Worm composting (aka Chicken snacks with a job)

[WestTNriverrat]

Yes you can. Tho your not gonna be pleased with your composting progress unless you get the right type of worm. Regular earthworms won’t be what you want. The Red wiggler or proper name Eisenia fetida will process food into usable castings the fastest.

 

[perkolator]

My chickens seem to enjoy worms of all types, though big earthworms seem to give them a pause. They raid the compost pile all the time for the small red wigglers.

I’ve never raised worms specifically for the chickens but have had a vermicompost bin for many years. Last year I decided to start a separate, black soldier fly (BSF) composting bin since I knew they were always present in my worm bin. It was super easy to do, very fun and disgusting at the same time - if you enjoy the worm farming and composting, you may enjoy this too and so I’d recommend it to you.

You can feed the BSF basically anything, especially stuff with higher fat and protein content, like ALL your table scraps, unlike worms. The best food source might be something like buffet/restaurant food waste. They’ll live off animal waste too, it’s what a lot of people do in other countries- but I dunno about raising them on mostly chicken waste and then feeding those grubs back to the chickens, at least not as a regular thing. maybe if you have other animal waste stream it would be fine, but mine get fed kitchen scraps and dead rodents

Took my hens a few feedings to recognize what the heck I was tossing them (they have been getting dried BSF treats for a long while, but not piles of fresh and wiggling grubs) but now it’s like crack. When they see me go towards the BSF bin, they come running from wherever they are and will basically fight one another to get first dibs.

my bin isn’t active right now due to the cold (they prefer warm weather) but when it warms up again I’ll for sure be doing it again!

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Worms turn food scraps into protein and organic matter. Chickens turn food scraps and protein into nitrogen. Nitrogen and organic matter grow more food.

Ya gotta love nature!