Heeeyho Readers! More updates from our little ranch!
Happy chickens equals wholesome benefits!
As much as I want to exterminate the chickenian army whenever they destroy something, one gotta admit the benefits of having them around. It's Yin and Yang; Love and Hate. Let's put it this way: We tolerate each other {laughs}.
Our chicken keep the fruit trees plot clean and free of bugs, produce eggs and matter for the compost, and serve as food (as much as I'm unable to kill any animal anyways). In exchange, we feed them and keep their house as clean as possible to guarantee they're healthy — and won't rebel.
Cleaning the chicken coop
Our chicken coop is pretty much spotless after one year and a half. Remember how it seemed absurd to make a concrete floor? It's totally worth the cost and time to build. Easy to clean all the poop and wash to keep pests away. Only once we dealt with some sort of poultry flea, but those proliferated inside the bamboo trellis (that is now replaced with solid lumber).
Before cleaning
Two weeks of poopery mess is enough to start a new compost. I start by sweeping the floor. Little to no dust comes up, which is great — thanks sexy concrete floor.
After washing
After sweeping and a bit of water this is the result. I wanted to build some sort of PVC pipe with high pressure sprinklers to automatically wash the floor. Would that be too lazy?
Water feeder
The water feeder needs some embellishment; I don't like it's improvised look. Anyways. I'm done with the bastards chickens after cleaning the bowl and replacing the water. Healthy chicken equals future benefits!
Chicken mess cleaned and poop load ready, I grab the egg and move on to the next tasks at the ranch. There was only one egg, but at the moment of writing I collected eight {woo-hew}.
By the way, the price of egg has gone up by 70% this year, despite Brazil's official CPI of ~4,5%. We should never trust official data — not that they are wrong, but because CPI data is manipulated to make numbers look better than in reality. Hello, 1984!
Econometrics apart, let's get to work the new compost. Shall we?
New Compost
Composting is by far my favorite task at the ranch. Most of the time I pretend to be a scientist, when in fact I throw stuff in the box and hope for the best. In other words: I know the basics and tweak the mix whenever it feels wrong.
This time I'm using dry grass for the browns (carbon) and chicken poop for the greens (nitrogen); a bit of kitchen waste too, also green.
Note: I keep the grass scattered under the sun for a few days to make sure it dries.
A chicken load of wheelbarrow poop
One layer of dry grass, one of poop. Kitchen waste goes in the middle. A full wheelbarrow is enough to fill our compost box together with the other stuff. The only problem with chicken manure is the smell and the flies; a final layer of dried grass fixes the issue.
Kitchen waste
I still think the mix is more nitrogen-rich than carbon (more greens than browns), but gotta see what happens before adding extra browns. Is there even a way to measure that? Or is it getting way scientific for something that should be simple {engineer's mind tingles}.
Last step is to add water and cover. Temperatures are beginning to drop around here, so it's important to conserve heat in the mix somehow. The volume should shrink a lot in a week or two, this is when I turn and add more matter. The cycle repeats until it becomes soil.
Let's see in a few weeks how our compost evolves. I hope you've enjoyed this post and appreciate if you leave a comment explaining your composting methods.
Peace.
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~Love ya all,
Disclaimer: The author of this post is a convict broke backpacker, who has travelled more than 10.000 km hitchhiking and more than 5.000 km cycling. Following him may cause severe problems of wanderlust and inquietud. You've been warned.
