I think you and Sasha are in the sweet spot of having a great system - not too big or overwhelming, flexible, natural, utilizing all available resources on the land and in the community, fairly simple and not super reliant on expensive technologies and repairs, a healthy amount of physical labor for good exercise and appreciation... not to mention it just looks fun.
Kind words, and yeah, I think you are right. It isn't overwhelming in any direction. Sometimes just on the edge, but enough diversity of projects and work to keep it fresh feeling.
6:57; who knew that chickens could be so much like cats. having an amazing gift to appear in the middle of where you need to be at EXACTLY the moment you need to be there...
I love this channel!!! Wow u and Sacha are superheroes in my eyes and boy is she got some knife skills that fermented root veg was awesome!! I love chicken TV and how you utilise so many waste streams!!! 🐔📺❤️🙏👍☺️⛔🗑️
Hello feathery ladies! Your cousins in Kenya say "kurukurukuru" (that's chicken or "kuku" speak in Swahili). I'm speaking with some of my fellow humans here to work on spreading the word about compost and soaked grain as fantastic feed.
@@edibleacres Overall I think so too. The other stuff is normal :) I think all of us chicken owners that care about our chickens worry. One of my chickens sneezes and I start to freak a little LOL
I can't have chickens where I live. The county requires a minimum of 3 acres to have chickes. Ugh, so I am grateful to you for sharing your observations in partnership with your hens. In this episode, Sean waxes poetic as he consults the ladies for recommendations on improvements, characterizes the material in-flow as "paltry for the poultry" and discovers hidden treasure-food in the compost pile. Very enjoyable, sensible and sensitive. Thank you!
That is such an insane rule your county has, what a disappointment... Our hens are in 1/8th of an acre of our 1/2 acre total property and are thriving here! The rules we have to work within are sometimes just so crazy, when you think about 10000 chickens being jammed into a single building, and thats legal AND subsidized... Rant aside, thank you for such kind words :)
The same food that my girls ignored above ground is highly desired after a while in the pile. I'm not sure if it adds soil life or moisture but they seem to prefer stuff thats been "aged" in this way.
You may have answered this before, but I was curious about the food scraps you give your ladies. I see they come from restaurants....do you pick through and take out what they shouldn't have? Or let them decide? Do you give them breads and meats that might come in? Thanks. :)
When possible, we try to avoid bringing in coffee grounds and lots of citrus, maybe a bucket has all onion peels, we'd skip that, too. We have another compost area for that kind of stuff, but we don't get crazy and the hens can pick what they want for the most part.
Are you on Instagram? I feel like that’s way more labor then is needed . I think you have all the pieces to the puzzle and clearly the passion. I’ll try to find ya on ig I have a system that use I put 15 min into a week . Awesome video
@@edibleacres raw and cooked? I’m not sure they would eat raw steaks. I get around 20-30 pounds a week of random meat. Around the holidays it was 200-300 pounds of frozen meat?
We recently moved to the hot and humid tropics and my poor girls struggle in the heat and humidity (even though they're locals!). I love watching chicken tv with all that snow - I dream of raising chickens in a more reasonable climate 😄 How do you handle broody ladies? Do you leave them to do their thing and ride it out? We have 5 girls and Russell, and think it's time to let one of them raise some chicks - more compost workers and the next generation egg producers. Do you have a video on how you tackle that? Do you separate mom and chicks from the rest of the flock? Raise them all together with minimal interference? Oh I hope I can find a lovely stress free way to let one of my girls become a mommy 😂
When broody we let them be broody, we have enough hens that it works out ok. Russell = Rooster I'm guessing :) ? - When we had roosters we'd let them mate and the broody hens could be moved into a 'side' area where they'd be protected but still visible to the rest of the crew to get the babies started for a while. We wish we could do that again at this point, but we have to wait until we have more space...
Hehe yes Russell "Crows" is our rooster 🐓 We have named our girls as well 😂 On advise from friends we prepared a "broody box" to break the broody girls. But after watching how distressed the first hen got we've opted to let them be. I do go and move the hen off her nest a few times a day and point her in the direction of water and food. But I might stop doing that - it doesn't seem to help them. We could fence off an area about 3mx3m within their run and make a pallet sized house with a roost and a nesting box. Then move the broody hen over with a few eggs. Aside from providing feed and water - any more fussing we should do? Or can she take it from there? When do you let them integrate back? I've been told the chicks get diseases from the main flock so they should be far away, not just seperated by a fence. Do you think a bigger seperation is necessary? Would you vaccinate your chicks? Sorry to ask so many questions - I know you're busy. But you have the most humble and honest way of interacting with your birds that I really value your input.
Do you have any predators come in, attracted to the scraps? I have my girls in a secure pen and we have always hesitated to put compost in with them in winter. We are in the village, so raccoons are a thing
Hey, Sean I am wondering why you decide on going with the "retirement home flock" lol? Do they lay more than 8 eggs/day average during the peak season when they have more light hours? Do you sell eggs ever? What are your thoughts about having a more productive, younger hybrid or heritage bird flock for egg production? That could be a great complementary side enterprise to the nursery propagation and compost production since you already go to the trouble to import all that food scrap nutrition.
Great question. Not a specific/deliberate plan here, just whats happening. We added in 25 hens that came from an organic CAFO and they are productive for sure. In the summer we were getting 2-3 dozen eggs a day, definitely a decent number. The issue is more than anything that we have a hard time killing old hens for food. We can do it, we know it would be more efficient, but it's a hard call. Until we do that, there isn't room to refresh the flock. I think some day we'll have to hit a real reset button, maybe we take 1 year off entirely and then start with brand new birds. 75 young, peak production hens in a system like this would be insane and we'd have to figure out a serious route to send all the eggs. We'd probably donate to food banks.
Have you thought about the potential degradation of the plastic from being in contact with the hot compost? I know plastics have a limited lifespan in the sunshine/elements, but I wonder what your experience has been? Maybe the benefits from the warmth and food supply for the ladies > replacing plastics quicker?
The poly on the winter run has been on for maybe 3 years? So far so good, and I have a chicken wire mesh on the inside that keeps some/most of the hot compost off of direct contact with the poly. It's meant to handle 130+F temperatures in the direct sun so I figure it's not crazy to have compost near/in it... We'll have to see how long it may last.
I'm using my chicken poop to get compost to heat water to heat my chicken coop. I just got in the mail a inline pump to move water through the compost pile for heat.
what browns can i use in my compost? i dont have access to leaves.....i use my hamster's bedding for browns but it's not enough...ive used paper but i don't like it...it clumps and hardens into a ball....what else should i use????
Wood chips are an easy to find 'brown' in most areas, you can also ask carptentry shops or any wood mills in the area for sawdust, a lot of time that's free... Also, any unsprayed hay bales or straw bales that are too old to sell for prime market can be a great fit. Just some ideas.
It looks like he has some really classic breeds: Plymouth barred rock, buff Orpingtons and austrolorps seem to be what they mostly are. I think I see a couple other random breeds, but that seems to be the majority.
Sometimes not at first, but we've never had to sift cabbage out of the finished compost so at some point they decide to eat it. I think they like it lightly 'cooked' by the compost.
I think you and Sasha are in the sweet spot of having a great system - not too big or overwhelming, flexible, natural, utilizing all available resources on the land and in the community, fairly simple and not super reliant on expensive technologies and repairs, a healthy amount of physical labor for good exercise and appreciation... not to mention it just looks fun.
Kind words, and yeah, I think you are right. It isn't overwhelming in any direction. Sometimes just on the edge, but enough diversity of projects and work to keep it fresh feeling.
My cats and watch your chicken compost videos for different reasons, but with equal enthusiasm
It is a real delight to see your happy hens going about their daily business.
6:57; who knew that chickens could be so much like cats. having an amazing gift to appear in the middle of where you need to be at EXACTLY the moment you need to be there...
They are incredibly good at that.
I want to be one of your chickens in my next life lol. I think you have the happiest chickens there are 🐓. Very nice!
You'd be welcome to rummage around on piles of old meat, veggies and grains, ha!
I love this channel!!! Wow u and Sacha are superheroes in my eyes and boy is she got some knife skills that fermented root veg was awesome!! I love chicken TV and how you utilise so many waste streams!!! 🐔📺❤️🙏👍☺️⛔🗑️
Thanks for the kind words and being part of our community here!
@@edibleacres awesome that's made my day!! 😁😁😁😁
Hello feathery ladies! Your cousins in Kenya say "kurukurukuru" (that's chicken or "kuku" speak in Swahili). I'm speaking with some of my fellow humans here to work on spreading the word about compost and soaked grain as fantastic feed.
a trick : you can watch movies at Flixzone. I've been using them for watching lots of of movies during the lockdown.
@Conner Ayden Yup, I have been using Flixzone} for since december myself :D
As soon as you'd said 'Paltry', I hoped that the joke was coming . . .
You didn't disappoint. Wishing you all the best from the UK
Your retirement village XD I love their calming little noises. Great work!
I love their satisfied chatter while searching. They are so healthy and happy looking. Great video!
So glad you think so. I see a poopy butt here or there or an older hen looking frumpy and worry, but I think overall they are healthy beings.
@@edibleacres Overall I think so too. The other stuff is normal :) I think all of us chicken owners that care about our chickens worry. One of my chickens sneezes and I start to freak a little LOL
My husband and I had an enjoyable time watching you and your chickens. What a pleasure! Thank you, Sean.
Glad you enjoyed it
I like watching all your videos. I hope more and more people make a move towards more sustainable permaculture.
I think more and more are.
I'm building my first chicken coop this spring! Cant wait!
Best of luck I'm getting chickens too 🐔🐔🐔🤞🤞🤞
Wishing you great success, you can do it!
Always love seeing the ladies enjoying themselves out there. Appreciate all of the observations and explanations, it really helps a lot man!
I really appreciate when you explain temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Fahrenheit isn't really used in my province, so the context is nice.
I try to remember when I can, sorry for when I don't...
I can't have chickens where I live. The county requires a minimum of 3 acres to have chickes. Ugh, so I am grateful to you for sharing your observations in partnership with your hens. In this episode, Sean waxes poetic as he consults the ladies for recommendations on improvements, characterizes the material in-flow as "paltry for the poultry" and discovers hidden treasure-food in the compost pile. Very enjoyable, sensible and sensitive. Thank you!
That is such an insane rule your county has, what a disappointment... Our hens are in 1/8th of an acre of our 1/2 acre total property and are thriving here! The rules we have to work within are sometimes just so crazy, when you think about 10000 chickens being jammed into a single building, and thats legal AND subsidized...
Rant aside, thank you for such kind words :)
Thanks for even more ideas as I plan and build my chicken run composting system this year
Good luck! The beauty part is you can start with what you've got and then adjust and improve over time, thats what we did
Some fine looking hens...very healthy !!!!
Wow, you have SO MUCH compost! I need to step up my compost game big time!
You can do it!
Thank you for sharing, ordered several ducks (allergies to chicken eggs) to try something similar this spring!
Hi 👋 from WV 😊
Hi from California.
Happy chickens 🐓
Awesome. Really felt good.
Perfect.
one of these days your gonna get a free intern and the chicken TV on twitch will be insane! :)
Maybe come spring we figure out a relationship with someone who has extra time/labor and wants some compost or eggs to do some of the heavy lifting :)
have you thought about mineral free choice for chickens? Besides the normal oyster shells and rocks?
We haven't, but we'd be open to it for sure... Let us know if you've got ideas of what we should think about.
The same food that my girls ignored above ground is highly desired after a while in the pile.
I'm not sure if it adds soil life or moisture but they seem to prefer stuff thats been "aged" in this way.
I think we have the same experience...
You may have answered this before, but I was curious about the food scraps you give your ladies. I see they come from restaurants....do you pick through and take out what they shouldn't have? Or let them decide? Do you give them breads and meats that might come in? Thanks. :)
In another video: he let's them pick through what they want - and finds that they love noodles.
When possible, we try to avoid bringing in coffee grounds and lots of citrus, maybe a bucket has all onion peels, we'd skip that, too. We have another compost area for that kind of stuff, but we don't get crazy and the hens can pick what they want for the most part.
@@wolfbirdhomestead600 My chickens love noodles too. They are a treat and they don't get them often.
@@edibleacres Thanks!
I enjoy watching your barred-rock supervisor checking to see that you’re doing it right. 😂
She's always hanging around
Are you on Instagram? I feel like that’s way more labor then is needed . I think you have all the pieces to the puzzle and clearly the passion. I’ll try to find ya on ig I have a system that use I put 15 min into a week . Awesome video
yeah, look for edible acres and you'll find us. Not super active on IG.
Love chicken TV
When you open those bags, what's the weirdest thing you found amongst the autumn leaves?
Ha! Hmmm... Super deranged and moldy looking rubber ducky maybe? Saved that one, it's sitting on a perch in the chicken yard :)
@@edibleacres Oh, not THAT weird... A new toy for the chickens to play with maybe
New subscriber here: what about adding red wiggler worms to the compost to keep the ladies fed?
Great idea! Definitely incredibly worth while if you can source them. We do when we can.
I get a ton of compost from my local food shelf, do you have any ideas for composting older frozen meat items?
You can compost it directly in a normal compost bin. We offer meat to our chickens all the time, and they love it.
@@edibleacres raw and cooked? I’m not sure they would eat raw steaks. I get around 20-30 pounds a week of random meat. Around the holidays it was 200-300 pounds of frozen meat?
We recently moved to the hot and humid tropics and my poor girls struggle in the heat and humidity (even though they're locals!). I love watching chicken tv with all that snow - I dream of raising chickens in a more reasonable climate 😄
How do you handle broody ladies? Do you leave them to do their thing and ride it out?
We have 5 girls and Russell, and think it's time to let one of them raise some chicks - more compost workers and the next generation egg producers. Do you have a video on how you tackle that? Do you separate mom and chicks from the rest of the flock? Raise them all together with minimal interference?
Oh I hope I can find a lovely stress free way to let one of my girls become a mommy 😂
When broody we let them be broody, we have enough hens that it works out ok.
Russell = Rooster I'm guessing :) ?
- When we had roosters we'd let them mate and the broody hens could be moved into a 'side' area where they'd be protected but still visible to the rest of the crew to get the babies started for a while. We wish we could do that again at this point, but we have to wait until we have more space...
Hehe yes Russell "Crows" is our rooster 🐓 We have named our girls as well 😂
On advise from friends we prepared a "broody box" to break the broody girls. But after watching how distressed the first hen got we've opted to let them be. I do go and move the hen off her nest a few times a day and point her in the direction of water and food. But I might stop doing that - it doesn't seem to help them.
We could fence off an area about 3mx3m within their run and make a pallet sized house with a roost and a nesting box. Then move the broody hen over with a few eggs. Aside from providing feed and water - any more fussing we should do? Or can she take it from there?
When do you let them integrate back?
I've been told the chicks get diseases from the main flock so they should be far away, not just seperated by a fence. Do you think a bigger seperation is necessary?
Would you vaccinate your chicks?
Sorry to ask so many questions - I know you're busy. But you have the most humble and honest way of interacting with your birds that I really value your input.
Do you have any predators come in, attracted to the scraps? I have my girls in a secure pen and we have always hesitated to put compost in with them in winter. We are in the village, so raccoons are a thing
We have some raccoons and opossums come in sometimes at night, but the coop is secure so they are welcome to enjoy what they'd like.
Hey, Sean I am wondering why you decide on going with the "retirement home flock" lol? Do they lay more than 8 eggs/day average during the peak season when they have more light hours? Do you sell eggs ever? What are your thoughts about having a more productive, younger hybrid or heritage bird flock for egg production? That could be a great complementary side enterprise to the nursery propagation and compost production since you already go to the trouble to import all that food scrap nutrition.
Great question. Not a specific/deliberate plan here, just whats happening. We added in 25 hens that came from an organic CAFO and they are productive for sure. In the summer we were getting 2-3 dozen eggs a day, definitely a decent number. The issue is more than anything that we have a hard time killing old hens for food. We can do it, we know it would be more efficient, but it's a hard call. Until we do that, there isn't room to refresh the flock. I think some day we'll have to hit a real reset button, maybe we take 1 year off entirely and then start with brand new birds. 75 young, peak production hens in a system like this would be insane and we'd have to figure out a serious route to send all the eggs. We'd probably donate to food banks.
Have you thought about the potential degradation of the plastic from being in contact with the hot compost? I know plastics have a limited lifespan in the sunshine/elements, but I wonder what your experience has been? Maybe the benefits from the warmth and food supply for the ladies > replacing plastics quicker?
The poly on the winter run has been on for maybe 3 years? So far so good, and I have a chicken wire mesh on the inside that keeps some/most of the hot compost off of direct contact with the poly. It's meant to handle 130+F temperatures in the direct sun so I figure it's not crazy to have compost near/in it... We'll have to see how long it may last.
I'm using my chicken poop to get compost to heat water to heat my chicken coop. I just got in the mail a inline pump to move water through the compost pile for heat.
Hope it works wonderfully for you!
what browns can i use in my compost? i dont have access to leaves.....i use my hamster's bedding for browns but it's not enough...ive used paper but i don't like it...it clumps and hardens into a ball....what else should i use????
Wood chips are an easy to find 'brown' in most areas, you can also ask carptentry shops or any wood mills in the area for sawdust, a lot of time that's free... Also, any unsprayed hay bales or straw bales that are too old to sell for prime market can be a great fit. Just some ideas.
chickens love food scraps
I'm wondering what kind of chickens these are, does anyone know? I'd like to get some hens this spring.
It looks like he has some really classic breeds: Plymouth barred rock, buff Orpingtons and austrolorps seem to be what they mostly are. I think I see a couple other random breeds, but that seems to be the majority.
You know better than we do! We've gotten random birds from many sources for years and are quite happy with pretty much all of them :)
6:00 LOL
I think your chickens have made it clear that they don't like cabbage.
Sometimes not at first, but we've never had to sift cabbage out of the finished compost so at some point they decide to eat it. I think they like it lightly 'cooked' by the compost.
I didn’t realise that chickens eat meat! Doesn’t their space smell bad with all the rotting food?
It does if we don't manage it well with ample carbon and aeration... It can be a challenge, but so long as we keep up with that it works beautifully.
Wow your compost pile is hot.
Really happy with that temperature. Just about ideal I've found over the years.
piles tv
When you go to flip the pile, you will find:
It's piles all the way down.
lifetv!