Getting Started Composting

[Sefirothe]

I have a garden and now I have chickens. The coop has a poop board with PDZ/sand that I scoop poop from into a 5 gallon bucket every day. I'd like to start composting the chicken's poop to help enrich my garden.

As we live next to a steep wooded embankment, in the past all of our garden and yard waste would just get dumped over the side of that, so I dont have a dedicated compost pile.

I'd like to do this the easiest way possible so cold composting works for me, and I have a clear spot next to my chicken coop but outside of the run that I can build up some low walls with some left over cinderblocks.

I'd basically just be dumping yard waste, veg scraps, and chicken poop into a big pile.

Any reason to worry about the chickens possibly getting into it, especially with possible piles of grass clippings? They're penned in their run most of the time, but I let them out for supervised free range time if I'm out doing work around the coop.

 

[Acre4Me]

We have a traditional 3 bin system. Wood slat sides, short wall in front, but mostly open. Need a lid to shade it in summer, but the compartments are 4’ wide, and 6’ deep. It is not in the chicken run, it is just outside. We also pen out chickens and allow free range for short periods. They scratch around in the compost -never an issue for their health. But our compost is the poopy wood shavings from the coop, and straw from goat pen. We have 2 goats, and the straw first gets shoveled into chicken run so they further scratch through it, breaking it up and popping in it, then next goat pen clean out sees the old broken down straw added to the compost pile. Compost pile gets kitchen scraps, but never proteins or cooked food. We turn the pile now and then, if new pile gets too high/full it goes to middle of there is space. Any middle compost (middle bin, partially broken down fairly well) is there it gets moved to final bin, which should be useable or nearly so.

Search @gtaus in the “what did you do in the garden today” thread -he has a pretty sweet set-up for easily filtering his compost to the finer bits to add to garden, less broken down goes back into pile. He composts in his chicken run. We do not do this bc that type of composting would not work for us-we prefer the separate 3-bin system (although the host straw is first step composted in the chicken run). Nothing wrong with either approach.

Last year I attended a 4-H sponsored “poultry day” at the Ohio Ag tech school. It wa open to adults too, not just in 4H. Lots of poultry related mini classes -one was all about composting. You can compost your poultry carcasses or dead birds if you wish -it’s perfectly acceptable! But, I mention this bc sometimes the state ag service or local county ag extension offer classes on things like composting. Check out the state ag webpage for your state.

Good luck!

 

[gtaus]

I have a garden and now I have chickens. The coop has a poop board with PDZ/sand that I scoop poop from into a 5 gallon bucket every day. I'd like to start composting the chicken's poop to help enrich my garden.

There are endless ways to make chicken compost. I use dry deep bedding in my coop and only clean it out twice a year. All my old coop litter gets tossed into the chicken run which I converted into a chicken run composting system.

With deep bedding, you don't need to clean out any poop board daily. Daily cleaning was just not in my idea of having chickens. Too much work for me. But deep bedding with twice a year cleaning was the better option for me.

As we live next to a steep wooded embankment, in the past all of our garden and yard waste would just get dumped over the side of that, so I dont have a dedicated compost pile.

I think you can do better and use your finished compost for the garden. You can either make compost bins outside of the chicken run, make a compost bin(s) inside the chicken run, or just convert your entire chicken run into a composting system.

I did all three. I started with pallet wood compost bins. When I got chickens, I built a compost bin inside the chicken run. After a short period of time, when the chickens had destroyed all the grass in the run leaving nothing but dirt to turn into mud when it rains, I just converted my entire chicken run into a compost system. That works best for me.

I'd like to do this the easiest way possible so cold composting works for me, and I have a clear spot next to my chicken coop but outside of the run that I can build up some low walls with some left over cinderblocks.

The easiest way I have found to compost my organics is to toss everything into the chicken run. The chicken will eat what they want. They will scratch and peck through the run litter looking for tasty bugs and juicy worms to eat. They love to do that all day. For me, it's chicken TV.

If your chicken run is on a slope, all the eaiser to make cold composting with chickens work. You would just dump everything at the highest spot in the run, and the chickens will scratch and peck the litter, moving it constantly downhill in the process. Then, after 4-6 months, you could probably start to harvest finished compost at the bottom of your slope.

I'd basically just be dumping yard waste, veg scraps, and chicken poop into a big pile.

Yep, it does not have to be complicated.

Any reason to worry about the chickens possibly getting into it, especially with possible piles of grass clippings? They're penned in their run most of the time, but I let them out for supervised free range time if I'm out doing work around the coop.

You actually want to encourage the chickens to get into your compost pile, to work it over, breaking down the material faster into compost. If I see a spot that I want the chickens to work a little bit more, I will just toss their morning chicken scratch on that area.

My chickens never free range. But I bring the free range to them inside the chicken run with leaves, weeds, grass clippings, kitchen waste and leftovers, etc... Just about everything organic from my house and yard gets tossed into the chicken run for composting in place.

I live on a lake, and I will even toss the fish guts and remains from cleaning the fish into the chicken run. What the chickens don't eat during the day, I will bury into the chicken run compost that evening. It becomes worm food in the compost. I have never had a problem with varmints getting into the fish remains buried in the compost litter inside the chicken run.

I will also chop up bits of leftover or scrap meat parts and such to feed to the chickens. They almost always eat it all. If they don't eat some meat, it just gets mixed into the compost litter and the worms will eat it. Then the chickens will eat the worms. No worries there either.

Search @gtaus in the “what did you do in the garden today” thread -he has a pretty sweet set-up for easily filtering his compost to the finer bits to add to garden, less broken down goes back into pile. He composts in his chicken run.

Thanks for the shout out @Acre4Me.

I just dump all my organics into a large pile(s) in the chicken run and the composting chickens will level everything out in no time. In the process of scratching and pecking the litter, they help to break it down into finer pieces which makes the cold composting go faster.

Yes, I used to have a beautiful grass filled chicken run - for about 3 months - but the chickens ripped out all the grass down to bare dirt. At that point, I started dumping wood chips into the run to keep it from getting all muddy when it rained. You can see I even built a pallet wood compost bin inside the chicken run. But I soon just converted the entire chicken into a composting system. I have never looked back since then.

Many people think cold composting takes too long to make. If you want to hot compost, turning the piles every day and making sure the temps and moisture are just right, maybe you can have finished compost in 3 weeks after all that hard work. That was too much work for me.

I just dump everything into the chicken run. The composting chickens work the litter helping to break it down. In about 4-6 months of cold composting in the run, I have finished chicken run compost with almost no effort on my part.

Since my entire chicken run was converted into a composting system, I have more finished compost than I can use. I typcially harvest finished compost early in the spring before planting, and then again in the fall for top dressing the raised bed gardens before the snow falls. Last year I filled 3 new raised garden beds and topped off 4 or 5 other beds and still only used maybe only 10% of the finished compost in the chicken run.

I don't have to wait 3 weeks while I work a hot compost pile. It takes me about 15 minutes to sift out a wagon full (6 cubic feet) of chicken run compost with my cement mixer compost sifter...

In that picture, the finished, sifted compost is in the black wagon. The unfinished compost is in the grey wagon at the end. I can either dump the unfinished compost back into the run, or use it as top mulch on the garden beds.

Anyways, I harvest hundreds of dollars' worth of chicken run compost every year that my chickens made for me. Chickens and gardening go together so well.

I posted an in-depth explanation of my cement mixer compost sifter build at How to determine quality of different types of compost? post #22 dated Aug 31, 2020. It has some good info on composting that you might be interested in reading.

 

[Sefirothe]

Lots of good information there to break down (see what I did there?).

My current run is bare earth covered by 4-6 inches of wood chips. In the coop I have horse stall pellets on the floor and the pdz covered poop board under the roost.

I don’t mind scooping it, it takes maybe 2-3 minutes while I’m in there collecting eggs too. I just need an end use for what I’m scooping. A coworker has asked for a couple buckets but they can’t take allll the poop. Especially since I have more chicks coming soon. Damn chicken math.

I don’t plan on doing anything with the bedding in the coop for at least 6 months or more. When it starts smelling it will get pitched out into the run.

The run I have no plans on doing anything other than adding more wood chips as needed. Or harvesting some compost as needed to lower the organic matter level if needed.

The run itself is not all that big. I don’t want to add too much clutter tho I know some is good so I have some stumps and branches in there now.

I have purchased an electric fence kit to enlarge the enclosed space offered to the chickens and may include the proposed compost pile inside of the electric fence. I just need to get it set up and maybe figure a way to put a net roofing over it. We have a LOT of aerial and terrestrial predators here.

 

[AZcluckers]

There are endless ways to make chicken compost. I use dry deep bedding in my coop and only clean it out twice a year. All my old coop litter gets tossed into the chicken run which I converted into a chicken run composting system.

With deep bedding, you don't need to clean out any poop board daily. Daily cleaning was just not in my idea of having chickens. Too much work for me. But deep bedding with twice a year cleaning was the better option for me.


I think you can do better and use your finished compost for the garden. You can either make compost bins outside of the chicken run, make a compost bin(s) inside the chicken run, or just convert your entire chicken run into a composting system.

I did all three. I started with pallet wood compost bins. When I got chickens, I built a compost bin inside the chicken run. After a short period of time, when the chickens had destroyed all the grass in the run leaving nothing but dirt to turn into mud when it rains, I just converted my entire chicken run into a compost system. That works best for me.



The easiest way I have found to compost my organics is to toss everything into the chicken run. The chicken will eat what they want. They will scratch and peck through the run litter looking for tasty bugs and juicy worms to eat. They love to do that all day. For me, it's chicken TV.

If your chicken run is on a slope, all the eaiser to make cold composting with chickens work. You would just dump everything at the highest spot in the run, and the chickens will scratch and peck the litter, moving it constantly downhill in the process. Then, after 4-6 months, you could probably start to harvest finished compost at the bottom of your slope.



Yep, it does not have to be complicated.



You actually want to encourage the chickens to get into your compost pile, to work it over, breaking down the material faster into compost. If I see a spot that I want the chickens to work a little bit more, I will just toss their morning chicken scratch on that area.

My chickens never free range. But I bring the free range to them inside the chicken run with leaves, weeds, grass clippings, kitchen waste and leftovers, etc... Just about everything organic from my house and yard gets tossed into the chicken run for composting in place.

I live on a lake, and I will even toss the fish guts and remains from cleaning the fish into the chicken run. What the chickens don't eat during the day, I will bury into the chicken run compost that evening. It becomes worm food in the compost. I have never had a problem with varmints getting into the fish remains buried in the compost litter inside the chicken run.

I will also chop up bits of leftover or scrap meat parts and such to feed to the chickens. They almost always eat it all. If they don't eat some meat, it just gets mixed into the compost litter and the worms will eat it. Then the chickens will eat the worms. No worries there either.



Thanks for the shout out @Acre4Me.

I just dump all my organics into a large pile(s) in the chicken run and the composting chickens will level everything out in no time. In the process of scratching and pecking the litter, they help to break it down into finer pieces which makes the cold composting go faster.

View attachment 3780692

Yes, I used to have a beautiful grass filled chicken run - for about 3 months - but the chickens ripped out all the grass down to bare dirt. At that point, I started dumping wood chips into the run to keep it from getting all muddy when it rained. You can see I even built a pallet wood compost bin inside the chicken run. But I soon just converted the entire chicken into a composting system. I have never looked back since then.

Many people think cold composting takes too long to make. If you want to hot compost, turning the piles every day and making sure the temps and moisture are just right, maybe you can have finished compost in 3 weeks after all that hard work. That was too much work for me.

I just dump everything into the chicken run. The composting chickens work the litter helping to break it down. In about 4-6 months of cold composting in the run, I have finished chicken run compost with almost no effort on my part.

Since my entire chicken run was converted into a composting system, I have more finished compost than I can use. I typcially harvest finished compost early in the spring before planting, and then again in the fall for top dressing the raised bed gardens before the snow falls. Last year I filled 3 new raised garden beds and topped off 4 or 5 other beds and still only used maybe only 10% of the finished compost in the chicken run.

I don't have to wait 3 weeks while I work a hot compost pile. It takes me about 15 minutes to sift out a wagon full (6 cubic feet) of chicken run compost with my cement mixer compost sifter...

View attachment 3780703

In that picture, the finished, sifted compost is in the black wagon. The unfinished compost is in the grey wagon at the end. I can either dump the unfinished compost back into the run, or use it as top mulch on the garden beds.

Anyways, I harvest hundreds of dollars' worth of chicken run compost every year that my chickens made for me. Chickens and gardening go together so well.

I posted an in-depth explanation of my cement mixer compost sifter build at How to determine quality of different types of compost? post #22 dated Aug 31, 2020. It has some good info on composting that you might be interested in reading.

I'm so glad I saw this! I've been researching and your method seems so easy. I'm going to give this a try!

 

[gtaus]

I'm so glad I saw this! I've been researching and your method seems so easy. I'm going to give this a try!

Converting the chicken run into a chicken run composting system really worked for me. Previously, I was buying large bags of compost at the big box stores. When I got my chickens, I learned I could use them to make compost faster than I could in my pallet wood compost bins.

I have more than doubled my gardening raised beds since I got my chickens because I now have so much finished compost ready to add to the beds. Once you have that compost process started, you have finished black gold compost sitting in your chicken run just waiting for you to mine it.

For years and years, I got by with a manual compost sifter made out of 2X4's and hardware cloth. No complaints, but it was a lot of hard work sifting compost manually and it would take me a longer time to make a wagon full of sifted compost. But you don't need to invest in anything else to make great sifted compost.

When I decided to go big with the chicken run composting system, I invested in that cement mixer compost sifter. A few years ago, when I first built that compost sifter, I did the math and discovered that I was able to sift out more than $60.00 worth of finished compost every hour of runtime on the cement mixer. It took me less than 4 hours to pay back the $200.00 or so that it cost me to make that compost sifter.

If I could have found a used mixer, I would have saved a lot of money. But I had to pay about $180.00 just for a new mixer on sale. I looked for over a year for a used cement mixer, but nobody was selling any.

If you want easy, the cement mixer compost sifter is the way to go. Hardly any work at all to fork in compost litter into the sifter.

I did not mention it in this thread, but I have different sized hardware cloth to sift out my compost.

I have a 1/4 X 1/4 inch mesh which I use if I want to make fine potting soil.

My main insert is a 1/2 X 1/2 inch mesh which I use to sift compost for my raised beds. I mix that with topsoil 1:1 for initially filling my raised beds.

The wire mesh on the barrel, without any inserts, is 1 x 1/2, which I find good enough for top mulch compost. If I just need a top mulch cover, then I can use the stuff in reject wagon. But usually, I toss that reject stuff back into the chicken run for more composting.

Well, it's an easy system to make lots of finished compost that you can harvest at any time. OP wanted an easy system, and I know my system is easy for me. Let the chickens do the hard composting work!

 

[Debbie292d]

We were given these compost bins and just put the chicken poo in there. When it's from the top of the henboxes where they (silkies) roost, it's just got a little stall refresher in it. When it's from the floor of the coop in the spring, it's mostly poop and sawdust as we put horse bedding pellets down the spring before. We don't put it all in there though, some goes around trees and in the garden, etc. Egg shells go in the bins as well as coffee grounds, some dead oak leaves, some lawn waste, etc. In a few months one side is done and we start fresh again in that one while the other one is still composting. I use it for houseplants mostly but some goes in a few areas of the garden or in flower beds.

 

[gtaus]

We were given these compost bins

Those composting bins look brand new. Very nice.

In a few months one side is done and we start fresh again in that one while the other one is still composting.

Do you turn those bins daily, weekly, etc.. and check the temps for hot composting? I think that would be the greatest advantage to that setup. Turning a compost pile is a lot of work, but those spinning bins look like that task would be really easy.

At one point I was going to make a spinning compost setup with a 55-gallon barrel. But then I got my chickens and went in a different composting direction.

One thing I would caution anyone is that even with hot composting in a few months, you probably need more time for the chicken poo to "cool down" before applying it to your gardens. I read the safe time is about 6 months for the chicken poo compost to sit and cool down chemically. Even if the organic compost is finished in 2 months, you still need to wait that 6 months or risk burning your plants.

On the other hand, I have seen some YouTube videos where guys are diluting the fresh chicken poo and applying it in limited quantities on their plants. Maybe dilution is the solution, but I still prefer to let my chicken run compost age for a good 6 months before I use it on my veggies.

 

[Debbie292d]

Those composting bins look brand new. Very nice.



Do you turn those bins daily, weekly, etc.. and check the temps for hot composting? I think that would be the greatest advantage to that setup. Turning a compost pile is a lot of work, but those spinning bins look like that task would be really easy.

We do try to spin those once a day but in the winter it winds up being once a week, which doesn't matter as it's frozen anyway.

It does get warm, but that means it's working.

We honestly wouldn't be composting if it weren't for those. We were always just talking about doing it but never did until we got those.

 

[gtaus]

We do try to spin those once a day but in the winter it winds up being once a week, which doesn't matter as it's frozen anyway.

That's what I thought. It is one of the reasons why I never finished my DIY spinning barrel composter. Instead, I converted my entire chicken run into a composting system.

I have about 18 inches deep of litter in late fall, and over the winter, it will compost and breakdown to about 12 inch deep in the spring. Because of the bulk of chicken run litter, I think there is composting continuing to work in the winter under those first several inches on the top which are frozen solid. The chicken run litter is full of bugs and worms, and they survive the winter months wihtout any problems. In the springtime, the chickens start to dig into the litter to find good stuff to eat. Nature is wonderful.