cold composting, worms and chickens

As I have started reading about permaculture (as of now I am just reading and not actually permaculturing) I have started a little compost pile from our kitchen scraps.  I am not ready for a gigantic hot compost pile.  I put a little soil and have been throwing in kitchen scraps, today the boys and I went digging for worms which we threw in there, but then I added some grass and leaves, and it was too much for the container so I decided to do a little mountain down in the chicken run.  As soon as I have dumped it in a corner I thought, there go the worms! Was that a bad idea?  Will the chickens help the composting process or eat all the creatures who would have helped it?

Thanks for any suggestions,
Meyer

I bet they eat a certain percentage of your worms. Maybe a lot. But I don't think they usually scratch more than a few inches deep. If your compost is deeper than that, some are likely to escape.

I think chickens can be part of a successful compost system. It's probably best to design the system with them in mind. Edible Acres runs a nursery and food forest largely on chicken compost. They're youtubers. (If you didn't know.) Here's a link to their "Chickens" playlist. They demonstrate a lot of what they do to reduce feed costs and generate compost with the chickens' help.