Ben's super easy chicken compost
The Elms’ family kitchen has a special drawer dedicated to all compostable items.
“Everything goes in there, doesn't matter what it is,” says Ben. “Including if something comes in a brown paper bag, I chuck it in as well, it soaks up moisture. Bones, egg shells too, we crush them down, everything goes in there.”
Once it's full, there are three composting options – “it depends on where my enthusiasm is at that moment,” says Ben – but number one is to go straight to the compost turners which happily work for free. “That's my chickens!” The Elms' chicken run is an old shed which opens out onto a covered pen, with an auto-feeder and waterer in the corner.
“I have a 3m by 2m pen and it's a woodchip pit,” says Ben. “It's about 10cm deep with woodchips and I feed the chickens all the food scraps which get thrown onto it.”
This is a permaculture idea – see permaculture guru Kay Baxter's set-up at right – and the principle is that every aspect of the system does more than one job. In this case, the hens provide eggs, but also a service.
“They eat what they want, they scratch, they poop, they turn it in, and it gets turned. Then once a year, I dig that up and by then it's broken down quite a lot.
“You could compost it some more if you felt it was too rich or you could do what I do and put it directly under fruit trees.
"It's super easy, and anything they don't eat is scratched in. You're using everything."