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We waste practically zero organic waste. We have chickens which eat our waste food, which is minimal in itself. What they don't eat becomes compost n about thre

by pard68 7y ago

We waste practically zero organic waste. We have chickens which eat our waste food, which is minimal in itself. What they don't eat becomes compost n about three months time. We eat the eggs, approximately ten a day, and use the compost to grow food in our yard most of the year. All of this is on a .25 acre of land in a downtown setting.

scruple 7y ago
I really want to get into a place where I can keep chickens and bees. I'd love to learn more about your set up, if you're willing to share.
- pard68 7y ago
  Sure! Our run is about 20'x30' with a 8'x4' coop in one corner. The perimeter of the run has a 6" post every 6' that stands 10' high. The top of all the posts are connected by a metal wire. On this wire we have plastic fencing (same gridded stuff that is used for construction, but dark green instead of construction orange) for the "roof" of the run. The sides are two types of fence. From ground to top is chicken wire fencing. This is strictly to discourage the hens from getting out. And the bottom 5' has very thick gauged wire fencing as well, which keeps predators out (though living in the downtown of a city that is just dogs really, and most dogs around us don't care because lots of people have chickens where we live). The compost system is setup so that there are four, 4'x4'x4' compost areas next to one another (constructed with pallets). Every three months we change which compost pile gets new material added to it. We mostly let the chickens do all the work of turning, and once a week we just go and throw everything back into the pile. It takes about 12 months for a pile to be ready to go, so we get a new 4'x4'x4' pile of compost every three months or so (I said 3 month turn around in my previous post, I was thinking of every three months we change piles, not ready compost every three months). Because we take so long to compost and because we have chickens that do much of the work of digesting, we compost everything we can. Normal stuff like vegetables and leaves, but also all our food, including bones and meat and sugars. There is a deer carcass in one of my piles right now, by the time we dug out that pile most of the bones will be dust, the skull will be pretty much the only thing left over. We never see any issues with bad germs in our compost because we let it cook so long and let the chickens eat the stuff that most people say not to compost (and birds have titanium stomachs). We use old and bad hay/straw from my wife's clients (she's a farrier and horse trainer) as the "browns" in the compost, which makes up the bulk of the matter in there.
  - scruple 7y ago
    That sounds incredible and you've given me quite a bit of food for thought with how to better utilize smaller spaces. I knew the birds had iron stomachs but never thought for a second that they could be so productive with a compost pile. Thanks for sharing!
kendallpark 7y ago
One of the perks of owning a rabbit is that we rarely have to worry about fresh produce going bad. The rabbit eats all the scraps from our own cooking (stems, carrot tops, etc) and any surplus veggies we happened to buy. It's wonderful because our fridge is always full of veggies.
- pard68 7y ago
  Yes, we have rabbits, turtles,and lizards that help out with eating food as well.

by pard68 7y ago

scruple 7y ago

I really want to get into a place where I can keep chickens and bees. I'd love to learn more about your set up, if you're willing to share.

pard68 7y ago
Sure! Our run is about 20'x30' with a 8'x4' coop in one corner. The perimeter of the run has a 6" post every 6' that stands 10' high. The top of all the posts are connected by a metal wire. On this wire we have plastic fencing (same gridded stuff that is used for construction, but dark green instead of construction orange) for the "roof" of the run. The sides are two types of fence. From ground to top is chicken wire fencing. This is strictly to discourage the hens from getting out. And the bottom 5' has very thick gauged wire fencing as well, which keeps predators out (though living in the downtown of a city that is just dogs really, and most dogs around us don't care because lots of people have chickens where we live). The compost system is setup so that there are four, 4'x4'x4' compost areas next to one another (constructed with pallets). Every three months we change which compost pile gets new material added to it. We mostly let the chickens do all the work of turning, and once a week we just go and throw everything back into the pile. It takes about 12 months for a pile to be ready to go, so we get a new 4'x4'x4' pile of compost every three months or so (I said 3 month turn around in my previous post, I was thinking of every three months we change piles, not ready compost every three months). Because we take so long to compost and because we have chickens that do much of the work of digesting, we compost everything we can. Normal stuff like vegetables and leaves, but also all our food, including bones and meat and sugars. There is a deer carcass in one of my piles right now, by the time we dug out that pile most of the bones will be dust, the skull will be pretty much the only thing left over. We never see any issues with bad germs in our compost because we let it cook so long and let the chickens eat the stuff that most people say not to compost (and birds have titanium stomachs). We use old and bad hay/straw from my wife's clients (she's a farrier and horse trainer) as the "browns" in the compost, which makes up the bulk of the matter in there.
- scruple 7y ago
  That sounds incredible and you've given me quite a bit of food for thought with how to better utilize smaller spaces. I knew the birds had iron stomachs but never thought for a second that they could be so productive with a compost pile. Thanks for sharing!

kendallpark 7y ago

One of the perks of owning a rabbit is that we rarely have to worry about fresh produce going bad. The rabbit eats all the scraps from our own cooking (stems, carrot tops, etc) and any surplus veggies we happened to buy. It's wonderful because our fridge is always full of veggies.

pard68 7y ago
Yes, we have rabbits, turtles,and lizards that help out with eating food as well.