Chicken tractor on steroids- alpaca manure?

Hi, everyone.  I am starting a chicken tractor on steroids and have two questions.

First, I am wondering if using alpaca manure as the large animal manure would work.
Geoff Lawton just says large animal manure in his youtube video.  I have easy access to cow manure from a neighbor but he raises his milk cows using conventional practices which  I'd prefer to avoid.  I have a source for alpaca manure and would prefer to use that because their diet and the owner's overall husbandry practices are much better.  I'm concerned because alpaca manure is not as wet and not "hot" it might not work.

Secondly, I live in a rural area outside Seattle so we get a pretty decent amount of rain and I'm concerned that if I don't have the compost feeding piles covered they'll get too wet and not compost well enough to provide the microbioata that the chickens feed on.

What do you think?

Gratefully,
Ann

I'm unsure of the relationship between the chicken tractors and animal manure.

Would you mind clarifying that part or maybe linking the video?

Hi,
I'm assuming you mean something like the video down below?

I'm no expert, but I suspect if you can get the volume of manure needed... and simply adjust the carbon/nitrogen ratios a bit if the manure is less "hot", you should be fine. Compost is going to happen... we just try to make it happen faster and better :)  I would go ahead and get started... and then tweak if needed. Don't let the question be the reason you don't start.

Youtube

The system is comprised of 1/3 cubic yard chicken bedding, 1/3 large animal manure, 1/3 food/garden scraps.  The chicken bedding provides carbon, nitrogen, and beneficial microorganisms to the mix, the animal manure provides beneficial microorganisms, insects and seeds and more for the chickens to feast on along with the food/garden scraps.  The chickens continue to provide manure while eating atop the piles as well as aerating them by their scratching.  The piles are fully composted after 4 weeks.  I don't really know much more than that and I am amateur at best regarding compost.  

Yes, that's the video Matt. I like your advice, thank you!  I might start with less desirable cow manure just to get started, I suppose and then do the second pile with alpaca manure.  That way they still will have enough food from the first pile plus the scraps on the second pile if the alpaca manure slows down the process too much, I suppose.  When I am at the feed store, I keep telling myself "this is the last bag of feed I'm going to buy" and then I don't start the pile because of feeling conflicted about not having an answer to my questions or it not working for some other reason.

Maybe I'll have my husband pee on the alpaca manure.  Peeing outside to add nitrogen to the soil is his specialty.  Any thoughts about compost getting too wet if left uncovered in the rain?  My number one goal is providing the chickens with food entirely from the system, the awesome and quickly produced compost is pretty exciting too but secondary.

I recall being told that Alpaca manure is like rabbit manure and that it can be applied directly to plants. That doesn't mean it wouldn't work in Geoff's chicken system - just interesting info. Joel Salatin has chickens underneath raised rabbit cages, but that's a different system.

My WAG* would be that the chicken bedding alone would have enough 'heat potential' simply by using a little lower bedding to poop ratio if you found the pile wasn't heating up?

I really don't see any big harm in trying this. There are plenty of ways to adjust the pile after the chickens have moved on if you're finding the "compost" part of the process isn't working. Shoveling the remains into a worm composting set up, for example?

Regardless, if you try this, please report back with how it worked, for better or worse, ideally with a bit of info about things like your ecosystem, size of flock etc. Geoff is in a warm climate, for example. Some ideas cross ecosystems, and some don't.

*wild assed guess

and then I don't start the pile because of feeling conflicted about not having an answer to my questions or it not working for some other reason

Been there done that with too many projects :) They say "don't let perfect be the enemy of good"... but I still struggle with it all the time.

Is manure from a conventional cow farm perfect? No. But making compost out of it on your own land with your own chickens is so much better than buying feed in bags at the store. It will give additional skills as well. At Permies we promote organic or better. I'd like for everyone to get there... but for most of us, the jump from where we are to perfect... is too far of a jump to happen all at once. Start with a hop, and then keep going :)

For an interesting read, here is Paul Wheaton's eco scale post https://permies.com/t/scale

Timothy, I think the name "chicken tractor on steroids" is misleading and kinda dumb honestly.  A chicken tractor really has nothing to do with the system, in fact if your moving it daily it doesn't work unless your somehow collecting and storing the chicken-manured bedding to add to a pile at the beginning of the next week. It could just as well be a stationary coop that your using, in fact that's whats in his video.  The only important factor from the chicken tractor (or coop) is that you collect the chicken bedding weekly from the tractor or coop (it must be 1/3 a cubic yard or more if doing a larger pile) and that forms the base layer of the pile.

Jay Angler wrote: I recall being told that Alpaca manure is like rabbit manure and that it can be applied directly to plants. That doesn't mean it wouldn't work in Geoff's chicken system - just interesting info. Joel Salatin has chickens underneath raised rabbit cages, but that's a different system.

My WAG* would be that the chicken bedding alone would have enough 'heat potential' simply by using a little lower bedding to poop ratio if you found the pile wasn't heating up?

I really don't see any big harm in trying this. There are plenty of ways to adjust the pile after the chickens have moved on if you're finding the "compost" part of the process isn't working. Shoveling the remains into a worm composting set up, for example?

Regardless, if you try this, please report back with how it worked, for better or worse, ideally with a bit of info about things like your ecosystem, size of flock etc. Geoff is in a warm climate, for example. Some ideas cross ecosystems, and some don't.

*wild assed guess

Yes, similar to rabbit manure and can be applied directly to plants.  The chickens in Joel's system are getting plenty of microorganisms to eat but as you say it's a different system- slow composting and his primary food for the chickens is still his custom-mixed feed.  I love the terminology WAG, by the way!

Alpaca manure is some of the best. It does not burn plants when used within reason, but it likely would also contribute minimal heating to the pile. Lower temp composts are generally slower and more prone to residual weed seeds, but are more biodiverse.

It's an odd usage of the term chicken tractor, but system for making compost with chickens depicted in the video is great!
I make compost with food scraps , aurum leaves and yard waste, curated by just two old chickens, turned and harvested at random, and these are my results:

Cool video. I do a much lazier version of that to heat my chicken coop in the winter. I do 40-50 hens in a coop. On weekends I will dump a few wagon loads of goat bedding in there. It's mostly straw. The chickens scratch it up thoroughly, The also get get a regular supply of scraps from a local restaurant, or the Loop program (grocery store left overs). I don't turn it, I just pile keep piling it up under the roosts. By spring it's pretty good compost, that I dump in the garden. It creates a lot of heat while composting. When it's -20 and windy outside inside the coop can be hovering right around or just above freezing. In summer the hens get to free range and the manure doesn't pile up.

Awesome William and Leora.  It's good to hear your success stories utilizing similar principles.

So, I've got another question that's kind of on the ridiculous side.  

I've been wanting to get my flock to 60-75 hens by next summer and feed them all from the compost piles following the design in the video. Right now I'm at twenty.

I'm wanting to get food scraps from a local restaurant but I've always kept a chicken-less food scrap bin because of the idea that feeding chickens chicken somehow seems icky or something.  I know restaurants are not going to sort out chicken from their food scraps and I sure don't have the time or inclination to do it myself.

So, I'm just wondering where people fall on the what scraps do you feed your chickens spectrum? 😂. I also plan to sell the eggs and I'm kind of wondering what customers might think, say, or do if they know their eggs are coming from chickens eating chicken, like I'm running some kind of operation akin to a factory broiler operation where they have to cut their beaks instead of an ecologically enriching pastured egg farm.  I'm sure I'm over thinking this but I'm happy to hear your input.

Ann Baker wrote:I'm wanting to get food scraps from a local restaurant but I've always kept a chicken-less food scrap bin because of the idea that feeding chickens chicken somehow seems icky or something.

Good husbandry supports that feeding chicken to chickens - even cooked - is a risk of disease spread. You will even find information that if you're running a Black Soldier Fly operation to feed chickens, one shouldn't feed the grubs chicken.

That said, I would consider whether chicken is likely to be a large constituent of the scraps, or only an odd occasional scrap.

I would also determine what local regulations say. Where I live, it is illegal to feed chickens "post consumer" scraps, but we can feed them "preparation" scraps. We have one restaurant that does their own veggie prep and they save all their scraps like onion peels, carrot peels, cabbage outer leaves and cores, etc. Because of our set-up, I generally segregate buckets that mostly contain things the chickens like - like cabbage family scraps - from things like onion skins. We can't pick up daily, so in the summer if food has gone moldy, we put it in our regular compost, not the chicken areas.

If one is running the sort of system in the video, to a great extent, it seems to me that they're attracting bugs and microbes for the chickens, rather than the scraps being direct food.

My chooks like the bugs that eat meat more than they like leftover meat.
I don't generally have much of any meat for them anyway, because we gnaw out bones like hyenas and then sometimes boil them for broth as well.

I think it will probably be a small fraction of their feed, and it's not like they'll have no other choices.
I would be more concerned with them eating a fallen sparrow than cooked chicken meat.
Raw chicken meat should be pretty rare , I would think, but it would hold more flue dangers.
Letting the food scraps hot compost with the  bedding and poop before giving them to the chooks might help kill off any pathogens.

Ethically , chickens are not humans and have no real need for cannibalism taboos.
If they were in a steady diet of chicken neurons, then there could be a prion issue, but that's really far fetched.

For a very experienced take on small scale chicken composting with restaurant scrap, try Sean at Edible Acres.
Heres a 35 video playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLihFHKqj6JerKruLfMcxdNKDRHkGxgwwz&si=TrUqBWZbUlfCFPY0

William Bronson wrote: For a very experienced take on small scale chicken composting with restaurant scrap, try Sean at Edible Acres.
Heres a 35 video playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLihFHKqj6JerKruLfMcxdNKDRHkGxgwwz&si=TrUqBWZbUlfCFPY0

Oooh, I know what my next video binge session will be!

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts.

I'm really hoping that the poke restaurant one town over will be my source.  They have chicken on their menu but it's an after thought for anyone who got drug to the poke restaurant, I imagine.