SCORE!! Got Leaves!

[baymule]

DH had a dentist appointment this morning and we were early. not wanting to sit in the parking lot, we drove around a few minutes. We passed a guy raking leaves and lots of big black garbage bags. I told DH, go back and let's get those leaves! DH-you're crazy! Me-no I'm not, I have to clean out the chicken coop and run and I need those leaves to put in the coop! DH-sigh.......he turned around.

I got 14 bags of leaves!

I let my chickens compost for me. Last fall, I got the neighbors leaves and DH and I loaded the run about 3 feet deep. They are now about six inches and thoroughly mixed with poop, shredded and composted. It is time to dig out that compost gold!

I throw everything in the coop and run. Grass clippings, leaves, pea hulls, corn shucks and cobs, garden clean ups like spent broccoli, mustard, lettuce..........everything! They eat what they want and scratch apart and poop on the rest. I dig it out once a year in the spring and then start over.

Leaves!! YAY!!

 

[thistlebloom]

Yaaay! That's a great haul Bay. I do similar to you. I haul home tons of leaves in the fall and give them to the chickens during the winter and spring. They get excited when they see me hauling a bag over to the run. By spring many of the bags that were on the bottom of the pile are full of worms. I'm behind on digging out their run, the soil in there is now about six inches deeper than original. it sure is going to make some good garden beds when I am finally able to get to it.

 

[canesisters]

That's a great find! Congrats! The chickens are going to LOVE it.

 

[897tgigvib]

See? Now if I had a concrete bear proof bunker for Chickens and all that, I have a whole forest of leaves. I mean, each acre could seriously fill a 53 foot trailer rig packed tight. Each year.

Let me try thinking. If 3 feet compacts down to 6 inches, 6 feet compacts down to a foot. Those trailers are what, 8 foot high inside? Something like a foot 4 inches...X 53 X 8 foot wide...oh shoot, need more coffee... well, I know that's more than 4 yards. Concentrated compost too, with chicken leavings, and no grubs.

 

[Nyboy]

It is nice to have a husband that does what you ask!!

 

[baymule]

It is nice to have a husband that does what you ask!!

DH is a very good sport about his wife's antics.........mainly because he gets to EAT the results! He won't even eat a store bought tomato anymore. Store bought eggs.....BLECH!! His only "put-his-foot-down-absolutely-NOT! is me digging up the whole front yard for more garden! Too much shade in the back yard, so it has to go in the front.

I love having chickens for composting. I used to work so hard for that garden black gold........the girls make it so much easier.

DH asked what I was posting and laughed when I read it to him. I told him, yeah, but I am talking to people that get just as excited about leaves as I do!

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

What a great score! In watching a documentary, the gardener said, "my chickens are my compost facillity, the eggs are just a bonus!" I think that I have to agree. Sounds like you would too baymule.

 

[joz]

Do you develop much of a smell with the deep-litter leaf compost? I'm worried that my little coop/run will start to smell, and my neighbor won't like it much. Even though he's a gardener and sometimes spreads chicken poo in his garden, and I can smell it for weeks. Even though.

Our houses are really close together (like, 6' apart). I don't have a large enough lot to put the chicken coop (so I'm just building a run! HA!) far enough away from neighbor houses per the zoning ordinances. I don't anticipate any problems with the neighbors... unless it becomes a nuisance of one sort or another.

 

[muckmuck]

Do you develop much of a smell with the deep-litter leaf compost?

I have experienced just the opposite. Once I built up a good deep layer of woodchip mulch and straw the smell was dramatically reduced. I believe it is because the litter sucks the moisture out rapidly letting the chicken **** dry negating the smell. Then gravity takes it slowly to the bottom of the litter where it encounters moist soil teaming with microbes that break it down before it can start to smell again. I do wet my deep litter down thoroughly every other week our so.

Max

 

[MontyJ]

I can't do what y'all do. My coop has a wooden floor. Deep litter method would rot it out in a season. I do need leaves in the summer time though when I have more grass than carbons, but the trees don't give them up as easily But, on the bright side, cleaning the coop out regularly gives me pine shavings