Heeeyho Readers! More updates from our little ranch!
The chickenian army has dropped the bombs!
Never in my life have I imagined dealing with poop is so fun and rewarding. But wait! Let me explain and start this post with an excerpt from the Off to the Ranch #8
"I plan to post about the full cycle (from poop to cleaning to compost) in a future post. I believe the way to a sustainable life on earth is paved by a full-cycle life of things, including electronics, cars, and so on. If we cannot send materials back to the earth in a non-aggressive manner, we cannot say we are technologically advanced."
The chickenian army is growing fast and our mother bunker of a chicken coop is serving the gang incredibly well. We haven't changed anything to the project. Yet! At least until we need to add the nests — or whatever name people call the place where the chickens lay eggs. All good in this regard.
On the other end, there's the compost. The cycle aforementioned consists of collecting sawdust (with poop) from inside the chicken coop to dump in the composter where it'll later become soil. I know nothing of composts other than trial and error. The first load (unpooped) turned into a great, dark, rich soil that we used to fertilize the fruit trees. See below.
First load of compost
For the second try I decided to start adding sawdust with chicken poop. It takes about fifteen days to have enough material inside the chicken coop. Also, the sawdust has got to be the best bedding; it absorbs waste moisture incredibly well.
The bomb has been planted
Fifteen days of bombing
Having a concrete floor makes life easier when cleaning the mess. A good sweep and a few shovel ninja moves do the trick in minutes. Then, I quickly wash the floor before adding new sawdust.
Sawdust with chicken waste
Alright, so here's the issue. This is the first time sawdust is added to the compost. After fifteen days I noticed the soil looked kinda dry, so I decided to inspect.
It looked like this
After turning
It doesn't look as dark as in the first load from months ago. I found that sawdust takes forever to decompose too. It began to look better after mixing up more, but I sure won't add any more sawdust in there.
Despite the mistake, I felt glad when earthworms appeared at the bottom. Huge, juicy, frenetic, sexy little earthworms. It's so rewarding to see nature doing nature things.
Cute little weird
Now I'm sitting with another truck-load poopery wheelbarrow not knowing what to do with its contents. I can't add even more sawdust to the compost. And I don't want to get rid of fifteen days worth of poop. To the planning board. I found a nice sieve in the garage. Aha!
messed up poop
pure poop
It took less than ten minutes to separate the sawdust from the chicken poop. The wheelbarrow load of poopery material became pure poop-o-rama. To the compost we go!
Almost full (no sawdust)
In a week or so I'll turn the compost again to see what the heck happenned. Hopefully, in a month or two all the material will be pure soil. If this trial works, the next step is to build a compost box out of pallets. Let's see how it goes.
If you have any tips, please, drop in the comment section down below.
Until the next post.
Peace.
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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.