chickens hard at work

Chickens are the best little compost helpers ever!

I love the way these silly birds peck and scratch…unless it’s in my newly planted plants. Then it’s not so cute.

In the winter when the weather is bad the chickens hang out in the barn. With no cable or internet they get pretty bored and just sit around with their feathers all puffed up to keep warm. It’s kind of sad.

Since I have been deep bedding my animals, these sad birds seem less lethargic and are much happier chickens. I think.

What?! I'm working!

Deep bedding is just a matter of laying more bedding down on top of the old, and as the underneath stuff composts it produces heat.

Did you know that you can even heat greenhouse grow beds with composting bedding?

Yep, it’s true and it works beautifully.

So the compost-making-chickens do their part by cheerfully scratching around in the bedding looking for seeds and…whatever.  When snow covers the ground, I pull some bedding out of the stalls  into the aisle every week to keep them happily scratching and out of the bunny/goat/horse feed. This drives daughter #2 mad. The aisle should be spotless.

Ummm, it’s a BARN.

Heidi Supervises the Chickens

If I rake the stall muck up into a pile in the morning, they’ll have it trashed and all over the place by late afternoon. Sort of like a dorm room filled with a bunch of partying college kids 4 minutes after finals.

The system really works well though! I keep fairly fit with obsessive compulsive raking, and the chickens stay busy and out of trouble. Best part? Each time they scratch it breaks down more material and they even lay eggs because they are so thrilled with the arrangement!

I love that the big pile of barn bedding becomes a mere wheelbarrow load of mixed garden composting goodness in a week, and I have to admit getting that one load out to the compost pile is easier than having to make a bunch of trips.

Go chickens!

Big Pile Of Wood Chips For Mulch

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I love mulch.

Besides looking nice, in the summer months it really conserves water in the raised herb and kitchen garden beds. The last few years mulch for that reason has been really unnecessary…we’ve had WAY too much rain.

 See the picture to the right?

Well the county was out and about this week trimming storm damaged trees and branches that had grown up into the power lines.

The crew kindly offered to bring me some of the chipped branches when they had finished trimming along my road.

“Oh sure, bring me some. You can just dump them off the side of the drive over there.”

I had forgotten about it until late in the afternoon when I heard a BIG truck rumble into the drive. A big dump truck. Full of chipped branches. They dumped it fast,offered more should I need it…and took off.

I now have my summer pile of mulch. Size-wise it’s up there with a Chevy Pick Up- so it should last awhile.

 If you need mulch, check in your areas for inexpensive and even free mulch. Many counties have places where you can go load up your own mulch.

We have found that it is really easy to get mulch after storms that take out big trees. Trimming crews often just want some place to dump the stuff!

If you can’t find any, give me a call. I could probably spare a little of mine