Chicken Compost - Winter Run Fix for HOT compost

www.edibleacres.org
We're moving towards winter in a real way. In this video Sasha and I focus on getting the initial steps put together to prep our 'winter run' for our lovely hens. We're getting pathways freshened with dry leaves, banking a whole bunch of active compost and soaked grain to begin the sprouting process, and organizing the 'flow' system of the composting line for winter production.
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Happy growing!

[@jhehn3]

Come for the permaculture tips, stay for the chicken TV

[@hbrws813]

That is THE BEST pitchfork on earth. We have two. Not all pitchforks are created equal; this one is the workhorse.

[@fourdayhomestead2839]

This is the best composting system I've ever seen. Happy chicken ladies enjoying fresh warm food & work to keep them busy.

[@dirtpatcheaven]

Love this! I put my poultry in our greenhouse but it is such a challenge to keep the hens in it and stay warm. They want to go out in the general areas and then it is painful to watch them as they shiver. Thank you for sharing.

[@edibleacres]

Having the cattle panel tunnel being only a few feet from the coop has been super helpful in 'coaxing' them out to it. That, and if they want to eat they need to get over there! (when it is super cold we put soaked grain or cooked meat/stew in the coop with greens for the oldest ladies who aren't willing to venture out.) They get used to it and then start to really enjoy over time.

[@MartinaSchoppe]

chicken paradise!

[@justinp1773]

So interesting to see how this system has evolved over the years through your old videos.. thanks for sharing!

[@edibleacres]

Our pleasure!

[@GrimbolTheDruid]

Wow so crazy! I just realized that Sasha and I have the same coat! My Grandpa gave it to me years ago and it’s probably the best coat I own still. 🙏🙏🙏

[@DE2borknot2b]

A bit late in commenting but wow! I'm so grateful for your knowledge. Husband & I are planning on getting chickens soon & I'm trying to learn all I can. Your techniques work. Thank you!

[@daysiq.8279]

I found your system, I love it! I'm trying to see if I can set up a similar system for my girls. I'm trying to build a permaculture/food forest garden from scratch, and this system you have going is 'gold' to me. Thank you very much for sharing with us.🙏🕉️🙏🕉️

[@jeffskinner1226]

Yep, winter's here. My only solace is after work huddling in a corner of my room with a hot meal and thinking about spring.

[@nymbeats]

I imagine that eggs are a major part of your diet, but I don't think I've ever heard you guys talk about how you eat them. by now, you must have gotten pretty inventive with egg recipes. I'd love to hear about that.

[@edibleacres]

You'd think by now we have 200 different ways we cook them... BUT, we're happy to have pretty straight forward eggs each day. We generally eat around 4-6 eggs a day and then share the rest with friends and family, so the end up getting used. In the summer we get enough excess that we can donate 12 dozen eggs every few weeks to a local food bank, so that feels good :)

[@rustedoakhomestead]

I love how thoughtfully your systems constantly evolve year after year.

[@johnshawngrubb4675]

Perfect timing since we’re putting ours up this week! Thanks from your friends from Texas❤️

[@allonesame6467]

--O-O-- Oooo, a dust bath would be so wonderful! Blessings Abound! Especially if you are Happy Hen at Sasha & Sean's.

[@jimmybritt9537]

They are some pretty girls and all eager to help . You two seem to have a good plan , good luck and stay warm this winter 🤗👍👍🇺🇸

[@MadeWhileMedicated]

Love the show can’t wait to watch more, makes me want to get some hens! Your giving me all kinds of ideas thank you.

[@baronbakoua5514]

those chicken seem to enjoy an happy life

[@edibleacres]

We would like to hope we are offering them a life they enjoy.

[@etruedus]

You guys are my favorite channel!

[@rachelo3548]

I love, love, love your chicken composting videos!

[@edibleacres]

Glad you like them!

[@forgottenforest1]

Excellent work my friend. We haven't had any snow yet very Dry and warm winter so far for us

[@TheFarmDream]

Those chickens look happy! Great solution for the scraps 👌🏻😁

[@SteadfastTrailFarm]

Wonderful set up! What wonderful veggies you will be growing 2021! Chickens are great helpers on the homestead!! ~jc

[@jessewerner2119]

One mans leaves is another mans sidewalk.

[@pinksnorlx]

Fantastic. Beautifully thought out

[@edibleacres]

Thanks for the kind words!

[@HomevertHomesteader]

Hi Sean - new here. Been binging your content on chickens over the last 2 weeks and if I may say it's simply genius what you and Sasha have accomplished. Got a question: How big is your chicken run - like the entire space with the composting alley and everything? Asking because, I'm going to move next year to a new place and will have space/garden of about 5400 sq ft or 500 m2 - not super big but want to integrate chickens and a permaculture system similar to yours with about 10 hens, to begin with as I'm quite new at livestock management. Thank you for sharing your work with us - really inspired to start making biochar. Stay safe and looking forward to hearing from you. All the best.

[@permiebird937]

Congratulations on you new place. Check out the YT channel "Parkrose Permaculture" she has her food forest sectioned into 3 areas for chicken/duck runs where she can plan when her birds are in what run to protect near ripe fruit, and to give each run a chance to regrow.. It's a way to stack functions and maximize use of space.

[@edibleacres]

Yay, welcome to our community! Our chicken run in total is less than 1/10th of an acre, with I would say around 1/4 of that being committed to the actual composting system directly, the rest of the space being the coop, trees, plantings, high tunnel for crops, etc. Not very much space but pretty darn productive overall. We had no training or ideas coming into it, just fumbled along as we went and let it evolve over time, I'm sure you are going to do an amazing job!

[@HomevertHomesteader]

@@edibleacres Thank you, this is very useful, and really appreciate the entire community pitching in support and advice. Really excited about my next steps into the regenerative way of growing food as medicine and doing it in harmony with nature not against her. You guys are a real role model for me and my wife. Thank you again and keep it up - I'm only 1/4 through all your videos and really excited of what I'll learn next. Stay safe ;)

[@HomevertHomesteader]

@HoboGardenerBen Thank you for your great message - really useful and encouraging. I'm really pumped about how much food well be able to grow- that's the size my grandma's garden used to be and she was able to grow, preserve, can, and feed all her family of 4 kids, and loads of animals around the homestead, from that space all her life - this is why we chose this specific size for our first adventure into growing food and farming. Also - we wouldn't be able to manage more as were very new to this - only been growing some fruit and veg in the city now in some diy planters we made from pallet wood scraps. But that got us going and hopefully, at some point in the future, we'll get a larger property to really get a bit more self-sufficient and prepared. I'll look into everything you mentioned - thank you again and all the best.

[@HomevertHomesteader]

@@permiebird937 Thank you very much for taking time to help out. I will look into this channel as it sounds great what they are doing there, and talking about staking functions and maximizing space, this is exactly what I'm gathering info on now. Really want to build that soil and grow a lot of our food at the same time with the help of livestock. The rules over there are that the only animals I can have on that piece of land are chickens, rabbits, and pigeons - hence the interest in this channel but for a beginner that's more than enough. In time and with this experience we'll move to a larger piece of land and get into large animals like cows, pig, other birds etc. Thank you again for the kind words and great wishes. All the best to you and your loved ones. Mike.

[@barrypetejr5655]

My chickens would be laying eggs in them 3 crates holding down the plastic. Lol. Got the post ready for my new chicken yard...get right at in the spring and have really efficient compost pipeline like yours😊

[@quitemountainwoman1592]

Excellent excellent information 👍 Thank you.

[@dorisschmitten5276]

Looks so good!

[@deewormsvermicomposting]

Looks beautiful!

[@fiskfarm]

I've been raising chickens for about 50 years now and this is the best idea ever. We have our 24x24' gh for our food and very soon I will build one for our chickens. Great idea👍😎👌

[@edibleacres]

So glad you find it useful.

[@infinateU]

WOW, amazingly beautiful intro.

[@edibleacres]

Glad you like it!

[@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture]

Excellent video as always. I really envy you having such a good carbon source! Free sources for carbon are very scarce in our area. We've planted thousands of willow to be self sufficient for woodchip, but it'll take a long time of course. I've just started construction of a greenhouse for chicken winter quarters that'll be a tomato house in summer.

[@edibleacres]

It's great you are growing your own! We've found Miscanthus grass, once it gets established, is a pretty amazing source of carbon as well.

[@nymbeats]

I never thought I'd spend my thirties hauling carbon, but now it's all I want to do. in another video, you emphasized bulking carbon under the food scraps, and you're absolutely right. the cold temps in NC immediately necessitated bigger, thicker piles vs the more plentiful smaller piles I was working with in the summer.

[@edibleacres]

It's really rewarding in a lot of ways. You'd think I'd be tired of it after 15 years of it, but somehow collecting piles of organic material is pretty much always fun!

[@christineortmann359]

The hens look happy

[@antiowarr9467]

Really good system, every one benefits.. chicken do what they do best turn material, eat bugs and produce and crap, compost making birds and they love there job also. lol Keeping every thing going all winter is skillful on your part, a lot of people can learn from this and also have very good eggs to boot. lol Cheers guys...

[@ingridskitchengarden]

Happy hens

[@Nick-vl7lk]

It really is insane how much free leaf mulch there is out there. I got 300 or so bags this year. Don't like seeing that white stuff on the ground though. Hoping to hold off as long as possible here on the West coast. Its looking good.

[@edibleacres]

That is a huge number, good for you!

[@fallenangelwi25]

I still love this

[@edibleacres]

So do we :)

[@angewels]

Where do you get all those wonderful scraps?

[@lindakurtz2653]

I modified this idea to my context- I took my daughters (now 15) climbing structure (one of those half circle metal geodesic thingy's), put it in the chicken run, started a pile of compostables in it and covered it with plastic. My girls have a warmish non-coop place to get out of the weather and create compost for me all winter long. I have fall leaves stored up that I create a path from the coop to the hoop so the ladies aren't tempted to stay in the coop. I've been surprised by how many resources I have on my

[@edibleacres]

Thank you for the note on the back health, I will look into it... Great system you are evolving out there it seems like!

[@chafouincatnip5648]

I'd be like Sasha, working the pitchfork and staying warm :) rather that being the camera-person :)

[@edibleacres]

She can move some compost!

[@kassandra344]

5 star chicken home! 🌟

[@MarcoPolo-yt3ew]

Hi very good video have you heard the history of Biochar yet for gardening

[@edibleacres]

We love integrating biochar into our composting system!

[@ClimateChanged2020]

You are very fortunate to be getting all of that food waste. I'm curious as to where you are getting it. It's a lot of food waste but I know it's going to good hands

[@edibleacres]

Somehow even with all the craziness in the world there is still a huge amount of food waste out there. We have a few sources we pick from which helps keep the inputs coming.

[@ClimateChanged2020]

@@edibleacres it's an awesome opportunity and the end result is no food really wasted 👍

[@francismeowgannou5322]

Early bird gets the scraps!

[@EstebanZavalaF]

thank you! i have few weeks wanted to ask you your calcium supply, and is exactly what i was going to buy... good to know :)

[@colinmcgee5931]

How long has Sasha been working for you? :) Seriously, we don't have a large chicken area like yours, but I was able to back our chicken tractor up to one of the compost bins to give our ladies access to the half-finished compost. They were in chicken heaven! I had a hard time persuading them to go back to their coop for sleep time. Thanks for the inspiration.

[@edibleacres]

Chickens should always have access to compost, it just makes life more good!

[@krisyallowega5487]

Great to see you two; I hope you are both keeping well. So I was chatting with my dear ol' Dad last night and he was mentioning how he had to get dress to go and turn the lights down, then off for the chickens to call it a day. He told me that they needed the light to work a longer day but not too long as they would keep going for 24 hrs. I am wondering if you had ever thought of any artificial lighting to keep the girls working a little longer? As the days are quite short and the compost keeps arriving. I would like to get both of your perspectives or you may both have the same outlook. Keep well and I look forward to your reply

[@edibleacres]

We tried adding additional light to help them lay more in the winter, but realized it seemed stressful on them, and their bodies need to be more in sync with whats actually happening with weather and sun access, so we quit doing that and haven't looked back.

[@renaissancewomanfarm9175]

Good morning Sean. As always you are giving me ideas. As watching you move about in the space of your hoop ouse, I bought that it looked about the same size as my chicken yard annex so that there probably wouldn't be room for a hoop house....but wait!... why not just turn the annex itself into a greenhouse! Hurray! I just need to put some 2x's on the top as spanners to hold up the plastic and I'll be cooking with gas! You have been doing tis for awhile now, so would you say that the performance of the hoop house would be improved if you put some of the leaf bags around the exterior base of the hoop house? Or would the ladies just get into them too much?

[@edibleacres]

Not sure if I 100% visualize what you are describing, but I'm sure it'll develop beautifully... performance of a hoop house in a cold climate would be improved with insulation around the bottom/outside. The only concern is if you get a very heavy snow it may bank up against the structure in a funky way and push it in to collapse from the side, so something to be aware of / watch for. If you start simple and low cost, and ideally with re-purposed materials you'll figure it all out beautifully I'm sure...

[@renaissancewomanfarm9175]

@@edibleacres I wish I had a way of sending photos to you. Then I could put arrows on problem areas and see what you think of that issue. LOL

[@VagabondAnne]

How many chickens do you have? I am in California with the legally allowed 4 hens, and the situation s obviously different! But we do have fall leaves and I am able to get grocery store”trim”, and I did just attach a cattle panel greenhouse of sorts to their coop ( mostly to keep dry the soil that has a bamboo invasion I am trying dig out, now getting the chickens to dig out) Watching you for big ideas!

[@edibleacres]

We have around 60 hens at this point. Will probably harvest a number of them over the winter and have around 30 going into spring I think...

[@kinoaks4498]

Do you save the extra leaf bags? If so, what would you use them for?

[@permiebird937]

Leaf bags are great for sheet mulching.

[@grantraynard]

Where do you get you hens? You have such a diverse colour group

[@edibleacres]

We got 25 black australorps 6 years ago that are still in our crew! The rest are completely random hens from random craigslist offerings over the years :)

[@CorwynGC]

12:24 You found Chicken Tarzan!

[@MistressOP]

i think you might have more fun with these videos in winter chicken stuff. Then the normal part of the year.

[@edibleacres]

I think you might be right. It's more of a challenge for sure.

[@forgottenforest1]

Do you guys ever hold your chickens??

[@candidethirtythree4324]

How many chickens do you have now? How many eggs do you get this time of year?

[@edibleacres]

We have around 60 hens at this point. Will probably harvest a number of them over the winter and have around 30 going into spring I think... We get around 1 dozen eggs per day, we have no supplemental light and our hens are quite old overall...

[@stephanyandres5968]

Where do you get extra garden scraps or "grocery trim"?

[@nymbeats]

if there is a food bank near you, they throw out lots of imperfect vegetable, bread, and meat.

[@edibleacres]

Just got 2 big bags of soft bread from our local food bank yesterday...

[@susanquinlan7426]

Does anyone eat the birds? What happens to them eventually?

[@MistressOP]

any chance you might start a compost chicken breeding program?

[@edibleacres]

Doesn't seem to be a need... We have gotten a bunch of chickens from MANY different backgrounds and situations. For the most part, they all seem to 'get it' and become involved in the process. Feels like great news to us: most/all chickens can get on board with this system.

[@l1ttl3h3l3n]

I am curious as to whether or not all that food scraps laying around is drawing in rats and or mice? I was always having issues with that an my chickens food scrap.

[@edibleacres]

Sometimes they come along, but they have never been a real issue. I miss when rats came in the past, because they mainly burrowed under the pile and would help immensely with aeration!

[@kevywevy84]

My grower feed sprouts in the hen's compost pile, but they don't seem to care about or eat the sprouts. Any ideas why?

[@edibleacres]

Ours can take different times to come to them. Sometimes they aren't in the 'mood' for greens, other times they hammer it. If there is enough diversity of options it is a safe bet that it all gets enjoyed at some point.

[@flatsville1]

How is your drop off in egg production through the winter?

[@edibleacres]

Pretty substantial. We have mainly older hens, and don't use extra light so you can imagine! But with around 60-ish hens we are getting a little under 1 dozen eggs a day, give or take. Rough numbers if we were having this be an income stream, but excellent for home needs and with the compost as a yield it really works.

[@tesaresa360]

We found that our egg production goes way up in the winter when we give the hens some leafy alfalfa hay or scoop up the leaves that fall off at the base of our hay bales when feeding the goats. A Dr told me that people would not have fertility problems if they ate more greens. After watching how much it helped the egg production for the hens, I believe it!

[@SettieSpaghetti]

What is the heavy duty plastic and where can you buy it?

[@edibleacres]

The poly we use over our winter run is 6mil UV stabilized greenhouse plastic. We get it for free from local farms getting rid of old greenhouse plastic. I talk about it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rpS1f4Z_i91sb7M

[@SettieSpaghetti]

@@edibleacres thank you

[@abelationgorgoro2162]

Makes the pretty girl do all the hard work.

[@edibleacres]

We both do the hard work, we take turns :)

[@badajoma]

does the D.earth affect the compost microbes?

[@composthappens1400]

It does not harm microbial life. I use it for my chickens and on veggie plants to. Another thing to try is adding it to seed starting mix along with rock dust.

[@badajoma]

@@composthappens1400 great to know as I've use it in their feed & in chook coop area😁

[@PatoxMaia]

Awesome work, Sascha! How come Sascha is doing all the heavy lifting?!

[@edibleacres]

Cuz she's super strong!

[@beaushug]

How do you handle rodents?

[@zachlloyd9392]

Awesome stuff. Where do y'all get your leaf bags? Do you go rake up the leaves yourself or collect them from others who have placed them on the street? [edit] Found your video on it from a year ago kzbin.info/www/bejne/baW0pqZviraNhaM [/edit]

[@seabuckthorniran1]

You can say that again

[@jonathanavice8052]

This channel is interesting but pls show us the economic side of things I'd like to do something like that but how much money do you make and time consumption? Because time is money these days.

[@victoriaperman5917]

🙋‍♀️💜🌟💕

[@olgakuchukov6981]

I think you could provide excellent permaculture therapy to humans! It’s a permaculture consultation with a little extra informed compassion and informed supportive listening. Because, to me and I cannot imagine I am alone - homesteading, permaculture, ecological gardening, regenerative farming is an undertaking within a wholistic milieu of all the pertinent issues of our day and the urgency, sensitivity, nee despair, some of us feel while doing the work, which by its nature, is experimental and subjective and personal. Bla bla. Everyone is responding to the natural tones of your voice, Sean. You got that something that makes a great therapist, dare I say it. I’ll be your first client, if I may be so presumptuous.

[@edibleacres]

Really appreciate this comment, Olga. I like the idea that these videos can just be freely available to anyone who finds them useful in the way you've described. Maybe we can focus on some content that is more oriented towards this theme, to help folks remember to be gentle with themselves and stick with it, and ride the crazy waves of all this work... We'll keep this more in mind as we make more videos, and thanks for being part of our community :)

[@benneb663]

it's kinda funny, that chickens are so funny. eh? praise jah!