Doing a tiny scale version of your system is so much fun! I was telling some friends at their birthday last night and realized composting with chickens isn't everyone's favorite topic.... Ha!! Glad I can tune in to chicken tv and feel community! It is really nourishing to spend time supporting the natural behaviors of all involved! The chickens get to do their favorite thing, the earth, bugs, worms, and microorganisms are delighted! Thanks for all the great ideas from me and the chickens!
I know what you are talking about, we have a pretty small group that really want to hear about the chickens rummaging through rotting food in our front yard! :) You are always welcome to chat about it here, I know we're interested!
My wife and her chickens wanted to thank you for this idea. We made a smaller version and the chickens are loving it on cold or snowy days. We don't process much compost (there), but still getting some leaves and scraps through it.
Your hens are living in chicken heaven! Whatever you do, there's always a chicken in the picture checking it out. Our chickens are the same, as soon as I grab a shovel they wanna know what's going on and if you can eat it 😄
@@edibleacres Yes, I admire your system with the little feathered workers, and I hope I can do something similar but smaller with our chickens. So far, they provide us with eggs and fertilizer for the tomatoes, but they got deep litter in their coop recently, which they love, and I am planning a composting area next to their run, so they will have more space and we lose our normal compost heap.Not much space in our yard!
I watched the whole video but I got distracted in the comments and missed some important parts so now I have to watch it again. I don’t mind one bit! I love this channel!
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your videos. I watch them over and over. We just got our chicks about a month ago, and I'm so looking forward to quality mulch and little garden helpers, all while providing a quality life for the little miracles 💙
Chicken says "Don't bury me Mom, I need to grab that sprout." I would be freaking out that I was going to spear a chicken, amazing how relaxed you two are.
man, yesterday I decided that I cannot in good conscience order the 3 cubic yards of compost that I need to jump start my 2020. it's just too much gas spent on moving dirt. I have 50 leaf bags in a pile, but it'll never be enough compost. luckily, this year, I have a better sense of what grows well in unfinished compost. I need 5 hens to help me do what you are doing...
New subscriber here, hope you have time to answer a couple of questions: 1_ Do you feed your chickens anything else aside from what is in the compost, and 2_ Do you have a large worm culture dwelling in your compost? Thanks for your response.
Love watching folks make compost! Have been using binder clips in my garden for many years. Relatively inexpensive, highly versatile, will withstand many harsh winters. When putting garden to bed in the fall, here in SE Michigan, I simply attach clips to a section of garden fence so I can easily access them the following spring. As for random & misc. pieces of twine, always useful in the garden, I stuff them into an empty plastic coffee can(Folgers) with snap lid. Another spare can holds 2 dozen plastic grocery bags, which come in handy when transporting harvested veggies between the garden and my apartment. May as well re-purpose free items that might otherwise go to the recycling bin, or worse, the landfill.
You guys could probably really benefit from a heavy rake. The kind that sort of looks like a really heavy saw blade. I think you might find it a little more ergonomic for moving heavy compost short distances like when you're sliding things from one side of the tunnel to the other.
I hear you, although the main movement we are doing is to take compost and put it up high on a pile, so the chickens can spread it apart. The rake would basically be mimicking their role.
Great idea to heat up your tunnel. The chickens are in heaven.. Thanks. I'm subbed , this is how I help your channel. I'm trying to build my channel too.
Such a great system! Love how happy your hens look. I'm on the south coast of the U.K. and just have two questions: I feel I'd be over-run with rats if I allowed so many food scraps to to be available during the night - how do you deal/prevent this? Second question: (hope it's ok to ask as you seem so experienced with this way of living and I'd love to move toward this), How do you prevent vent-gleet in your hens? Eating moulding food is such a factor in causing this thrush-like problem and I'm just wondering how you prevent this in your flock? Any tips, advice or pearls of wisdom about these two concerns would be so welcome.
We had rats in the past and they were helpful actually in aerating the compost! I think if there is a very diverse set of food options for the hens they can avoid health issues. They have access to aged raw milk and I think the deep amount of pro-biotics in there are quite helpful too... Ferments, minerals, ample fresh greens, etc. all contribute to basic health.
I hear you on that, and have that in mind for a future project... at 2' diameter per barrel I'd need 8 or so 55 gallon drums to do that in this instance, which I just didn't have when we were ready to move the compost! Next time...
I gotcha! We moved our tilapia breeding colony into the greenhouse for over wintering we had them outside last winter (central NC) and spent so much money and time keeping them warm so for this winter I dug them a ~300gal pond in the greenhouse and with one large fishtank heater it is keeping them over 70° so far and the warmth and humidity it provides to the plants in the greenhouse is crazy! We dont have to run any additional heaters for that greenhouse this winter and it has gotten down to 22 a few times this year. Water is a powerful being
If you have cats and kitty litter (or know anyone who does) you can put used kitty litter around the areas you see their activity... No poison, no traps, no killing, and it seems to really help them get the signal of predators in the area... I hope this approach could work for you as a first attempt.
Hey frond thank you for your content . But I was wondering how it is possible for you to keep your compost hot through out the winter mounts I'm new to make it this past year but as soon as temp dropped so did my compost pile but it was near the end any way but in settember I put another one together and it's never got worm down to freezing solid and ideal would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time
It really comes down to volume, and then ratios. If you can make it big enough then the details don't matter as much. If it's a small amount, make sure you have enough nitrogen to provide the 'fire' in it during cold times.
Hi Sean and Sasha, I would love to feed my chickens like you do. How much time each week would you spend collecting the raw materials from the community to build these wonderful compost piles? Does a large percentage come from your own garden? Thanks
both sources. including grocery stores , restaurants . Just leaves will result in high nitrogen and less of P K and other minerals. quantity depends on how much you need, you need only 2 - 3 inch of this over the soil bed to grow veggies
Good question. I'd guess we spend an hour or a little more per week collecting food scraps, and 15minutes to 30 minutes per day turning compost / managing compost. Some days are larger work days like in this video, some are much less. Lets say 30 minutes per day of committed and pretty decently hard work for this system...
So, when you "harvest" them for meat, presumably you'd want the ones that are no longer giving so many eggs, right? How do you tell which hens to harvest?
Our hens are quite old, most are 4-6 years old, or older! SO... we get 3-6 eggs a day during the winter and we're OK with that. We need to harvest most of them by spring and start with a new flock...
@@edibleacres Or just a discussion of how it's done, equipment used, time it takes; you could also show the processing part that takes place in the kitchen :)
You may not be surprised to hear how often folks say this is like Bob Ross... I like the comparison much more than saying I look like a 'chill Jordan Peterson' though!!!
@@edibleacres A chill Peterson! Hahah omg! Yea, the Ross one is way better. :) I can see why people say the latter though. Obviously not the appearance, but there's something really soothing and fascinating about watching someone tend to his garden, his chickens, dig through piles of 'rubbish' that is turning into black gold. Quite relaxing (from this end) :)
Wow what a great resource! I saw a video recently from Geoff Lawton and he was mixing sand In With his compost for a potting mix. It looked to be a pretty great combo. Just wondering if you had heard about doing that and any thoughts you might have on that. Thanks.
Sounds very reasonable to help keep soil structure open and give ample space for roots... I personally wouldn't do it as potting mix for all the potted plants we sell because it would be WAY too heavy.
Good evening from Oswego county! I was wondering if your egg production drops any noticeable amount during the winter. I’m looking at raising some chickens my self come this spring time and I’m really not certain what I should do when winter comes.
Our egg production drops tremendously in the winter! We have much older hens, 4-6 years (and older, yes, we know we need to renew our flock!) We get 3-6 eggs a day in the winter from our 60 hens. Really low production but enough for our home needs. I encourage folks to consider getting more chickens than they think they need as a baseline. More eggs, more buffer, more meat if/when you harvest.
As these hens get old, we have two choices... We can let them slowly die of old age, some getting sick, unable to walk, having a lot of pain during cold spells, etc, before they die, or we can harvest them as we need food, trying our very best to only go for the hens that no longer seem to be thriving or enjoying life. It is hard but feels right to us.
@@edibleacres a good life and a quick death; far better than battery hens get. (It’s what I do with mine too. It isn’t 'fun' culling the flock, but it is how a farm works.
@@edibleacres I wouldnt use the same Term for both things. Ethically this is definitely not the same thing. And our language should show that. If we Start talking like killing a chicken is the same thing as killing a wheat plant we will Start believing it too. And this is psychopathy.
Doing a tiny scale version of your system is so much fun! I was telling some friends at their birthday last night and realized composting with chickens isn't everyone's favorite topic.... Ha!! Glad I can tune in to chicken tv and feel community! It is really nourishing to spend time supporting the natural behaviors of all involved! The chickens get to do their favorite thing, the earth, bugs, worms, and microorganisms are delighted! Thanks for all the great ideas from me and the chickens!
I know what you are talking about, we have a pretty small group that really want to hear about the chickens rummaging through rotting food in our front yard! :)
You are always welcome to chat about it here, I know we're interested!
@@edibleacres It's when you really know who your friends are ;)
Sasha's pretty awesome isn't she? It's fun that she participates and enjoys your passion too. You are blessed my friend.
I agree!
I enjoy chicken TV at the end just like I enjoyed the short cartoons before a movie at the drive-in or theater as a child. Well done.
I love watching chickens work in compost. On UA-cam and here on my own property. It is just so satisfying for some reason.
My wife and her chickens wanted to thank you for this idea. We made a smaller version and the chickens are loving it on cold or snowy days. We don't process much compost (there), but still getting some leaves and scraps through it.
So glad the system has worked for you and the (extended) family :)
Good video 👍 I like to see steam coming off the compost.
It’s alive an looking good!
Your hens are living in chicken heaven! Whatever you do, there's always a chicken in the picture checking it out. Our chickens are the same, as soon as I grab a shovel they wanna know what's going on and if you can eat it 😄
Chicken heaven BUT also working really hard towards common goals we've developed. Really the ideal scenario I'd hope.
@@edibleacres Yes, I admire your system with the little feathered workers, and I hope I can do something similar but smaller with our chickens. So far, they provide us with eggs and fertilizer for the tomatoes, but they got deep litter in their coop recently, which they love, and I am planning a composting area next to their run, so they will have more space and we lose our normal compost heap.Not much space in our yard!
I wish I could speed up my shovellin' like that!! :-) Chickens like to inspect everything along the way, don't they? Thanks for sharing!! 👍
Wouldn't it be rad to hit the 'speed up' button on certain tasks! :)
Always look forward to ur vids. I follow a lot of vids of this type, but yours are the purest in my opinion and so relaxing to watch. thx...
antio warr what other channels do you follow?
I watched the whole video but I got distracted in the comments and missed some important parts so now I have to watch it again. I don’t mind one bit! I love this channel!
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your videos. I watch them over and over. We just got our chicks about a month ago, and I'm so looking forward to quality mulch and little garden helpers, all while providing a quality life for the little miracles 💙
Chicken says "Don't bury me Mom, I need to grab that sprout." I would be freaking out that I was going to spear a chicken, amazing how relaxed you two are.
Gonna GetYa they really have a good vibe don’t they!
Almost 6 years with this system and 0 impalements :) You get a feel for how they move after a while and can just work with that rhythm.
I always loved having the black hens on our farm growing up. The yellow baby chicks hiding in the feathers and peeking out.
No chickens were harmed, buried, prodded or amused during the making of this video....
I simply adore how kind you are to all of your animals.
I wish I had half the compost that you are getting! You must have an amazing garden in the summer.
Thanks for the chicken tv! I always enjoy seeing your chickens
Interesting, despite me needing cooling not heating. I would recommend compost heating to people in cold areas
Always inspiring. Thanks Sean and Sasha! Can't wait to expand my own hen yard to include a proper high tunnel for compost :)
Amazing system for multiple purposes! I really enjoy you vids. Thx!
Our pleasure.
love chickens there such good workers .
All day every day!
man, yesterday I decided that I cannot in good conscience order the 3 cubic yards of compost that I need to jump start my 2020. it's just too much gas spent on moving dirt. I have 50 leaf bags in a pile, but it'll never be enough compost. luckily, this year, I have a better sense of what grows well in unfinished compost. I need 5 hens to help me do what you are doing...
This years unfinished compost is a great mulch for now and beautiful compost next year! :)
Thank you for your time. Honest hard work.
Thank you for your continuing sharing I so enjoy your videos...blessings
wow its like black gold
You did this BEFORE BREAKFAST?? Wow. Also I need some of that hot sauce, please. LOL
You know, this whole process was basically one solid hour of work. Nothing crazy. :) Sasha makes some killer hot sauce, SPICY!
New subscriber here, hope you have time to answer a couple of questions: 1_ Do you feed your chickens anything else aside from what is in the compost, and 2_ Do you have a large worm culture dwelling in your compost? Thanks for your response.
Love watching folks make compost!
Have been using binder clips in my garden for many years. Relatively inexpensive, highly versatile, will withstand many harsh winters. When putting garden to bed in the fall, here in SE Michigan, I simply attach clips to a section of garden fence so I can easily access them the following spring.
As for random & misc. pieces of twine, always useful in the garden, I stuff them into an empty plastic coffee can(Folgers) with snap lid. Another spare can holds 2 dozen plastic grocery bags, which come in handy when transporting harvested veggies between the garden and my apartment. May as well re-purpose free items that might otherwise go to the recycling bin, or worse, the landfill.
Great simple ideas here!
A farm here in Milwaukee called, Growing Power, heated all their greenhouses by piling compost along the sides. Seemed to work well.
I'm aware of that project, seems so amazing. Is it still operational?
@@edibleacres I'm not sure what's going on there now. I think they had to shift directions due to changing times. Praise jah!
You guys could probably really benefit from a heavy rake. The kind that sort of looks like a really heavy saw blade. I think you might find it a little more ergonomic for moving heavy compost short distances like when you're sliding things from one side of the tunnel to the other.
I hear you, although the main movement we are doing is to take compost and put it up high on a pile, so the chickens can spread it apart. The rake would basically be mimicking their role.
a timelapse of the chickens turning the compost in the tunnel would be cool
Can do. We'll keep making videos about all this I'm sure.
The race track sound was so amusing!
It's funny, but this is actually completely real audio, just sped up...
I love this idea. Awesome channel.
Beautiful! 💞
Thanks for another great video!
Great idea to heat up your tunnel. The chickens are in heaven.. Thanks. I'm subbed , this is how I help your channel. I'm trying to build my channel too.
Such a great system! Love how happy your hens look. I'm on the south coast of the U.K. and just have two questions: I feel I'd be over-run with rats if I allowed so many food scraps to to be available during the night - how do you deal/prevent this? Second question: (hope it's ok to ask as you seem so experienced with this way of living and I'd love to move toward this), How do you prevent vent-gleet in your hens? Eating moulding food is such a factor in causing this thrush-like problem and I'm just wondering how you prevent this in your flock? Any tips, advice or pearls of wisdom about these two concerns would be so welcome.
We had rats in the past and they were helpful actually in aerating the compost!
I think if there is a very diverse set of food options for the hens they can avoid health issues. They have access to aged raw milk and I think the deep amount of pro-biotics in there are quite helpful too... Ferments, minerals, ample fresh greens, etc. all contribute to basic health.
If you put plastic rain barrels with lids up against the house it might work better for heat transfer and help protect that plastic
I hear you on that, and have that in mind for a future project... at 2' diameter per barrel I'd need 8 or so 55 gallon drums to do that in this instance, which I just didn't have when we were ready to move the compost! Next time...
I gotcha! We moved our tilapia breeding colony into the greenhouse for over wintering we had them outside last winter (central NC) and spent so much money and time keeping them warm so for this winter I dug them a ~300gal pond in the greenhouse and with one large fishtank heater it is keeping them over 70° so far and the warmth and humidity it provides to the plants in the greenhouse is crazy! We dont have to run any additional heaters for that greenhouse this winter and it has gotten down to 22 a few times this year. Water is a powerful being
I like the race car sounds
In new England for holidays, I bought the warmth! Ha
THanks!
Homegrown eggs, homemade sauerkraut and hot sauce - the perfect breakfast!!
We have a lot of meals that come in around 10 cents a serving and taste better than anything we could go out and buy!
Do you have difficulties with voles eating your root crops?
They can be challenging for sure. Snakes and others keep their populations in check in the summer, but yes, they can be tough.
We have rats in our chicken shed, just noticed the signs this morning. That's my job for the day decided for me!
If you have cats and kitty litter (or know anyone who does) you can put used kitty litter around the areas you see their activity... No poison, no traps, no killing, and it seems to really help them get the signal of predators in the area... I hope this approach could work for you as a first attempt.
Get yourself a Jack Russel and or Rat Terrier. :-)
Hi there. Just wondering, what do you do with all your eggshells?
We feed them back to the chickens
Hey frond thank you for your content . But I was wondering how it is possible for you to keep your compost hot through out the winter mounts I'm new to make it this past year but as soon as temp dropped so did my compost pile but it was near the end any way but in settember I put another one together and it's never got worm down to freezing solid and ideal would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time
It really comes down to volume, and then ratios. If you can make it big enough then the details don't matter as much. If it's a small amount, make sure you have enough nitrogen to provide the 'fire' in it during cold times.
Wondering how you keep your chickens from flying out? Is it a quick snip of the wings, or are the chicks a special breed that does not fly to well?
We didn't cut wings. The fencing is about 6' high and so far no one has flown over.
What breed are the black hen? Beautiful birds.
Black austtralorp
Can you do a video on how you make your sauerkraut? It looks so good! That hot sauce too!
ua-cam.com/video/8oeZIS60-7E/v-deo.html - How Sasha makes her sauerkraut :)
New book: 101 uses for binder clips on your farm.
Since I don't have any large book reports to turn in, they have been incredibly useful for us in a ton of ways :)
I so wish I was closer I would see about buying some from you
We'd give you some :)
@@edibleacres even better you're giving me the knowledge so hopefully we can do this here by 2021!!! 🥰
No rats drawn by food stuffs???
I have to cover my compost, i only have plastic not tarp is it ok.
Seems really reasonable to me.
it would be better with water barrel to keep the heat between compost and polytunnel?
That is quite possible, but we didn't go that route. I've seen that design before and for a larger scale setup it would make a lot of sense.
Hi Sean and Sasha, I would love to feed my chickens like you do. How much time each week would you spend collecting the raw materials from the community to build these wonderful compost piles? Does a large percentage come from your own garden? Thanks
both sources. including grocery stores , restaurants . Just leaves will result in high nitrogen and less of P K and other minerals.
quantity depends on how much you need,
you need only 2 - 3 inch of this over the soil bed to grow veggies
Good question. I'd guess we spend an hour or a little more per week collecting food scraps, and 15minutes to 30 minutes per day turning compost / managing compost. Some days are larger work days like in this video, some are much less. Lets say 30 minutes per day of committed and pretty decently hard work for this system...
do your chickens have a particular place they lay their eggs or just randomly around their area?
They have nesting boxes they use pretty reliably.
So, when you "harvest" them for meat, presumably you'd want the ones that are no longer giving so many eggs, right? How do you tell which hens to harvest?
Hard to know, so hard to make the decision. We have a decent idea of who seems to be winding down and less active overall so thats what we focus on.
@@edibleacres
So you just watch and cull the less active birds? That makes sense. If they aren't laying so much, they won't be as needy for the food.
Comb color(sallow/lackluster) and a dry vent will help indicate who is no longer laying. Plus layers tend to be slimmer than spent hens.
@@jennifersimmons1552 That also makes sense. When they stop laying, they'll get fatter, besides lazy.
@@mw8333 yup, no energy spent making eggs!
How many chickens do you keep?
Around 60
EdibleAcres we have 34.
What is your chicken to "egg per day" ratio today?
Our hens are quite old, most are 4-6 years old, or older! SO... we get 3-6 eggs a day during the winter and we're OK with that. We need to harvest most of them by spring and start with a new flock...
too bad, not worth . they have 60 chicken and get 5-6 eggs per day.
summer its 30 - 34 per day
Any videos on chicken harvesting one day?
I don't know if we'll film that... We'll have to see.
@@edibleacres
Or just a discussion of how it's done, equipment used, time it takes; you could also show the processing part that takes place in the kitchen :)
hmmm this is kinda like bob ross... except permaculture
Hahaha. that's a weird comparison.. but I like it. :)
You may not be surprised to hear how often folks say this is like Bob Ross... I like the comparison much more than saying I look like a 'chill Jordan Peterson' though!!!
@@edibleacres A chill Peterson! Hahah omg!
Yea, the Ross one is way better. :)
I can see why people say the latter though. Obviously not the appearance, but there's something really soothing and fascinating about watching someone tend to his garden, his chickens, dig through piles of 'rubbish' that is turning into black gold. Quite relaxing (from this end) :)
you have a tuxedo cat!!!! Please join us on Facebook Tuxedo Cats!!
Wow what a great resource! I saw a video recently from Geoff Lawton and he was mixing sand In With his compost for a potting mix. It looked to be a pretty great combo. Just wondering if you had heard about doing that and any thoughts you might have on that. Thanks.
Sounds very reasonable to help keep soil structure open and give ample space for roots... I personally wouldn't do it as potting mix for all the potted plants we sell because it would be WAY too heavy.
Pearlite is a good alternate and vastly lighter in weight.
Need some music during your sped up moments.
That would probably be nicer :)
have you ever accidentally poked a chicken with the pitchfork ..... cuz man they dont give a shit
You'd think by now we would have, but somehow never a poke! Super lucky?
Good evening from Oswego county! I was wondering if your egg production drops any noticeable amount during the winter. I’m looking at raising some chickens my self come this spring time and I’m really not certain what I should do when winter comes.
Our egg production drops tremendously in the winter! We have much older hens, 4-6 years (and older, yes, we know we need to renew our flock!) We get 3-6 eggs a day in the winter from our 60 hens. Really low production but enough for our home needs. I encourage folks to consider getting more chickens than they think they need as a baseline. More eggs, more buffer, more meat if/when you harvest.
You harvested 3 of your friends😭😞😞. That's what roosters are for. Buy some meat chickens and let them range with the hens.
As these hens get old, we have two choices... We can let them slowly die of old age, some getting sick, unable to walk, having a lot of pain during cold spells, etc, before they die, or we can harvest them as we need food, trying our very best to only go for the hens that no longer seem to be thriving or enjoying life. It is hard but feels right to us.
@@edibleacres my mom said the very same thing. That taught me not to have chicken friends☺.
They must be pretty tough eating at that age? Assuming you cook them long and slow?
@@edibleacres a good life and a quick death; far better than battery hens get. (It’s what I do with mine too. It isn’t 'fun' culling the flock, but it is how a farm works.
You dont harvest hens you Kill them.
I'd say we do both. We kill them to harvest them. We kill root crops to harvest them as well.
@@edibleacres I wouldnt use the same Term for both things. Ethically this is definitely not the same thing. And our language should show that. If we Start talking like killing a chicken is the same thing as killing a wheat plant we will Start believing it too. And this is psychopathy.