Monthly Archives: June 2012

Compost In The Chicken Run

Problem 1:  Chickens need to get plenty of fresh air and exercise. They need soft dirt to scratch in. They do best on a varied diet that includes greens and bugs. In the summer they need shade and cool earth to lie in. But, I can’t let my hens out to free-range unless I’m watching because of hawks that live nearby. So, for much of the day my chickens are confined to a packed-dirt pen. It’s not optimum.

Problem 2:  Every day, I fill a bucket with scraps from my kitchen endeavors. There are onion peels, stale bread and carrot scrapings, coffee grinds and desiccated oranges. Some of it the chickens eat (like tomato cores) and some they don’t (like banana peels.) If I toss it all to the hens, the entire run would soon be a mess of molding food. How to feed the chickens the worthwhile bits without sorting through these dregs? I don’t want to have two compost buckets on my kitchen counter. I have other stuff to compost, too, including weeds and damaged vegetables from the garden, and the muck and trampled on hay from the goat stall. There’s a lot of material from different sources, but I don’t want to fuss with it. I want one easy pile.

Two problems, one solution: build a compost bin in the chicken run. The hens will eat what they like, and shred everything else into little bits. In the summer it becomes a cool, damp respite from the heat. In the winter I use my judgement. If there’s snow cover I don’t put the compost out. It only works if the hens are able to get in it and scratch. You don’t want it to become pile of frozen garbage. But, there are plenty of days in the winter when the hens are happy to have compost to work in. All year long, this method of turning waste into compost is barely any effort for me – the chickens do all of the work of mincing the material and turning it over. Soon enough, it decomposes, shrinks in size, and it turns into good garden soil.

Since I have separate flocks of hens in two barns, I have two compost piles. In the Little Barn’s run there’s an area off to the side of the coop that was easy to turn into a compost heap. I’ve put a sturdy piece of fencing blocking it off, but left openings on both sides. The two exits ensure that the hens don’t get trapped in a corner or bullied and the fencing keeps the compost from being kicked by chicken feet into the rest of the run.

In the Big Barn run, using metal fence posts and chicken wire, we built a compost that forms the letter C. It’s round shape keeps the hens from getting hassled by aggressors. The girls go in and out easily, and yet it keeps the materials contained so that the rest of the run stays tidy. I’ve tried bins made from pallets, but the hens liked roosting on top and then escaping out of the pen. They don’t like to sit on thin chicken wire.

As I mentioned, I throw just about everything in the pile. I put in leftovers that are no longer edible by people. Once in awhile a moldy strawberry goes in the mix. Chickens are fussy and I haven’t had a problem with  them over-indulging in questionable foods. The one thing not  to feed hens is avocado, which is lethal! Also, go easy on the carbohydrates, like bread and pasta. Too much of that and their calcium and protein balance will go off and you’ll find soft-shelled eggs (not to mention fat hens.) I’m also cautious about tough, long veggies, like leek ends, and big chunks of bread that the chickens can choke on. I also avoid foods that they won’t eat right up and that attract vermin, like bones and grease. This is not the pile that I put the manure in. I have a separate system for that described in this FAQ.
It doesn’t take the hens long to shred all of the material, even what they don’t eat, into fine bits. Soon it becomes dark, rich earth. As the pile rises, I dig in and take the loam to the garden. It’s an easy system, and everyone benefits.

Who Gets The Dill

Every springtime I plant dill, but it’s been years since I’ve harvested any. I plant dill in pots near the kitchen door, which are filled with a mixture of edible flowers, like nasturtiums, herbs and some blooms that are there just to look at. The pots are meant to be useful and pretty.

I’d like to snip the dill and use it, but I never do, because right when it’s ready to be harvested, this appears:

It’s a nest of larva, and what lives inside is this:

There are bright red spots on it’s sides.

It’s a voracious eater, and it especially likes dill. Soon it will make a chrysalis, and then transform itself into this:

A Painted Lady butterfly

(I didn’t take this photo, as the caterpillar is still munching away on my carefully planted pots. Photo courtesy of this site.)

This is the first year that I’ve seen Painted Lady caterpillars. Usually the dill is found by the Monarch caterpillars, which are very fond to it (and parsley) and beautiful in all stages. The Painted Lady caterpillar on my flowers hasn’t eaten all of the dill, so perhaps other caterpillars will be along later this month. I hope so. I’ve planted plenty of dill for all of them.

Chicken Manure Management

Chickens poop. A lot. Each one of your hens will produce about a quarter pound of manure a day, which according to one source, is 1 cubic foot every six months (I haven’t measured it myself!) Birds don’t pee. Everything that they excrete comes out in one large plop. It’s big, bulky and smelly. It is also a potential carrier of disease and internal parasites, and is a medium that all sorts of unpleasant bugs, such as flies, want to live and breed in. Chicken manure is 75% water and is very high in nitrogen. As the nitrogen decomposes, it gives off ammonia gas. Using dry and absorbent bedding, and having a well-ventilated coop is the first piece of the management plan to keep your hens healthy and living in an environment that is a pleasure for you and the chickens to be in.

The next part of the plan is manure removal. I like using pine shavings as bedding because it dries out the manure and can be sifted through. Hay and straw is not absorbent and becomes wet and matted. I use shavings in the nesting boxes and on the floor. If a hen poops in the nesting box, it’s easy to clean out using a kitty litter scoop. I do this daily. I might also use the scoop if I see a big pile on the floor.

Once a week I go into the coop and, using a fine-tined pitchfork, sift through the shavings, removing the manure. You won’t get all of it, as some will already be dried and broken into tiny bits, but you’ll be able to get the bulk out.

Most of the manure will accumulate under the roosts. Some coops are designed to have “poop boards” where the manure lands, and is untrodden on by the hens. That manure should be scraped off of the boards daily.

Once the manure is removed, if necessary, I add some fresh bedding. Chickens shred everything into tiny bits and eventually both the shavings and manure will turn into fine dust. If you can feel this dust when you breathe, it’s an unhealthy environment for both you and the hens. The dust will coat everything in the barn and will harbor bacteria. So, every few months I shovel everything out and start fresh. By the way, it’s said that cedar shavings give off fumes that are bad for animals. Other woods are okay, although not widely available,  but if you have a woodshop, you can use most other shavings. However, the pine is the most absorbent and safest for your birds.

Since my chickens are confined to dirt pens, those need to be cleaned, too. I use a flexible metal rake to gather what manure I can, and shovel it up. It’s important to keep the dirt in the run dry. Adding coarse builders sand (sold in bags at lumber yards) will improve drainage, and the hens love to dust bathe in it.

I keep a compost pile in the chicken run. I put kitchen scraps, weeds and leaves in it, but I don’t include the manure. Internal parasites, like roundworms and tapeworms, shed eggs and/or body parts in the chicken manure, that then require intermediary hosts to survive.  These hosts are usually insects, like dark wing beetles, that live in damp, dark places near the chickens. By removing the manure front the pen, I’ve stopped the cyle. I’ve never had to worm my hens. I run fecal samples so know that I have never had a problem.

Chicken manure cannot be put directly onto your garden as it will “burn” your plants. Also, you don’t want to put it fresh onto vegetables as it might carry salmonella or e. Coli.  However, although it starts out noxious, when composted, chicken poop ends up as dark loamy earth. There’s a lot of advice about how to take care of compost, which all seems complicated and time-consuming.  I’m a lazy composter and I don’t want to turn piles of manure or pay attention to it. Also, I have dogs who would relish the chance to roll in chicken poop, so I need a method that keeps it out of the way. What I came up with is cheap and tidy. I use plastic garbage cans that have been thrown out because their bottoms cracked. I cut off the ends, and put the trash cans near my vegetable patch. I add the manure and the shavings, and also, once in awhile, dead leaves and discarded greens.

As the manure dries out and the mass shrinks, I add more material. Even in the winter, when the compost is frozen, I keep topping it off. Once it is full, I let it sit for at least six months. It will go from this:

To this:

This manure is very rich, and high in nitrogen and calcium. It’s terrific straight on my bare pumpkin patch that has anemic soil, and mixed into the dirt of my vegetable and flower beds. Nine years ago I started gardening on this property that was mostly granite gravel and poor soil. Now my flower beds look like this, thanks to the girls and their manure.

 

Coop Design

Before there were round hay bales wrapped in white plastic, and before there were rectangular bales held together with twine, there was loose hay. Piles of it. For the fortunate farmer with acres of fields, there was the problem of what to do with the bounty. Not compacted into bales, it didn’t all fit in a barn. Some hay was left in the fields. It was rained and snowed on and there were losses, but the mounds were constructed in a certain way, and most of the hay would remain good through the winter.

As long as the farmer had to pile the hay outside anyway, some of it could be layered onto the chicken houses. It was insulating. It provided fodder for the flock, not to mention, I’m sure, a wealth of bugs to scratch for. Eventually the hay would be fed to the hoofed animals and the chickens would be slaughtered for meat. And then the fields would green up again.