Overwhelmed with composting

[MommA2K]

“Composting is only as hard as you make it, if you mess up it just takes longer to turn into dirt.”

I’m trying to remind myself of this, but as much as I’ve already read I still don’t know what to do. I have a small backyard flock of six, ranging in age from 1-3 years. I want to start composting for my vegetable garden.

My girls spend most of their time in a secured run. I work in a school so will be spending more time out of their run in a couple weeks. I have my garden fenced off now for the season and their run is located inside that fenced in area. I want to put up another fence inside the already fenced in area to expand their run and keep my vegetables safe during the growing season.

I don’t know how much space to give them to make into my compost pile. Give them too much I’d assume it would take forever? I’d like to give them as much room as possible, but I’d also really like to put them to work with a fast return haha I hope this makes sense. One post will be located at #1 and #2 will depend on the location of the third post (#3 or #4). I also wouldn’t mind giving them more room (#3) and having some sort of compost container they can access and keep contained. I’ve seen pallets used, does that contain it? I’ll be adding yard waste and food scraps.

One last question, when the chickens poop on the compost that’s ready to be put on the garden beds, do you try picking the poop out? Leave it in? I have no idea

 

[Tired old Rooster]

Is there no way to split the veggie garden in two roughly equal sections, alternately accessible to them? Perhaps using a chunnel to facilitate it, if the geography is a bit difficult?

My thinking in that regard is this: You open the one side to the chooks, dump as much stuff in it as you have all over and let them go wild with their extended run until this time next year, while doing your veggie garden in the other.

That way, come next year, when you swap over, you start your veggie garden in a place that has spent a year being vigorously composted, pooped on, tilled and sanitized of anything resembling a weed or a bug. While they get to work on improving the other side.

Oh yes, leave the poop as is. No need to worry about it.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

The idea of swapping the garden and run off every year is a good one. The chickens will eat a lot of weeds, seeds, and pests from the garden, and add a ton of fertility.

If you're concerned about adding the manure in the compost direct to the garden, try putting the compost in the garden in the fall or early winter so it has time to "cool off" before you'll be planting. If you use the "swap the garden and the run", do the swap in late fall or early winter...again, so there's time for any manure to age.

As far as how big an area, do what makes sense based on the amount of materials you expect to have. If you want to speed things up, a little labor on your part goes a long way. If you pile things up a bit, then let the chickens knock it apart, it'll tend to break down a bit more quickly.

As you go through the process, feel free to post updates here and ask more questions...there's a lot of composters happy to help!

 

[RubelliteRose]

If you want your chickens to do the compost turning for you, you will need something to contain the compost so the chickens don't scatter it. Think of a raised bed with your compost in the bottom instead of dirt and plants. This would be cold composting and not only would it take a long time, it would not get hot enough to kill pathogens and weed seeds.
To speed things up, you will need a pile size around 3' x 3' and will need to turn it yourself. If you have the room and enough material, you can do a combination of the two. We have a couple of hot composting bins that we turn regularly and a cold composting holding area for the chickens to scratch in. When the hot compost is done, we move the cold compost over as part of the hot compost to kill any remaining weed seeds and pathogens.
I have been using this type of compost bin for 10 years and love them
https://www.vegetablegardenguru.com/homemade-compost-bin.html

 

[Sally PB]

I have been using this type of compost bin for 10 years and love them

That is sheer brilliance.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

There's several good YouTube channels with folks who compost with chickens. Edible Acres is one. Porterhouse and Teal is another.

Piling up the compost will make things go faster, if that's a concern. I'm typically creating compost that won't get used for 2-3 years out at this point. So, by then any weed seeds have sprouted (and become chicken snacks).

I do a hybrid system, with the bulk of materials in piles...either my 14' x 7' pallet composter or the hay bale composters, and some just put on the run floor to mix with the leaves, shavings, hay, etc. that's there.

 

[EddieSalita]

I do a similar thing as what red stars has mentioned. I have 10 hens. It works fantastic. I use three low adjoining bays, which are just squares of logs about 8'x8' to help contain it. First bay has grass clippings, wood chips, weeds, leaves, pond weeds anything and everything brown and green. About 3ft high initially. I sprinkle the food scraps and scratch grain on that first pile. This encourages then to scratch it down. They don't really need it. They love scratching it down. But it helps with the second step. First pile gets turned over into the second pile after a couple weeks. At that point it has sprouts from the scratch and worms and all kind of goodies in it. Then it gets turned into a third pile. Which is the finished pile. It goes from there onto the garden.
Each stage takes about 2-3weeks. Depending on season. I've found the chooks dramatically accelerate the compost making process. I put their expended bedding under the second pile when turning over. So it's manure enhanced as well.
My chooks love it, my plants love it. It works. Only thing I make sure of is to ensure the compost is nice and moist. The girls like it more if it's nice and wet. The sprouts and bugs are also encouraged that way.

 

[Witchychickens]

If you want your chickens to do the compost turning for you, you will need something to contain the compost so the chickens don't scatter it. Think of a raised bed with your compost in the bottom instead of dirt and plants. This would be cold composting and not only would it take a long time, it would not get hot enough to kill pathogens and weed seeds.
To speed things up, you will need a pile size around 3' x 3' and will need to turn it yourself. If you have the room and enough material, you can do a combination of the two. We have a couple of hot composting bins that we turn regularly and a cold composting holding area for the chickens to scratch in. When the hot compost is done, we move the cold compost over as part of the hot compost to kill any remaining weed seeds and pathogens.
I have been using this type of compost bin for 10 years and love them
https://www.vegetablegardenguru.com/homemade-compost-bin.html

The way my brain just went at how genius that compost bin is… I’m doing it. Yesterday.

 

[Moon Daizy]

I have, this year, designed a new coop and run based on this idea - that the chickens are going to be my composters.

This video really helped me.

I have a MUCH smaller garden than this lucky fellow, but I just took his principles and replicated them on a smaller scale. I may get round to posting pictures one day, when we’re finished, if there is interest anyhoo

In the chicken run, we have included 2x compost piles, that the chickens can’t access. One of these may be used for storing brown matter, to mix into the compost, such as bark clippings, wood shavings and poop from the coop, dried leaves etc. Or it may just be a second pile, at a different rate than the other one - time will tell!

There is also 1x large chicken scratch compost pile, which is where the compost will start it’s journey and the chickens will have a blast. All our kitchen scraps (minus toxic things), grass cuttings, weeds etc will be dumped here for the chickens to pick through and add their golden nuggets to. Once it’s been turned a lot and got nearly full, we will take 3/4 of it, and fill an empty pile, out of the chickens way where it can finish composting.

We have also built a large raised bed, where we will grow chicken food. They will periodically be allowed to roam the garden, supervised, but any vegetables I plant will need protecting and they won’t be allowed to get into my small wild flower garden, as I don’t want them eating the seeds which will be next years bloom.

Our chickens are just wee eggs atm! So we haven’t used it in practise yet. But their food bed is growing nicely, and the compost pile is getting nice and full already I can’t wait to see them scratching about in it!


This video was also a goldmine of info - how to include seeds into the compost to encourage the chickens to scratch in it, how to make your pathways work with composting, etc - but the video I shared above was what captured my vision, but I will still incorporate elements of this guys design. Hope they help you - sharing them as I am a visual person, and sometimes seeing it really does help more than words, for me anyway