Every morning I have a routine with our chickens. I come into the yard, sort out their water, put cut grass into their forage area and then I open the night pen to let them out. By that time they have been talking to me and each other whilst I have been preparing their food and done their water, telling me all about their night.
When I open their pen they stream out, and I bee-line it straight for the bio digester slurry area with them following and overtaking me. In this area the bio digester pits are emptied and the chickens process the mix of liquid cow poop and sawdust by pecking through it and adding some of their own manure.
I encourage the process by throwing their morning feed all over the second pile (the first pile is too wet, the subsequent ones are not of interest to the chooks anymore). This way they spend part of their day processing this area and by the time pile 4 comes out of this section it is beautiful compost.
Then I walk back to the main section of the chicken enclosure and throw some of their feed in the cell they are cleaning up. There are four cells where we grow chicken forage and we open a different cell up regularly so they can forage through. They are doing a great job here getting into pumpkins and pumpkin vine. They will clear this cell in the coming few weeks and “compost” it so we can broad sow more forage plants for them which grows while they are in another cell.
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