Jacob Lough

Chris, thank you sir! I've been keeping up on a horse barn near my property about once every two weeks and making compost from it. It might be nice to source my compost from my chickens in the back yard instead of doing all the hauling from down the road.

Tyler, that's exactly how I imagined it would work once you mentioned it. Thanks again for the suggestion. Sounds like a winner to me.

James, I was figuring they would make a lot of manure. Glad to have that confirmed. Is it much more than laying hens produce? I can't really do the mobile unit on my plot because I'm designating the rest of the yard to intensive vegetable production. If I come across pasture in my area that people are willing to lend out, I might take advantage of it.

Tyler, I had never heard of the paddock design, and that seems like it would work perfect for the small space that I'm wanting to utilize. Maybe I could seed different plants in different paddocks that contribute to their diet. Thanks for the suggestion!

Hello, I'm new (very new) to chickens and am looking to keep approximately 15-20 meat chickens at a time on my 1/3 acre property. I'm willing to devote a 25' x 25' area to these ladies in the corner of my property.

My thought process was to have an 8' x 8' stationary coop with a deep litter method of maintenance, and fence in the rest of the 25' square area for them to free roam during the day.  I know this would increase my feed requirements, but I'm willing to make that compromise. My question is, will this be sufficient space for these meat chickens considering most people put them out to pasture with a portable coop? And are there any other considerations I need to take?

Thoroughly enjoyed this read. Thanks so much.

Great feedback here, y'all. Thank you. Su, I saw that same setup too on a couple videos. They looked pretty promising and I'm guessing they buried it to get below the frost line. The only thing I didn't like about them was that they didn't have a filter for grease and such. Although I'm sure one could be fabricated.

Jd, do you know if that system would ever require you to replace the peat moss or how much maintenance it would require?

R Scott, my wife sheds like nobody's business. Although I don't mind because her hair is quite gorgeous. =) I'll have to look into the grease trap setups. Since I have the money, I think I might just go with the kit, but we'll see.

Anyone ever heard of this product or think it's worth the money? Greywater disposal kit

Since it has a filter and a solids tank, I figure that would take care of the fatty effluent from kitchen sinks. It also would save me the headache of trying to engineer something aside from my timber frame cabin. The less distractions the better. =)

Thanks Su Ba. Unfortunately I do have to worry about freezing temperatures here. But now I'm in a conflict with the answers here. Is it safe to include kitchen sink water in a grey water system? If it's fat I'm concerned about clogging something, is there a remedy for that in the design phase?

I do live in a region with a lot of rain water. I'm in north central WV. Rain water collection should provide more than enough water for my garden watering needs. I'm just looking for an effective way to drain grey water without a high dollar system involving pumps.

What do you do with your kitchen water if it's not connected to your grey water system?

I'm getting ready to cut ground on a tiny cabin with 1/3 acre property with it. This amount of property doesn't allow me to utilize a septic tank system because the code says at least 2 acres is needed for the install.

With this info, I am going with a composting toilet and a greywater leach system. After doing research on the subject (to an extent) I was wondering what to do about kitchen waste water seeing that it is not considered grey water due to the chemicals involved.

This is probably an easy resolve, but I'm pretty clueless on the subject. Any help would be appreciated.