Super excited to be able to tell you, about my find this afternoon. I love your composting system and try to copy it , as best as I can. Today we visited our daughter and her family. Out the front of their house was a tree, loosing it's leave. I came home with a big black bag, full of leaves the tree has dropped. Bag will be staying in the car for the next visit. Our compost bay I run in the chook run, was emptied again , into 2 raised beds. I just wanted to let you know, you are making an impact in my backyard with my gardening practices. Thank you. Blessings from Australia ❤️
I never miss a vid and watch many of them over and over, have a fondness for the chickens for some reason it just feels right to have chickens on a property for many reasons things seem to work better all around. Just look at the soil production being done and I bet the eggs are tasty and it would just make me feel good using that compost to fuel the soil to grow what ever I was growing to grow. These things would make a man and or woman just feel right about life....to work hard and see the reward for ur hard work would make any persons sleep restful! Cheers
You have been so consistent in sharing thoughtful, supportive and positive words Antio! Really appreciate your presence in our growing community, you are a very sweet and genuine person :)
16:30 "To a lot of folks this may look like a trash pile". Well, those of us who understand this stuff, know that nature doesn't do "trash". That's an entirely human creation. All the stuff there is soil in it's infancy... with happy chickens on top. I think we can do a lot worse as humans. Thanks for all your work.
Really appreciate the supportive words here, thank you! Wait till you see the next iteration of this project.... reclaimed old greenhouse poly, an abandoned carport and some other side-o-the-road finds... Literally 98% trash, but it works really nicely! So fun to build systems based on waste streams.
I do my best to mimic your processes. I still have a long way to go, but the success has been amazing. My girls have created a huge amount of compost in six months. I cannot thank you enough.
We finally found a restaurant that would give us food scraps twice a week (along with the grain I throw in to sprout) and now the "too much carbon" pile is starting to break down nicely. It was too late for worms but we're going to start building up our worm populations when it gets a bit warmer. Watching your videos is a big help.
So awesome your system is developing and deepening!!! Love to read things like this and know more of us out there are integrating composting with chickens!
I have watched your channel forever, and I am *so* excited about the carport idea for the chicken run! You'd think it was for my own chicken yard. I wonder if you could reuse your cattle panels on the sides of the carport, as a way to allow structure for plants for them to eat in the growing season? This is exciting!!
You’ve really inspired me to reach out to the local waste streams. Currently I collect food nearly daily from 3 local restaurants. Lots of Romaine, brussel sprouts, rice, beans,spinach and even occasional Salmon 😀 My compost consists the food scraps (what’s leftover from my 40+ hens) leaves, grass clippings and lots of wood chips. Since chickens are so destructive to lawns I’m doing deep mulch using wood chips through my chicken yard. It’s nice to just dump wheel barrow loads in the yard and let the hens spread it all out. I haven’t inoculated either worms however since starting my compost in early summer I’ve discovered an abundance of Asian Jumping worms, they dwell towards the surface like red wigglers but they have moved right into our compost system and I am grateful. I’m currently trying to find some grain that I can buy or barter from local farmers.
I've heard some bad things about asian jumping worms, perhaps introduce some worms from uncle jims worm farm to compete with them Increased diversity of worms might help prevent a monoculture.
We see Jumping Worms in our systems sometimes... They are challenging in the annual gardens for sure but are amazing nutrient movers. If you can add red wigglers into the mix in protected areas to let their populations increase that could have some real value for sure... Sounds like a great system you are evolving there, wow!
@@farwoodfarm9296 hi how is it going with introducing diverse earthworms and which ones have you found that CAN compete with jumping worms (JWs)? I’ve got em, many years now, and am evolving a system of coexistence - chickens and ducks are key to achieving any type of balance. I do see European earthworms here and there, a minuscule amount compared to the JWs. The red wrigglers I find in my kitcheb scrao compost bin only (no JWs there strangely enough probably due to high N content and low C). When I find red wrigglers in bagged soil or outside I move them into the compost bin. Some years they survive a winter others not, seemingly. I’m curious how your system fared this summer. It was a drought year and the reproductive might of the JWs was much decreased. The cocoons are waiting for another wet year like 2021. Thanks!
@@olgakuchukov6981 The JW's are definitely still there, lots of Earth worms too though. I have a 55 Gallon barrel filled with Red Wigglers that I was able to barter for. My plan is to introduce them in spring and just inoculate my compost area with a few hundred under some Hardware cloth for a few week so the chickens don't dig them up right away. I was planning to do this over the summer but it was so dry and I had some other projects I was working on.
I should have written: so happy to see the system thriving (I have learned so much from your vids!) and I'm so happy, but not surprised, to see all the birds THRIVING. Thanks to you, S, and J for doing what you do and fostering learning/community on the tube!!
I would leave the plastic skin on the cattle panels and just build the carport over the top. Double layer of plastic -> warmer temps. Great video, as always :)
@@janew5351 that technique works for harvesting of Asian greens up here in zone 3/4 (no heat). It's close to the Eliot Colemans winter harvest technique.
I hear you, and that is compelling, but the idea would be about needing to have more total space for the composting system to function in so the cattle panel would need to go I think...
Always great to see how the chickens are doing and a nice reminder about how resilient they are in our similar climates. Really hoping to get our chickens set up this year. We already have started to put the infrastructures in place and have massive stashes of leaves at the ready.
A couple of thoughts on the carport frame - They need additional purlins to keep your cover from sagging under the snow load and holding greenhouse plastic on them is a bit challenging. I've used web strapping to create additional support rather than adding rigid purlins, and I feel that it works, but you need to run multiple lines You might consider wiring cattle panels onto the carport roof, since you have them ;) I look forward to seeing your creative utilization of the resource ;)
Always appreciate notes like this. I had suspicions it would need some more reinforcement, etc., especially in the spans between frame elements...Some mesh over top before the plastic makes a lot of sense... Thanks!
"Looks like a trash pile" lol..love that comment. One year I created a front yard pollinator garden using cardboard and newspaper as a base to top with compost, as the weeds here in Texas are titanium Inforced. Two little neighbors were walking by as I was doing this and I overheard one say to the other, " look at that lady putting all that trash in her front yard"! I had to smile..but immediately explained to them what it was for. What's that Ole saying...One man's trash... ;)
Can really hear the traffic. Not criticizing, just illustrates the effectiveness of your living wall when it is lush. That sled is a genius idea for moving loads. I carry 5 gallon buckets full of used bedding and/ or pine chips, garden foliage etc. the sled would make for a easier transport. Thanks! The girls are thriving and happy as usual 😁
Just a cheap old kids sled! I know they make 'farm' sleds out there but I've only worked with these and its just fine. Yeah, the road is SO much more noticeable in the winter :(
Would like to thank you for the very valuable information. I actually made deals with a couple of food pantries recently. I take all of there rotten produce and help them clean up each week. Now we have more food then we need for the chickens :) Looks like I'll be saving lots of money Thank you for the great information/ideas
Carports are extremely valuable frames. I got a large one for free and divided it in half and shortened the height. I have a greenhouse and chicken tractor built at very little cost. Also use a sled for moving my firewood! Great motivating content as usual man. Thank you for keeping the wheels turning in my head!
Thank you for sharing these great ideas for creating a well-integrated system. I, too, would choose good multiple purpose functionality any day over looks,, because it helps a homestead to keep on going.
Thanks you for sharing this! I have been researching on getting chickens in our very cold North Dakota climate. It is just me doing it, so all of this education is super helpful! Leaning and growing together!!
This gave me great ideas. If I can get a carport like you suggested it would be a great place to throw the summer / fall elements into in hopes of having a food source for the girls in the winter. I like the idea of maybe having one or two of these sites near the coop so they could be allowed to rest as you rotate the girls from site to site. We are currently moving carbon/rabbit poo out from under cages that hung under our solar panels. This is mounded where we add more nitrogen waste and feed/food scraps for the chickens to turn. We move these piles down towards the worm bins that are close to the chicken coop/rabbit hutches. When the bins are full for their processing times we move the excess into area outside the chicken pen when it's put into wired resting areas for a week to then follow the geoff lawton turning frequency. I really like your carport idea. These are truly long term infrastructure for fertility / fertility machines.
Loved the sled idea, was wondering how I was going to get bales of straw to my dry storage across a large expanse of snow, now I have my solution! Will also solve my soiled straw bedding transport to compost bin. Next year I will try a small version of your compost tunnel for winter with maybe no cover for the extreme heat summer months within the chicken run itself. I'm amazed you have so much seed sprout, rats, voles and mice get to everything for me here.
Sleds are miracles for snow... Lower lifting of weight, too! Saves the back a bit. In your climate you'd definitely want the poly to come off a winter run come summer. I think we'll do the same this year.
Hahaha Your chickens do the same as ours. They are so tame, and they know that you move stuff about, revealing goodies. And they don’t want to miss out. Fight for front row.lol love it.
Nice find on the car port! I want to get one of those to store wood chips to keep them dry over winter (for deep mulch bedding of our pigs and chickens). Would love to see a video with advice for finding so much material for composting like that. I have not been able to source any good, consistent sources yet outside of free leaf bags in the fall and some free pumpkins from time to time. It seems as if you get grocery/food scrapes somehow
Yeah, I also struggle to get the kind of "free stuff" that some people seem to get. I live in a rural area, and not too many people seem to see this stuff as waste. Personally, my plan is to further develop the infrastructure to make my property a yard waste drop-off site (get a nicer sign up by the road and create signage to indicate where people can drop stuff easily) and generally just keep plugging along. I assume my problem is that I just don't have much to give people yet, and so it's awkward to say, "Hey, you're just throwing that away--can I have it for free?" I'll feel much better when I can say, "Hey, you have some green space that isn't being used--can I plant something there in exchange for food scraps?" or something like that.
Every time I hear an American describe cold weather I have to stop and google what that would be in Celsius. "Single digits" is when our snow starts melting (1°C or up), "cold snap" is below -10 to -15°, or any ten or more degree drop within a day or so. It's been between 0 and -15° since Jan 1 so kind of a warm winter here so far, hoping Feb doesn't come with the -30, -40° weather we usually get here That said this is the only decent chicken/garden channel that gets similar temps so yall are saving my life up here
We get what I'd consider to be pretty cold winters, but surely there are MUCH colder places! Hopefully some of the ideas shared in these videos can still be useful to you!
Love this. After watching you for a few years now, we are adding a small self made coup(I made it already), a few hens from chicks, to our 12 by 24ish south facing garden to our home in Pittsburgh come spring. I like how you sprout the whole seed in a deep compost system. 🍄😃🌈🤙
Love the update. I can admit your so much smarter than I am. And I watch your channel all the time to see what your up too at certain time of the year. And your videos are always spot on to what I seem to be working on lol thanks from Pennsylvania
Nothing about smarter, not smarter... Just been experimenting for a while with this. I bet you have aspects in your life I could learn a huge amount from because that is where your focus is! We just have to all share more about what we're learning!
So happy to see an update on the compost, the worms, and lots of chicken footage! I am eager to see what the new car port structure will look like, I hope you can share the plans and building of that too.
I found your channel recently and find your explanations and ideas of all of the natural processes so interesting. So inspirational! Thanks for sharing!
That high tunnel would be higher, and could be wider if it was on top of a 3'-4' wall. It could hold more compost before the doorway gets to low. I'm sure you could salvage some wood pallets for free to make it as well. Just a thought.
Hello from Scotland. I love watching your chicken composting videos, especially seeing all your happy rehomed hens behaving just as hens should. Sadly, we cannot run a similar system here due to disease/biosecurity restrictions (it is illegal to feed food scraps to hens in the UK) and, at present all our hens are in 'flockdown' due to additional restrictions for avian flu. My entirely housed (until the flockdown is over) backyard hens have a big shed with composting litter, dust baths, perches. We add flower pots with grass and sprouted grains in daily, the hens eat the greenery -and the remaining soil gets added to their dust bath. All our food waste and chicken waste gets put through a hot bin composter (50 degrees C minimum) and the resulting cooked compost is home to thousands of red wigglers -the chickens get to attack that once well composted in the spring through autumn. But I bet our girls wish they could be outside and eating all those scraps like yours!
That's a great system, but sure looks like a lot of work. I have 3 passive compost piles and two small active ones where I feed the chickens scraps. They huddle in a big dog house that is sheltered by an easy-up to keep warm when it is cold or wet. I might try your cattle panel house next year if I can get an agreement w/ a local restaurant for veggie scraps.
I am always curious where you get the volume for your chickens. Is this coming from external sources like teh food scraps, or is all the straw and bean pods and things I see you turn over coming from the various nursery spaces? One huge challenge we always have with our compost is having enough input. We are on a fairly small urban lot so there's just generally not a lot to input (particularly brown) outside of fall.
TONS of leaf bags, like hundreds and hundreds if we can get them, truck loads of wood chips and sawdust, old hay, etc... That is all bulk we can get for nearly no cost. We then supplement with food scraps from a few different sources as well.
do you just use your homes water source for your chickens? or what do you use if stored rain water and ponds are both frozen? i have to end up carrying buckets January and February most years, curious on ways to get around that
Love these films. Such wonderful compost and so warm! And so happy hens! I mix wood chip, chicken poo, food scraps and coffee grinds but it never gets very hot Grrr..do I need more nitorgen or more browns/carbon? I'd love to achieve that warmth that you seem to have grasped completely in your compost.
You most likely need more volume... Depending on how cold things get, volume can be the single most influential aspect to this. I'm guessing your ratios are good, you may just need MORE! Perhaps some insulation as well in the form of old burlap, leaf bags, plastic sheets, etc to keep the heat in on cold nights.
Such a great idea. I may transform my 5 individual pallet composts into 1 long pallet compost, throw some plastic on top and let the chickens go!! They’d probably catch the rats too. Do you think horse manure is ok for them to pick through?
Thank you for these videos. Do you worry about leaves coming from places that might use pesticides? I’ve lots of opportunities for leaves in the fall but I also know many people still spray their yards.
Wondering if it would be worthwhile to add some sprouts or even microgreens for human food in the carport. Sounds like it may be big/strong enough to handle it. Thanks for the great content, per usual-- you are making me reconsider snow-birding.. :)
How many pounds of grain do you put down in a day for 80 hens? I really want to do something like this where I'm at but it doesn't snow here and instead we get incredible amounts of rain. Hoping it won't cause moldy problems and kill my hens.
There would need to be some tweaks, but as a fundamental design base for a small enterprise there are many aspects to this system that would be legit... The compost coming out could be a stream, the egg production could be MUCH higher with younger hens, the cost savings is massive...
@@edibleacres I would say it's a great way to have regular cashflow while starting up the nursery although it's hard for me to estimate what the output and revenue would be on this scale. I know market gardens would looove good compost so I guess this enterprise would fit well in a local market. I really like that you have it all running so well in your garden, such an inspiration!
Good question. We bring them away from the chicken yard and leave them for wildlife to consume in the winter. If they aren't taken we compost them in a separate system.
Winter here on the Canadian prairies goes down to -40 in a cold snap. That seems to freeze everything in the winter run solid, stopping the compost and making it difficult for my hens to eat the frozen veggie scraps. Any suggestions on how to make this type of system work in temperatures down to -40?
That is an incredibly challenging temperature to be sure. You'd need to plan WELL in advance. HUGE piles of hay and bulk carbon in the fall to insulate a composting area would be key, and some sort of high tunnel that is insulated would be necessary.
what if you dug down below the freeze depth and put compost down there as large as a big galvanized stock waterer? it would produce its own heat and would not suffocate the chickens when they venture down a sloped pipe and it vents well
Do you have any rat problems having so many food scraps in the chicken pens? I know that here in New Zealand even just having excessive chicken food about attracts them. Love your channel, Cheers
I wonder if digging out the floor a foot or two before winter might not make it more human friendly. At your scale of compost, it might only take a month before it was back to being a hunch back tunnel for humans
I hear ya! Great idea, and I would do that except... 1) there are MANY roots from the big Pin Oak all through here and 2) the soil gets super wet in this landscape, I suspect it would be water logged in no time :(
Do you feel like having so many hens is what makes this work in the cold times? If you only had a dozen would the system work? I know some systems don’t scale well, and with this it seems like there must be a critical mass
I am not sure I can answer that very well, but I suspect this would still work with a smaller number of hens... The heat and composting process is happening regardless, I just think there is more value in having more hens to enjoy it all!
I wanted to ask this as well. How do you deal with rodents who might be attracted to all that nourishment? Or are 80 chickens intimidating enough to discourage them? ;)
Do you ever have a problem with mice in that set up? I'm afraid that would lead to mice, then the mink, weasles, racoon and fox would be attracted and take out all my chickens. What do you think?
don't mix your worms with decomposing foods etc, it aggravates their skin , they need to crawl up to the food and then retreat for a while, and i think you can find worm eggs and separate them too
I hear you... I know there would be better/best practices for their maintenance, but the reality is also that our system needs to keep elements moving along so some get tumbled in. . We do try to also keep caches of them that are undisturbed and insulated for the winter wherever possible...
I love Chicken TV!
Me too!
Super excited to be able to tell you, about my find this afternoon. I love your composting system and try to copy it , as best as I can. Today we visited our daughter and her family. Out the front of their house was a tree, loosing it's leave. I came home with a big black bag, full of leaves the tree has dropped. Bag will be staying in the car for the next visit. Our compost bay I run in the chook run, was emptied again , into 2 raised beds. I just wanted to let you know, you are making an impact in my backyard with my gardening practices. Thank you. Blessings from Australia ❤️
I never miss a vid and watch many of them over and over, have a fondness for the chickens for some reason it just feels right to have chickens on a property for many reasons things seem to work better all around. Just look at the soil production being done and I bet the eggs are tasty and it would just make me feel good using that compost to fuel the soil to grow what ever I was growing to grow. These things would make a man and or woman just feel right about life....to work hard and see the reward for ur hard work would make any persons sleep restful! Cheers
You have been so consistent in sharing thoughtful, supportive and positive words Antio! Really appreciate your presence in our growing community, you are a very sweet and genuine person :)
16:30 "To a lot of folks this may look like a trash pile". Well, those of us who understand this stuff, know that nature doesn't do "trash". That's an entirely human creation. All the stuff there is soil in it's infancy... with happy chickens on top. I think we can do a lot worse as humans. Thanks for all your work.
Really appreciate the supportive words here, thank you! Wait till you see the next iteration of this project.... reclaimed old greenhouse poly, an abandoned carport and some other side-o-the-road finds... Literally 98% trash, but it works really nicely! So fun to build systems based on waste streams.
I do my best to mimic your processes. I still have a long way to go, but the success has been amazing. My girls have created a huge amount of compost in six months. I cannot thank you enough.
That is so so wonderful to read, yay!
We finally found a restaurant that would give us food scraps twice a week (along with the grain I throw in to sprout) and now the "too much carbon" pile is starting to break down nicely. It was too late for worms but we're going to start building up our worm populations when it gets a bit warmer. Watching your videos is a big help.
So awesome your system is developing and deepening!!! Love to read things like this and know more of us out there are integrating composting with chickens!
I have watched your channel forever, and I am *so* excited about the carport idea for the chicken run! You'd think it was for my own chicken yard. I wonder if you could reuse your cattle panels on the sides of the carport, as a way to allow structure for plants for them to eat in the growing season? This is exciting!!
I second all of this! Also adding, we just got a pedigree mating pair of American Chinchilla rabbits, chickens come Spring!
We will find another use for the cattle panels to be sure... We'll share notes on how it all unfolds!
You’ve really inspired me to reach out to the local waste streams. Currently I collect food nearly daily from 3 local restaurants. Lots of Romaine, brussel sprouts, rice, beans,spinach and even occasional Salmon 😀 My compost consists the food scraps (what’s leftover from my 40+ hens) leaves, grass clippings and lots of wood chips.
Since chickens are so destructive to lawns I’m doing deep mulch using wood chips through my chicken yard. It’s nice to just dump wheel barrow loads in the yard and let the hens spread it all out. I haven’t inoculated either worms however since starting my compost in early summer I’ve discovered an abundance of Asian Jumping worms, they dwell towards the surface like red wigglers but they have moved right into our compost system and I am grateful.
I’m currently trying to find some grain that I can buy or barter from local farmers.
I've heard some bad things about asian jumping worms, perhaps introduce some worms from uncle jims worm farm to compete with them
Increased diversity of worms might help prevent a monoculture.
We see Jumping Worms in our systems sometimes... They are challenging in the annual gardens for sure but are amazing nutrient movers. If you can add red wigglers into the mix in protected areas to let their populations increase that could have some real value for sure... Sounds like a great system you are evolving there, wow!
@@ninetyninerising9482 that’s my plan
@@farwoodfarm9296 hi how is it going with introducing diverse earthworms and which ones have you found that CAN compete with jumping worms (JWs)? I’ve got em, many years now, and am evolving a system of coexistence - chickens and ducks are key to achieving any type of balance.
I do see European earthworms here and there, a minuscule amount compared to the JWs. The red wrigglers I find in my kitcheb scrao compost bin only (no JWs there strangely enough probably due to high N content and low C). When I find red wrigglers in bagged soil or outside I move them into the compost bin. Some years they survive a winter others not, seemingly.
I’m curious how your system fared this summer. It was a drought year and the reproductive might of the JWs was much decreased. The cocoons are waiting for another wet year like 2021.
Thanks!
@@olgakuchukov6981 The JW's are definitely still there, lots of Earth worms too though. I have a 55 Gallon barrel filled with Red Wigglers that I was able to barter for. My plan is to introduce them in spring and just inoculate my compost area with a few hundred under some Hardware cloth for a few week so the chickens don't dig them up right away. I was planning to do this over the summer but it was so dry and I had some other projects I was working on.
Love seeing those battered hens THRIVING.
We are so happy how well they are doing in this system.
I should have written: so happy to see the system thriving (I have learned so much from your vids!) and I'm so happy, but not surprised, to see all the birds THRIVING. Thanks to you, S, and J for doing what you do and fostering learning/community on the tube!!
I would leave the plastic skin on the cattle panels and just build the carport over the top. Double layer of plastic -> warmer temps. Great video, as always :)
What an interesting idea! Some growers use internal tunnels in their tunnels to over winter crops for spring.
@@janew5351 that technique works for harvesting of Asian greens up here in zone 3/4 (no heat). It's close to the Eliot Colemans winter harvest technique.
I hear you, and that is compelling, but the idea would be about needing to have more total space for the composting system to function in so the cattle panel would need to go I think...
@EdibleAcres. When I'm stressed, I watch your channel. Thank you
Always great to see how the chickens are doing and a nice reminder about how resilient they are in our similar climates. Really hoping to get our chickens set up this year. We already have started to put the infrastructures in place and have massive stashes of leaves at the ready.
Excited for you and your future chickens :)
Oh good, more northern climate homesteaders! It's hard to find ppl farming in this kind of weather online, hope to see more of you! Subbed ❄☺❄
It might sound weird but the generation of life in multiple forms makes me feel good
A couple of thoughts on the carport frame - They need additional purlins to keep your cover from sagging under the snow load and holding greenhouse plastic on them is a bit challenging. I've used web strapping to create additional support rather than adding rigid purlins, and I feel that it works, but you need to run multiple lines You might consider wiring cattle panels onto the carport roof, since you have them ;) I look forward to seeing your creative utilization of the resource ;)
Always appreciate notes like this. I had suspicions it would need some more reinforcement, etc., especially in the spans between frame elements...Some mesh over top before the plastic makes a lot of sense... Thanks!
I’m honestly a little surprised not to see the ladies riding on the moving sled. 😁
Ha, yeah! had I only set the camera up longer, there were 3 on there at one point :)
"Looks like a trash pile" lol..love that comment. One year I created a front yard pollinator garden using cardboard and newspaper as a base to top with compost, as the weeds here in Texas are titanium Inforced. Two little neighbors were walking by as I was doing this and I overheard one say to the other, " look at that lady putting all that trash in her front yard"! I had to smile..but immediately explained to them what it was for. What's that Ole saying...One man's trash... ;)
Soothing Voice, I watch all your videos to hear the gentle kindness in how you talk
Can really hear the traffic. Not criticizing, just illustrates the effectiveness of your living wall when it is lush. That sled is a genius idea for moving loads. I carry 5 gallon buckets full of used bedding and/ or pine chips, garden foliage etc. the sled would make for a easier transport. Thanks! The girls are thriving and happy as usual 😁
Just a cheap old kids sled! I know they make 'farm' sleds out there but I've only worked with these and its just fine. Yeah, the road is SO much more noticeable in the winter :(
Would like to thank you for the very valuable information. I actually made deals with a couple of food pantries recently.
I take all of there rotten produce and help them clean up each week.
Now we have more food then we need for the chickens :)
Looks like I'll be saving lots of money
Thank you for the great information/ideas
Carports are extremely valuable frames. I got a large one for free and divided it in half and shortened the height. I have a greenhouse and chicken tractor built at very little cost. Also use a sled for moving my firewood! Great motivating content as usual man. Thank you for keeping the wheels turning in my head!
Thank you for sharing these great ideas for creating a well-integrated system. I, too, would choose good multiple purpose functionality any day over looks,, because it helps a homestead to keep on going.
Thanks you for sharing this! I have been researching on getting chickens in our very cold North Dakota climate. It is just me doing it, so all of this education is super helpful! Leaning and growing together!!
This gave me great ideas.
If I can get a carport like you suggested it would be a great place to throw the summer / fall elements into in hopes of having a food source for the girls in the winter.
I like the idea of maybe having one or two of these sites near the coop so they could be allowed to rest as you rotate the girls from site to site.
We are currently moving carbon/rabbit poo out from under cages that hung under our solar panels. This is mounded where we add more nitrogen waste and feed/food scraps for the chickens to turn. We move these piles down towards the worm bins that are close to the chicken coop/rabbit hutches.
When the bins are full for their processing times we move the excess into area outside the chicken pen when it's put into wired resting areas for a week to then follow the geoff lawton turning frequency.
I really like your carport idea. These are truly long term infrastructure for fertility / fertility machines.
Your Tuesday am low will be my Tuesday midday high! I’m hanging peanuts for the birds and squirrels, along with suet.
I hope you get that carport sorted quickly. You have got a lot more hens since you put up that hoop house.
Yeah, we are at the upper edge of how much space there is for our chicken friends for sure.
A carport would be great and you could do water catchment off the carport
Loved the sled idea, was wondering how I was going to get bales of straw to my dry storage across a large expanse of snow, now I have my solution! Will also solve my soiled straw bedding transport to compost bin. Next year I will try a small version of your compost tunnel for winter with maybe no cover for the extreme heat summer months within the chicken run itself. I'm amazed you have so much seed sprout, rats, voles and mice get to everything for me here.
Sleds are miracles for snow... Lower lifting of weight, too! Saves the back a bit. In your climate you'd definitely want the poly to come off a winter run come summer. I think we'll do the same this year.
Hahaha Your chickens do the same as ours. They are so tame, and they know that you move stuff about, revealing goodies. And they don’t want to miss out. Fight for front row.lol love it.
I collect bags of leaves in the autumn to put in my chicken yard through the winter. Their feces mix with the leaves and makes good compost.
Absolutely love your all's compost tunnel system for your chicken's!
Glad you like it!
Nice find on the car port! I want to get one of those to store wood chips to keep them dry over winter (for deep mulch bedding of our pigs and chickens). Would love to see a video with advice for finding so much material for composting like that. I have not been able to source any good, consistent sources yet outside of free leaf bags in the fall and some free pumpkins from time to time. It seems as if you get grocery/food scrapes somehow
Yeah, I also struggle to get the kind of "free stuff" that some people seem to get. I live in a rural area, and not too many people seem to see this stuff as waste. Personally, my plan is to further develop the infrastructure to make my property a yard waste drop-off site (get a nicer sign up by the road and create signage to indicate where people can drop stuff easily) and generally just keep plugging along. I assume my problem is that I just don't have much to give people yet, and so it's awkward to say, "Hey, you're just throwing that away--can I have it for free?" I'll feel much better when I can say, "Hey, you have some green space that isn't being used--can I plant something there in exchange for food scraps?" or something like that.
Enjoy seeing you work through and advance projects as always.
So glad you find it useful!
Every time I hear an American describe cold weather I have to stop and google what that would be in Celsius.
"Single digits" is when our snow starts melting (1°C or up), "cold snap" is below -10 to -15°, or any ten or more degree drop within a day or so.
It's been between 0 and -15° since Jan 1 so kind of a warm winter here so far, hoping Feb doesn't come with the -30, -40° weather we usually get here
That said this is the only decent chicken/garden channel that gets similar temps so yall are saving my life up here
We get what I'd consider to be pretty cold winters, but surely there are MUCH colder places! Hopefully some of the ideas shared in these videos can still be useful to you!
Love this. After watching you for a few years now, we are adding a small self made coup(I made it already), a few hens from chicks, to our 12 by 24ish south facing garden to our home in Pittsburgh come spring. I like how you sprout the whole seed in a deep compost system. 🍄😃🌈🤙
Nice to see the beautiful ladies thriving!
I love my chickens so much, makes me obsessed to watch everyone's chickens LOL
I absolutely love your content! Keep it up!
Totally awesome!! Thank you for introducing ideas that are practical and approachable. Another great video.
Love the update. I can admit your so much smarter than I am. And I watch your channel all the time to see what your up too at certain time of the year. And your videos are always spot on to what I seem to be working on lol thanks from Pennsylvania
Nothing about smarter, not smarter... Just been experimenting for a while with this. I bet you have aspects in your life I could learn a huge amount from because that is where your focus is! We just have to all share more about what we're learning!
Stay warm and well 😇
I've been watch for a few years now I love all of your videos your a wonderful educator and experimenter thanks for all your fails and success😁
My 12 refuse to go on the snow. I had to throw down some hay to trick them into leaving their coop.
We do that... We try to make the 'commute' from the coop to the tunnel comfortable when it gets super super cold.
A recycled carport seems such a good idea !
So happy to see an update on the compost, the worms, and lots of chicken footage! I am eager to see what the new car port structure will look like, I hope you can share the plans and building of that too.
can't wait for video showing how to grow some budd!!
I found your channel recently and find your explanations and ideas of all of the natural processes so interesting. So inspirational! Thanks for sharing!
That high tunnel would be higher, and could be wider if it was on top of a 3'-4' wall. It could hold more compost before the doorway gets to low. I'm sure you could salvage some wood pallets for free to make it as well. Just a thought.
Bringing up the side walls can be a nice bonus. We may explore this if we ever have a reason to rebuild this structure
Thanks so much!!
Hello from Scotland. I love watching your chicken composting videos, especially seeing all your happy rehomed hens behaving just as hens should. Sadly, we cannot run a similar system here due to disease/biosecurity restrictions (it is illegal to feed food scraps to hens in the UK) and, at present all our hens are in 'flockdown' due to additional restrictions for avian flu. My entirely housed (until the flockdown is over) backyard hens have a big shed with composting litter, dust baths, perches. We add flower pots with grass and sprouted grains in daily, the hens eat the greenery -and the remaining soil gets added to their dust bath. All our food waste and chicken waste gets put through a hot bin composter (50 degrees C minimum) and the resulting cooked compost is home to thousands of red wigglers -the chickens get to attack that once well composted in the spring through autumn. But I bet our girls wish they could be outside and eating all those scraps like yours!
Sounds like an intense system to be working within. So glad to hear you are making paths for your hens to still have a great life!
Thanks for showing us, really interesting 🐓
Very happy hens! Great working system!
It’s been so cold past few weeks, stay safe say warm everyone 🦆 🐓 🙏
I think it's a great idea for the carport. I'd worry about snow load, but it may not be an issue there.
I am quite sure I'll be reinforcing it...
That's a great system, but sure looks like a lot of work. I have 3 passive compost piles and two small active ones where I feed the chickens scraps. They huddle in a big dog house that is sheltered by an easy-up to keep warm when it is cold or wet. I might try your cattle panel house next year if I can get an agreement w/ a local restaurant for veggie scraps.
I am always curious where you get the volume for your chickens. Is this coming from external sources like teh food scraps, or is all the straw and bean pods and things I see you turn over coming from the various nursery spaces? One huge challenge we always have with our compost is having enough input. We are on a fairly small urban lot so there's just generally not a lot to input (particularly brown) outside of fall.
TONS of leaf bags, like hundreds and hundreds if we can get them, truck loads of wood chips and sawdust, old hay, etc... That is all bulk we can get for nearly no cost. We then supplement with food scraps from a few different sources as well.
@@edibleacres Gotcha. thanks for the reply!
Lovin the Zen 👍👌
Subbed!!! Much Love from Nikiski, Alaska.
Love it.
You are such good chicken parents. I always wonder. Do you eat them?
Once in a while, not often. We do plan to kill a few this winter to reduce the flock a bit...
Great video!!!
I love this content.
Excellent channel 😀
do you just use your homes water source for your chickens? or what do you use if stored rain water and ponds are both frozen? i have to end up carrying buckets January and February most years, curious on ways to get around that
ua-cam.com/video/l9dSdtJCGzM/v-deo.html - Still working for us.. Electric water heater setup has been QUITE helpful for our situation...
@@edibleacres Thank you
Love these films. Such wonderful compost and so warm! And so happy hens! I mix wood chip, chicken poo, food scraps and coffee grinds but it never gets very hot Grrr..do I need more nitorgen or more browns/carbon? I'd love to achieve that warmth that you seem to have grasped completely in your compost.
You most likely need more volume... Depending on how cold things get, volume can be the single most influential aspect to this. I'm guessing your ratios are good, you may just need MORE! Perhaps some insulation as well in the form of old burlap, leaf bags, plastic sheets, etc to keep the heat in on cold nights.
@@edibleacres Thank you. Have 2 heaps so will make them into one! :)
Such a great idea. I may transform my 5 individual pallet composts into 1 long pallet compost, throw some plastic on top and let the chickens go!! They’d probably catch the rats too. Do you think horse manure is ok for them to pick through?
I do think horse manure is OK for them to work through. In an ideal world it would not have de-wormer but even then it seems OK...
Your girls look very healthy. I always heard never to feed chickens rotting food. Have you ever have any of them get sour crop?
oooh the chickens get an upgrade, cant wait to see it :D
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Thank you for these videos. Do you worry about leaves coming from places that might use pesticides? I’ve lots of opportunities for leaves in the fall but I also know many people still spray their yards.
Sean, what volume of raw material would you say does into the compost cattle panel tunnel each year?
I am not sure I can guess, but at least 30 cubic yards a winter perhaps?
Wondering if it would be worthwhile to add some sprouts or even microgreens for human food in the carport. Sounds like it may be big/strong enough to handle it.
Thanks for the great content, per usual-- you are making me reconsider snow-birding.. :)
We could explore that, but there are so many hens with all their needs it seems good to focus on them primarily!
This has to be the most fertile place in New York state haha. I love it. Hopefully I can have a worm/chicken paradise started next yr
My chickens never go out in the snow. I have to put down straw.
1:40 hmm I wonder what they are taking about? 🤔
How many pounds of grain do you put down in a day for 80 hens? I really want to do something like this where I'm at but it doesn't snow here and instead we get incredible amounts of rain. Hoping it won't cause moldy problems and kill my hens.
I love the chicken compost system! Have you ever considered if this could be a profitable small enterprise?
There would need to be some tweaks, but as a fundamental design base for a small enterprise there are many aspects to this system that would be legit... The compost coming out could be a stream, the egg production could be MUCH higher with younger hens, the cost savings is massive...
@@edibleacres I would say it's a great way to have regular cashflow while starting up the nursery although it's hard for me to estimate what the output and revenue would be on this scale. I know market gardens would looove good compost so I guess this enterprise would fit well in a local market. I really like that you have it all running so well in your garden, such an inspiration!
What do you do with a hen that dies? Do you bury it and let it decompose and give nutrients back to the soil?
Good question. We bring them away from the chicken yard and leave them for wildlife to consume in the winter. If they aren't taken we compost them in a separate system.
Winter here on the Canadian prairies goes down to -40 in a cold snap. That seems to freeze everything in the winter run solid, stopping the compost and making it difficult for my hens to eat the frozen veggie scraps. Any suggestions on how to make this type of system work in temperatures down to -40?
That is an incredibly challenging temperature to be sure. You'd need to plan WELL in advance. HUGE piles of hay and bulk carbon in the fall to insulate a composting area would be key, and some sort of high tunnel that is insulated would be necessary.
what if you dug down below the freeze depth and put compost down there as large as a big galvanized stock waterer? it would produce its own heat and would not suffocate the chickens when they venture down a sloped pipe and it vents well
I would love to go down in order to store more material and hold more warmth but it's too wet and TOO many tree roots!
@@edibleacres got to watch out for cave-ins too, kids get killed by soil sliding sideways, ya can't let boys dig a fort they are too stupid
Do you have any rat problems having so many food scraps in the chicken pens? I know that here in New Zealand even just having excessive chicken food about attracts them. Love your channel, Cheers
We had rats at one point but predator pressure balanced it we think.
@@edibleacres Ah; that makes sense. The only predators we have are introduced ferrets, stoats and domestic cats.
I noticed you mentioned dry seed where in the past you've soaked them; is that a change just for winter or have you found that it works better?
I am in 5b and soak my grains in summer but discovered the entire bucket of wet grain frozen in winter.
I wonder if digging out the floor a foot or two before winter might not make it more human friendly. At your scale of compost, it might only take a month before it was back to being a hunch back tunnel for humans
I hear ya! Great idea, and I would do that except... 1) there are MANY roots from the big Pin Oak all through here and 2) the soil gets super wet in this landscape, I suspect it would be water logged in no time :(
Do you feel like having so many hens is what makes this work in the cold times? If you only had a dozen would the system work? I know some systems don’t scale well, and with this it seems like there must be a critical mass
I am not sure I can answer that very well, but I suspect this would still work with a smaller number of hens... The heat and composting process is happening regardless, I just think there is more value in having more hens to enjoy it all!
Do you have problems with rats?
I wanted to ask this as well. How do you deal with rodents who might be attracted to all that nourishment? Or are 80 chickens intimidating enough to discourage them? ;)
Sweet! Curious, are you related to Jordan Peterson?
Do you ever have a problem with mice in that set up?
I'm afraid that would lead to mice, then the mink, weasles, racoon and fox would be attracted and take out all my chickens. What do you think?
We get mice but the chickens eat them!
don't mix your worms with decomposing foods etc, it aggravates their skin , they need to crawl up to the food and then retreat for a while, and i think you can find worm eggs and separate them too
I hear you... I know there would be better/best practices for their maintenance, but the reality is also that our system needs to keep elements moving along so some get tumbled in. . We do try to also keep caches of them that are undisturbed and insulated for the winter wherever possible...
@@edibleacres have you identified the worm's eggs? it is a chore that kids could do, and they might enjoy researching them and sharing with classmates
Just commenting to confirm to all that this video now has 420 likes. Nice.
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A weasel found our flock :(
I'm really sorry that happened :(
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H1N1 is coming. Please address this and what we should do
Ice age farmer was talking about it on you tube just the other day.
Wet feet for hens in the winter can never be a good/healthy thing.
We try our hardest to put down dry material for them to walk on and add fresh/dry hay on the ground in their coop every day.