-10F - Did the chicken compost system fail?!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
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What a wonderful idea to keep the hens busy and fed! I showed my husband and he said...”I suppose you want to do that”. What a good husband.
I hope he finds a lot of joy in it all too, it is a rewarding system for sure.
I had to show your comment to my husband. That’s a common exchange in our house 😊
This made me laugh- very similar to my relationship with my wife.😂
Please take this as a joke 🙏sounds like he is hen pecked 🐔😂👍😇😁
I notice that many channels who have Roos in their flocks often complain that the birds are quiet until the person is talking. I think it has a lot to do with claiming territory. Several years ago when I had purchased my home I found that someone had abandoned a small group of birds in the neighborhood, and the Roo would start crowing if he heard any other birds from a couple roads over. He then would rush around and gather up his haram.
Interesting idea.. .Yeah, he certainly had a lot to say when I was in there!
I like that idea!
It is truly amazing the warmth that compost can create even in the extreme cold.
It really is!
Two weeks ago I got some chicks, and yesterday I finally got my greenhouse poly remnants and cattle panels. Chicken compost, here I come! Thanks for the great inspiration and knowledge sharing, my little lot here in suburban Maryland would all still be grass if it weren't for you guys, now it's mostly gardens! ❤
So so wonderful to read! Sounds like you are making amazing strides, we're happy for you, your plants and your new chick friends, yay!
love your little guy and his girlfriend! love your set up for your flock. i greatly respect your care for your birds and their comfort.
Thank you
This is a great system and amazing that its still producing heat and food. Love the carport expansion! :-)
The carport has been a really nice addition for us
Little Rooster Man had me crackin' up! The compost system is such an awesome place for the hens to be in the winter, what a great synergy.
We really enjoy his presence for sure
Miraculous indeed! Your hens are lucky to have you and so are we. :)
You are so kind
I did something very similar and my chickens love it as well. It's nice to not have to worry about them when we get these cold snaps! Also, those bantam rooster are hilarious, we used to have a couple. They crow a lot more than normal but are a lot quieter, that's as loud as he will get.
Glad to hear, his volume right now is really doable
We're in Shelburne County Nova Scotia, -23c brought our three chickens in to have a sleep over in the back hall, our pipes froze (heating and bathroom water) because we heat with wood stove. Managed to thaw without issue. Love your little rooster, what breed is he? 🎶dootlooo🎶 😂 🐓 thanks for all your and Sasha's wisdom!
Serama Bantam is the rooster and other little lady. Glad the pipes thawed out!
If you have a specific spot that you can reach that tends to freeze you can heat something with thermal mass (metal bucket of water, steel block, chunks of stone) on the woodstove and then leave it near the spot that freezes. My dad has been doing that for years in the downstairs bathroom.
Just found this channel/video today and we’re in Shelburne county too, small world! Getting 3 chickens this spring, first time and very excited!
Glad you and your chickens made it through the cold snap!
@@selkiegal406 very exiting for you!! if you want to come and see my set up feel free, we can arrange something. I'm in Gunning Cove. It's the best thing I ever did getting the girls, I've got some videos and shorts of them on my channel. The best part of the day is going to feed them in the morning, they come running up to me in anticipation. 🐔🐔🐔👍🏻
@@clarenewz that’s so kind!! We would love to! Will definitely check out your channel. We’re just outside Lockeport.
We have -28C feels like -48C and gusts to 80km on PEI last night and it is none too comfortable today. Suppose to rise to -2 tomorrow afternoon. I definitely like the idea of loads of scraps and chickens out in a high tunnel but at 69 with artificial knees, I'm not physically prepared for that system. But the high tunnel with deep bedding and scraps without the shovelling in the cold works for me, lol.
It seems so very important to figure out what system makes the most sense for your situation, your physical comfort, etc. Our system really asks for a lot of heavy lifting and moving, not something we'd love to do indefinitely but makes sense for now.
Will try to stay up and join, but pretty late in Sweden that time.
Have not had chickens last 8 years, but will start again this spring, and really like your way to keep chicken! Thank you!
Please remember we record these so you are more than welcome to watch at your convenience later! If you've submitted a question we'll try to answer it, and thank you for being a member with us for 5 months!
This is just fantastic and I will be implementing a similar area for our “ladies”! We are in zone 4 Montana so we get -30’s quite often. I LOVE that tiny pair of chickens!
You'll need more insulating carbon like old hay, etc. or dry leaves to keep the warmth in with temps like that, but it can certainly work
May I ask what Bree of hens you have? We are in zone 5 and it get below times in the winter. Don’t know the best breed to get.
@@ogadlogadl490 we have a variety but all have done well here. Barred Rocks, Buff Orpington, speckled Sussex, & New Hampshire Reds are some of our favorites:) good luck 👍
Been anxiously awaiting this when I knew temps for the northeast! My compost pipeline in a partially covered run is still producing sprouts!
That is so awesome!
I love your little rooster. He reminds me of one I had. I bought some straight run chicks when I first moved here, got 2 roosters. One was normal size and the other a bantam. I called him Scrappy because he was a tough little dude. He crowed like yours.
We enjoy him and hope he stays with us for a long time!
This was great!! The bantam rooster is SO cute and funny! Looking forward to tomorrow
I love your intention within reiteration of the simplicity and cost efficiency. It's inspiring Everytime, and people forget sometime how simple things can really be so thank you for this type of reminder, and for cataloging your work.
would it be possible to build some kind of "chicken tunnel" from the coop to the winter run so that the older ladies could get to the run, without having to move through the cold? It looks like the coop and the run are close enough to make that possible.
I hope you stay safe. I hope your system stay resilient. I think the system is resilient because you have been doing it for years.
I hope that is true!
love the little ones...when i was a kid we had one little hen -like the one u have- and she was the most amazing mom...very protective and excellent in laying eggs...her name was Reynalda...
The little chickens are pretty rad actually, we enjoy them
That Serama rooster is cracking me up. 🤣
My girls owe their compost pile to your example.
They are happy girls!
Yay!
hahah oh your bantam rooster is adorable with his tiny mighty crow
I laughed hard at whole little rooster friend segment 😆
He's pretty sweet :)
I was wondering how the system reacted to this unusual cold temperatures for our, in a broad sense, area. These temps are a once a decade experience for us. So funny to thing that it will be so mild tomorrow. My hubbie calls it the yo-yo. If it means spring is coming early, I for one am totally ok with that, Haha! 😁
I'm excited for spring to start coming around at this point!
I just love your chookie videos. Those girls are just so lucky and very spoilt. Blessings from Australia ❤️
Spoiled can be one way to describe, but I see it as treating our workers as incredibly valued and respected members of our team
What a lovely way to keep them warm!
Seems to work nicely
Tiny rooster: "Tremble Before Me!"
I would love that as a chicken! Nice toasty feed! On such a cold day! Oh I’d not go outside lol 😅 bless them! 😊
All the chuckling you did over the bantam rooster pretty much sums up how I feel about them! 😆such BIG personalities in such small packages, they can be pretty funny! Saw a story on The Dodo a couple years back about Ronnie the bantam rooster, hang an eyeball on it sometime it'll make you chuckle😂
It has been really fun watching the evolution of the chicken compost system you've evolved over the years, it's a Joyful thing to witness unfold.
Thanks for the kind words!
Wow your chicken-compost setup is very active.
My pile of leaves was 155f yesterday, though after adding my mulch to it it's 90f today(zone 9). I removed my mulch b/c that 2600 Cornell Class suggested it helped dry out the soil & allow the sun to wake up our trees before the soil-warming-microbes would in heavy-moisture. This season the 2-yr leaf-mold compost is $145 per cy, wow. So every time I fill up my 9 bushel grass-catcher/bagger it's $19.87 worth of material without shipping-costs.
So so awesome how deep you are diving into understanding and tracking all this, wow. I hope you are sharing your knowledge with a bunch of folks and getting them excited too!
What a fantastic demonstration of a multipurpose chicken composting system. I have to make mine bigger
This size has been good to us
I love your bantams! Lol. We had one called Little Dude for several years and he was quite the character!
He's got a pretty good way actually
This year we have had a lot of problems with rats. What are your thoughts?
Rats help aerate the compost as they dig down deep into the pile and help open it up and bring oxygen down and in
Last summer we had a out of control rat problem in our chicken compost system . We counted over 25 rodents of all sizes openly feasting on scaps during the day. Then they progressed to visiting our kitchen. Now I limit the amount of food I feed the birds at any one time and leave spare food hidden in the
Back of my van . But recently noticed an unusual smell of rat urine in the cab and suspect a rat now lives behind the dashboard.
I try to separate food from hay, straw, leaves and such (typical places where mice lives during winter). All stored grain for chicken in secure containers.
And we have a few cats, to keep the micepopulation in check.
Look around for some diy rat catching traps, I've seen some amazing ones on youtube made of like, a tube, a can, and some wire. You end up with a bucket of either live or drowned rats/mice that can be put to use in other ways.
Icky I know, but pigs, chickens, people on kijiji or craigslist with pet snakes, etc might be more interested than you think in a little rat snack.
Also, some people use carcasses to attract flies to create maggots as another food source for chickens. Put the carcass in a bucket with holes punched around the sides and hang it over the chicken yard, flies go in and lay eggs, maggots hatch and climb out the holes, then land in the yard where the chickens can feast.
I haven't had a major problem yet (just a snack sized one), but if it ever gets that bad I might sideline into making pet food, because raw foods are really catching on now but cats have a strong requirement for a protein that only exists in certain animals like rats (most "old age" issues cats get are actually due to a deficiency of that protein in standard cat food)
I don't have the time or energy to actually raise rats myself (yet) but if life gives me lemons i make lemonade, and if life gives me rats ... well .... we're gonna find a way to work with that too
The new guy is quite talkative
At times, but overall he's really not a problem
That's genius! Heat and food for the chickens in winter. Additionally, you could heat your greenhouse in the winter for free! Year round veggies for you and yours.
Funny, happy chickens! Congrats!
Truly love this channel and the regular updates we get. So many channels start some new project then never show it again or not till it's completely failed (often cause they just didn't make time for it), and you never know if it's actually a decent system or not.
I just sat through a 4 video series on "how do different types of greenhouses hold up in winter" and the man had nothing planted in any of them, just talked about what he **thinks** it could do if he was actually using it, like ..... waste my time 2023.
I live in a cold climate, when you've got animals up here, one wrong move and they're dead in a night. We have no space for foolin around. I follow cold climate channels specifically for this reason, because knowing how things really work and exactly how much effort is being put in to keep it running, is so, so important.
Thanks kindly for the positive words. I can definitely be guilty of dropping off on videos on a certain experiment but we try to update folks when we can and I'm glad you find the channel valuable!
Thank you 🙏🙏🙏
Really make my day. Too hilarious 😂 ❤️
I absolutely love this
In an earlier video you mentioned what you do with plants that have no where to grow, but how do you gauge when your system is at capacity for chickens, and what do you do with the extra birds (chicks, old hens, etc)? BTW they look healthy happy and hella comfortable
So far the system seems to be able to add slowly and surely more hens. . Some die of old age so it seems to even out.
Extra plants.. .we seem to be able to always find nooks for them!
That little rooster is so funny
Ahh the incredible power of compost! also is that some nice mouse protein at 3:46? i wish mine would hunt mice, haha they just get freaked out by them!!
I'm not sure if that was a mouse in there, but certainly some type of protein!
That’s really cool…
We love Rooster-Man!
How do you use this structure during the warm months?
Absolutely amazing! ❤️
How many yards of material go in/comes out on average per month? Have you considered diverting part of the end compost to a worm bin for added revenue?
There are worms active in this space already in an informal way. I've thought about a separate system for them but it hasn't been that compelling to add in since it works pretty nicely as is. Yards per month.... Maybe 2-3 roughly?
@@edibleacres Awesome, thanks!
Cog hill has one too called tiny Tim
Wonderful! 🔥Looking fwd to the live q and a. Thank you so much 😊🌱💚🙏✨
That little rooster 😂.
Happy Hens 😊
I am amazed at how well it works considering the cold temperatures outside.
We also have some land and chickens here in Germany, but by far not as cold as you have it.
I really enjoy your videos and I have learnt a lot, thanks so much.
Question; how do you keep the rodents out?
would you throw weeds into the compost?
Kind Regards,
Ernst
Weeds definitely in compost...
Rodents are welcome, rats create beautiful aeration tunnels and the mice can be food for chickens as needed....
excellent.. will try and be around tomorrow if possible. Cheers
Can we use this system for more than 500 chickens? And, is it a problem in the U.S.A to use chicken manure in chicken food? I think in my country Turkey, it would make people nervous to see this system . But this looks so logical and healthy to me and you are doing great job. Thanks for sharing.
You may want to search 'vermont compost company' and find videos on them and other documentation. I believe they were doing this basic system with over 1000 hens at one point... Super functional..
I can't speak to legal issues with formal egg sales, etc., but ethically and health wise our hens seem to be quite happy overall and that is what matters to us
Wacky chicken system? Unusual maybe but effective as well.
We certainly see it as effective
do you have the q&a recording up? I can't seem to find it.
Can anyone make suggestions on very cold hardy hen breeds from experience. We are in zone 5 and need ideas. Thank you all !
We are zone 5 here, and every type you see in the videos have gone through at least one or two winters with us, most a lot more....
Are those plastic pallets just outside the winter run? I saw some listed near me and was trying to determine what use they might have for our needs.
I don't think we have that, you may have seen milk crates? If you can get them for free maybe they could help with making infrastructure to hold leaf bags, hay, etc.etc?
Sean, I don't think I've ever heard you talk about slaughtering the old hens for food. Do you ever process your chickens? I have 4 hens that are close to 3 years old, and their laying capacity is diminishing quite a bit since last fall. I find it hard to justify keeping the older hens around. How do you justify it? Is it the fact that they help with your compost production by pooing and scratching?
Good question, we don't have some particular formula or metric to decide if/when. To be honest, we have freezers that are pretty darn full of food right now so there isn't a huge pressure to cull, and we know folks who raise organic pasture chickens for meat and we buy the carcasses at a very low price frozen and they are amazing and easy, so in our system most hens get to just live out their lives until they are ready to pass away and then we bury them with a tree...
That said, we will sometimes watch for hens that really seem to be slowing down and don't seem to be enjoying life much or getting involved in things and tend to select those hens for culling if/when we need to.
@@edibleacres I think that's really cool that you bury them with a tree!
Rooster TV!!! 😂
love that bantam rooster!!!
He's really nice
When is it safe to put chicken compost in the garden without worrying about salmonella and also the burning of plants?
Too many variables to answer that as I'm sure you understand. If you consider what comes out as a very very rich mulch rather than a finished compost and use it accordingly you should be fine.
Do your old hens work the compost as well as the young hens?
They do. Much less but they still work
Compost is free food for chickens.
What would you say are your best sources of food scraps? Like do you get them from small restaurants, or big chains, or grocery stores?
Excellent video! Is the rooster a new addition? My dog's ears definitely perked up when he heard it crowing.
He's a new little friend!
OhMyDog, that rooster is so cute!!! What breed is it?
oh, found the answer to that in the comments. :)
If life ever stops fking me I'll let you know how it survives in -40
Thats a tough temp for sure
Chicken sauna lol
Hello brother
24 inches of snow followed by a week of -25F has end our similar composing system in Colorado
🤣their so small☺️🐓🐔
What if it did fail and Sean started the video in a panic as he pans to a massacre of dead chickens littering the ground? Talk about subverting expectations. Anyways, glad we got this outcome instead. Thanks for taking in chickens from unfortunate conditions.
That would be a pretty short and bleak video... Fingers crossed we don't do that one!