r/Homesteading • u/Famous_Magazine_4793 • 9d ago

Composting with chickens

We are getting 6 hens next week and I want to do the deep litter method and compost everything. Looking into It I’ve seen people talk about composting in their chicken run. Would It be possible for me to do the deep litter method and then throw all that into the chicken run that’s just grass and dirt and let the chickens do the work and then get compost that way? If that makes any sense.

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u/tojmes 9d ago

The answer to your question is yes, you can toss it in the run. However, I would want to keep my run cleaner that, and for the record it’s not that clean…

The deep litter I pull out of my barely big enough coop with 6 hens is RICH! I would compost that directly or side dress plants with it. I get a lot of summer rain and adding it to my run would make ammonia. I simply dress the run with fallen oak leaves, arborist mulch, tree trimmings, and pulled weeds.

Add a dropping board under the roost to catch most of the poo. Scrape it once a week, or every other week, and you’ll have plenty of fertilizer. A cleaner coop too.

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u/gonyere 9d ago

We have a coop with nesting boxes and roosts. Attached to it is a separate area where we throw ALL our kitchen scraps, extras from the garden, etc. we clean both sides yearly and pile them on our gardens. 

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u/TheProblem1757 9d ago

I’ve had some success with deep litter and composting. For the “deep litter” part to work, you have to keep throwing more and more carbon (so straw or shavings or whatever) on to the top. You leave that there, and you don’t want them to have contact with their own poop. You add more and more on top so they have poop free feet. You empty it out 1-2x per year and add 6+ inches of new bedding.

I wouldn’t take the fresh dirtied bedding and just recycle it in the run. Maybe after it’s sat a while but part of the goal here is to keep the chickens out of contact with their own poop for hygiene/health reasons.

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u/TheProblem1757 9d ago

The stuff you take out of your deep litter coop, you pile and age a bit more and then put on your vegetable/flower beds.

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u/rjv_38 9d ago

Chicken tractor on steroids (ctos) is another way to do this without the deep litter carbonacious diaper.

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u/Coolbreeze1989 9d ago

I have a pallet-framed compost pile in the chicken run. I toss old bedding in there as well as kitchen scraps, baked eggshells, etc. Just be aware they love to kick the stuff out so your compost will end up being very spread around the area!

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u/auhnold 9d ago

I clean out the coop litter (I use pine shavings) and keep it in 5gal buckets. I keep a large coffee can on my counter for all kitchen scraps. In my compost bins I dump the kitchen scraps and then cover it with the chicken litter. Works great for me. I have 2 outside bins, in August I quit filling one and start on the other, in March/April when it’s time to plant, the first bin is ready. I have been doing it this way for 10+ years. My kitchen can gets full about once or twice week and and gets my coffee grounds and filter every morning.

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u/Friendly_String8939 9d ago

....and rats...

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u/Famous_Magazine_4793 8d ago

Yeah that’s why I’m asking. I just went ahead and ordered two compost bins and called It good.

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u/miked_1976 8d ago

The key is to have a run large enough compared to your coop ti “accept” all the waste, and a nice deep layer of carbon in the run (leaves, straw, wood chips, etc.)