Compost pile deep bedding

Although I liked putting
our compost pile in the chicken pasture last year, the method had
issues.  First and foremost, the kitchen scraps I tossed on top
tempted our usually well-behaved dog to break in, which was only a
problem because the chickens always found the holes in the fence and
ended up scratching up the vegetable garden.



But I also didn’t like
devoting that much space to compost.  I had to put a pile in each
pasture, and each pile tended to sprawl out as the chickens scratched
through in search of goodies.  As a result, we had quite a lot of
bare ground that could have been growing edibles for the flock.



This year, we’re trying
something completely different.  A few weeks ago, I started
tossing the kitchen scraps on the deep
bedding inside the
coop itself.  The coop walls blocked the scent, so our dog left
them alone.



Then, last week, I got
lazy and dumped some garden weeds in the coop to refresh the deep
bedding rather than raking
more leaves out of the woods.  Even though weeds are
much lower in carbon than tree leaves (meaning you need more of them to
counteract the high nitrogen manure), we never have a paucity of garden
weeds on our farm.  Maybe I can solve the compost problem at the
same time I lower the amount of work required to keep up the deep
bedding, all while allowing the flock just as much access to chickweed
and apple cores.  I’ll keep you posted about how this new method
works out.