How to Make Compost: The "on Steroids" Chicken Method to Make Compost
Is it impossible to delegate compost making to the chickens?
No, chickens can be deployed to make compost for you. It is a system that is guaranteed to work, and you can apply it at scales from small to commercial. They shoulder the hardest part of compost making, sparing you from doing some lifting or having to buy a machine, while producing eggs and allowing you to breed your own chickens.
This is a flywheel in which we partner with chickens to build fertility continuously without depending on external sources.
In this edition, in 7 minutes or less:
#1 The chickens are put to work at what they do best
#2 The Composting “on Steroids”
#3 Passive, high-rate production of fertility
The chickens are put to work at what they do best.
They continuously scratch.
They continuously consume insects and seeds.
Special characteristics of the chicken house:
Version 1 (one chicken house producing 2 compost piles of 1 m³ each every 6–8 weeks - 12 m³ of compost/year)
- 8m×2m total = 16 m² for up to 12 birds (6 do the work)
- 2m×2m: a coop above ground with nesting boxes, dust bath, and water
- 2m×2m: space under the coop to stack organic material. Place doors that allow stacking material from the outside and retrieving it to the inside of the run.
- 6m×2m: a run, where the composting “on steroids” takes place. There will be 2 compost piles, one assembled and caged, and the other being disassembled by the chickens.
Version 2 (two chicken houses producing 6 compost piles of 1 m³ each every 6–8 weeks - 52 m³ of compost/year)
- 10m×2m total = 20 m² for 16 birds
- 2m×2m: a coop above ground with nesting boxes, dust bath, and water
- 2m×2m: space under the coop to stack organic material. Place doors that allow stacking material from the outside and retrieving it to the inside of the run.
- 8m×2m: a run, where the composting “on steroids” takes place. There will be 3 compost piles, 1 assembled and caged, and 2 being disassembled by the chickens.
Version 3 (two chicken houses producing 12 compost piles of 1 m³ each every 6–8 weeks - 104 m³ of compost/year)
- 12.5m×2m total = 25 m² for 18 birds
- 2.5m×2m: a coop above ground with nesting boxes, dust bath, and water
- 2.5m×2m: space under the coop to stack organic material. Place doors that allow stacking material from the outside and retrieving it to the inside of the run.
- 10m×2m: a run, where the composting “on steroids” takes place. There will be 4 compost piles, 1 assembled and caged, and 3 being disassembled by the chickens.
Extra characteristics
- You should make it tall enough to allow a person with a wheelbarrow to easily get inside - or even a tractor.
- Plan the coop and the space under the coop where you stack the organic material to be manured, in a way that makes it easy to feed material from the outside and retrieve the material from the inside.
- Place a cover on the chicken house to provide shade, and protection from heat or cold. You can plant a vine to do that, which also creates another yield.
- If you build 2 chicken houses side by side or place one chicken house alongside a greenhouse or another structure, you can plant a vine between them.
- Secure the chicken house against predators.
- You may or may not need to supplement their feed, depending on what you give them.
- Be careful: it is a continuous system that you need to feed with new material constantly, so plan accordingly with the bigger versions to ensure you find enough material. The small version (version 1) is suitable for urban spaces and makes it more feasible to find enough material in everyday life. The other versions will require you to have a homestead or farm, or to scavenge materials from another person’s homestead, farm, tree-care business, or a business that produces organic matter.
The Composting “on Steroids”
Warning: the “laws of composting” still apply here!
You can then check out this letter to learn how to troubleshoot and adjust the process. This is essential, because if you don’t follow the laws, which were discovered both by accumulated human practical knowledge and scientific research, you won’t get the result you expect - instead, you’ll get what occurs when nature has to do it all by itself.
Quick recap:
- Carbon to nitrogen ratio. The trick to making compost is not losing volume. It depends on the right mix. Too much nitrogen makes the decomposition too fast, the pile will smell, produce methane, and shrink in volume (consult the other letter for details).
- Critical pile size is 1 cubic meter (35.3 cubic feet). It is just like the atom bomb that needs a critical mass for it to explode. Below that, it doesn’t work. And you can go bigger if it suits you!
- Too wet or too dry conditions hinder the process.
- Everything that once lived can be composted.
- Composting is a skill. It is soil creation and, with this method, also chicken-raising.
- Your finished compost should be dark and crumbly, and smell like the forest floor.
Step 1 - Week 1
Chickens roost on top of organic matter (high carbon) at least 1/3 m³ in volume for each pile for 6–8 weeks to manure the material.
You can also use grass clippings or weeds from the garden. Because the material will already start to decompose, you will lose a bit of volume. If that happens, you can stack extra material.
Step 2 - Week 2
This material is then included in a compost pile. Add 1/3 m³ of manure from large animals and 1/3 m³ of food scraps or weeds for each pile of compost.
Then, let the chickens work on the compost pile, scratching and disassembling it. The chickens will leave a hard core in the middle, which will heat up, and a spread on the edges.
Cage the other compost pile.
Step 3 - Week 3
Take the cage out of the caged compost pile, and reassemble the material from the pile worked by the birds inside the cage, placing the material from the core on the outside and the spread material in the core.
This also provides an easy way to turn the material inside out. When you reassemble it, make sure to move the pile one “step” in one direction so that you make room for the other(s) pile(s).
Manage the space inside the run so that you have enough floor space, and check the composting process, making any adjustments, if necessary (consult this letter).
Let the chickens work on the newly freed compost pile(s), scratching and disassembling it.
Step 4 - Week 4
Repeat: take the cage out of the caged pile(s) and reassemble the material worked by the birds inside the cage, turning the material inside out.
When you reassemble it, make sure to move the pile one “step” in one direction so that you make room for the other(s) pile(s), and check the composting process, making any adjustments, if necessary.
Also, let the chickens work on the newly freed compost pile(s), scratching and disassembling it.
Step 5 - Week 5
Repeat.
Step 6 - Week 6
Repeat.
After this last week, the compost is ready to be used.
Passive, high-rate production of fertility
- 1 m³ of compost once every 6 weeks with a flock of 6–12 birds in 16 m²
- 1 m³ of compost once a week with 32 chickens divided into 2 flocks of 16 birds each in 20 m²
- 2 m³ of compost once a week with 48–54 chickens divided into 3 flocks of 16–18 birds each in 20–25 m², respectively
On top of that, you get egg production and, if you include roosters, you can breed your own chickens.
This system also provides a great lifestyle for chickens, because they express their nature by foraging every day.
Key insight
For context, 1 m³ of compost can fertilize 100 m². So, the 12 m³ of compost a year produced in Version 1 can revolutionize 1,000 m² of productive beds. The 52 m³ a year will guarantee fertility for 0.5 acre and 104 m³ a year for 1 acre.
So, this is not an isolated composting flywheel, but the engine of a garden.
It’s guaranteed to give you permanent productivity - it will always yield while always maintaining fertility without externally bought inputs.
The production is continuous, because the fertility is continuous. It can sustain a diverse production with very high nutritional value. With this system, you get the highest production rate possible, and it is modular and adaptable to your situation.
Since we are gardeners with high agency, take this flywheel as the base design and modify it - it is open-source.
This system is guaranteed to feed humanity at an urban and commercial level.
