ready. Keep going, and you always have finished compost.

On worm bins, you can build your own (again look online) but all the stuff (nice processed worm poo and wet, rotting food) is together, so you end up having to sift through it to harvest the worms- not very efficient. Plus you need a way to manage the water run off- rotting veggies make a lot of wet. The ones with stacking trays sort of “self sort”, the worms travel up as they finish all the food in a tray, and water usually runs out of a tap at the bottom. If you wanted to actually feed the worms to the chickens you would still have to sort some. The easiest way to sort a large pile is using light- worms don’t like light. So you dump the dirt and worms out on a tarp under a bright light, wait 10 min, lightly scrape away the top few inches of dirt which should be mostly worm free, toss it into your bin again. Wait, repeat. Etc. At the end, you will have a ball of worms, you could take half for the chickens and put half back into your bin to keep reproducing. Or occasionally toss a whole tray out onto your compost bin, if you want to go the easy route, and let the chickens have at them.

Good luck with your project!
Paige

Use a concrete mixer, build a wire mesh cage for it, then dump in the compost into the mixer. All the fine bits which are processed will fall through. That is what you want. Then, put the other bits back. If you let it go long enough and feed it just right, you will have worms still in the wire mesh if it's turning properly. Easy harvest!

I love the cow head idea. Crazy idea, but yeah I like it! Lol.