What do y'all do with your dirty bedding?

[ehoneybee]

I have a compost bin but it's only so big. Should I just put it in a big pile behind the house and revisit it in the spring? I imagine it will break down and I can still use it for fertilizer.

 

[rjohns39]

I have a compost bin but it's only so big. Should I just put it in a big pile behind the house and revisit it in the spring? I imagine it will break down and I can still use it for fertilizer.

As long as you've got plenty of carbon it will work. You might want to give it a stir from time to time

 

[HomemadeLife]

Yes! Put it in your compost! You can do that with straw/shaving or sand. I use sand as bedding b/c when you clean out the coop you can just scrape out the poop with a piece of hardware cloth into the compost. Less waste!

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

I use deep litter, so it essentially compost in place

 

[lazy gardener]

As long as you've got plenty of carbon it will work. You might want to give it a stir from time to time

If the bedding is made up of wood shavings and chicken poo, it already has TOO MUCH carbon. What it needs is increased nitrigen. That can be accomplished by adding lots of grass clippings, and green garden weeds. If doing a separate compost pile, you could even use ammonia, urine, urea, more chicken poo, or if you had a bottomless wallet, alfalfa cubes/pellets


I never have dirty bedding. What I do have is bedding that is enriched with chicken poo. That gets pushed out the clean out door into the run. The birds spread it and take care of turning it, continue to add their high nitrigen poo, and mix in any wood chips and green material that I give them. Most of my bedding consists of leaves which are collected and hoarded in the fall, and grass clippings. I only resort to shavings when I run out of leaves or when brooding chicks.

 

[BantyChooks]

I dump it behind the run. After a year or two it gets raked into it. Recently it's just been sitting there since I free range now and the run has been taken over by volunteer tomato plants.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I second the deep litter method. I dump the pine shavings/poo from the coop into the run which sits on clay soil. My birds mix and turn. I then call up my gardening friends who rush over with buckets and shovels to add to their gardens.

In my soil and area, the pine shavings and poo on clay soil compost very nicely. In my larger runs I have wood chips which also compost nicely. I now have dark loam in many places on my property.

LofMc

 

[GRB73]

I put it in a pile in a back corner or my property. My chickens love to scratch through it. Over time, it breaks down into a mulch i use for my perennial beds.

 

[ehoneybee]

If the bedding is made up of wood shavings and chicken poo, it already has TOO MUCH carbon. What it needs is increased nitrigen. That can be accomplished by adding lots of grass clippings, and green garden weeds. If doing a separate compost pile, you could even use ammonia, urine, urea, more chicken poo, or if you had a bottomless wallet, alfalfa cubes/pellets


I never have dirty bedding. What I do have is bedding that is enriched with chicken poo. That gets pushed out the clean out door into the run. The birds spread it and take care of turning it, continue to add their high nitrigen poo, and mix in any wood chips and green material that I give them. Most of my bedding consists of leaves which are collected and hoarded in the fall, and grass clippings. I only resort to shavings when I run out of leaves or when brooding chicks.

Ooh, I like this! So I can just put leaves /grass clippings down in the coop and nesting boxes and just put it in their run where they'll peck and scratch at it? Right now I'm moving them around to where I want them to do my dirty work. So, last week is was weeds, this week is a garden plot.

 

[RUNuts]

I would suggest not too near the house. Near your not-so-favorite neighbor may be good.

I use pallets to contain my compost in the back yard. Going to garden next spring. For now, the run still has grass. Will be adding woodchips as needed for the deep litter.