Chicken Coop Build: Chicken Coop Bedding Compost

Chicken Coop Bedding Compost

Some owners prefer to pick manure and soiled bedding out of the coop on a daily basis. Others will add new bedding over droppings and collect on a less frequent basis.

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By making compost right in the chicken coop you can keep your chickens healthier happier and almost eliminate the chore of coop cleaning.

Chicken coop bedding compost. A combination of 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen creates the ideal environment for microbes to break down organic material to produce compost. My coop has a wooden floor so it has to stay dry. Its full of both the browns litter like wood shavings and the greens poop you need to build a good compost so into the compost bin it goes.

So what this means is that your coop will not smell quite as much because there will be something there to collect a lot of the substances that make it stink. I would remove all the straw bedding then sprinkle de diatomaceous earth and replace the straw with new bedding. I worded my question incorrectly i didnt mean deep litter.

1 compost dirty coop litter dispose of the chicken poop by putting it in the compost pile. Heat generally isnt necessary in chicken coops but weve all seen the sad stories of coops barns or even homes burning down in the winter due to the improper use of heat lamps. With the proper bedding for chickens your flock is able to withstand the cold weather quite well.

Carbon to nitrogen balance. I have a coop sized for 12 chickens with 8 in it in the background of my pic. Chicken bedding is something that you place in the bottom of the chicken coop andor nesting boxes that will collect chicken waste and moisture.

I clean it out every 6 weeks to 2 months and put it all into a pile. Our chickens made it through the winter just fine and now were trying to design a good use for the compost they interacted with all winter to allow it to mellow and age but still get a yield from. There is no poop catcher just the shavings.

The first few winters we raised chickens i would trudge down in the cold and ice to clean out the coop every other week or so. I use pine shavings in the coop but only a few inches. When the carbon of a chicken coop bedding material and the nitrogen content of chicken manure balance properly you can use a deep litter method to compost the bedding right in the coop.

The next morning when you are opening up your chicken coop take the previous days kitchen compost container with you destined for the compost pile. When you open your chicken coop for the day skim your manure box droppings and place your chicken manure and any soiled bedding in a muck bucket.

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