Chicken Compost Corner on Steroids ~ Phase 2

We want to show you how much more chickens can give you than just these beautiful eggs, but also how to maintain a system that gives you so much more than eggs. Let's move them over. See, they've worn out their grass. How happy is she? Everybody's happier. Oh snap, there is a weasel right there! It's got something. It's something furry. It's a rabbit. Okay, well at least it's not getting our chickens. We got a special use for this swill this morning. We gotta wait on J— we gotta wait on JD to wake up. He's gonna want to be a part of it. It has much to do with getting rid of an ornery rooster. There's a bit of a bad scent coming off of this, a hair of like sharp ammonia-ish. We gotta see if we can't find that and correct that. Where there's smell, there's mismanagement. Good morning, fellas. I have a treat for you guys later. What's an ornery rooster? It's way over time to move this thing. Are you tired? Party hard last night, Jonah? Wait, wait, let's grab her. See, these hens have gone broody. That means they're biologically ready to sit on some eggs. They gotta sit on eggs, fertilized eggs, for 21 days to hatch out some babies. That's great if you have fertilized I think I know where that smell is. It's that new compost pile. It's got too much nitrogen in it. Okay, you're gonna put hay in. Okay, thanks. It's amazing. Don't put hay on those things, you get less eggs. Anyway, this is handy when you want to hatch out some eggs. Not very handy when you're done hatching eggs and you want some eggs because they get broody, they lay there, they don't move. They're biologically geared to lay there for 21 days till these chicks hatch. If chicks don't ever hatch because you're harvesting the eggs, they're gonna lay there inevitably and not give you eggs and hog up a nest box. So you ladies have to go to the broody breaker. The broody breaker It's got food and water and that's it. No nesting material, no perches. And put them in there for a couple of days and they've broke their brood. Hey, let's get the wheels and move that A-frame. Okay, make sure the niños haven't— okay, the niños haven't run off at all. Put it up on the foot, then lift it up off your foot. Oh, probably just move from here to here. Let me move the chickshaw out of the way. I thought maybe the smell Could be coming from in here. Nope, it's not coming from in here, but there is a lot of manure in there. Could the smell be coming from our older compost pile? No, smells fresh, smells fresh. Do you think it's just the grounds? Nope, smells fresh. Oh, I think it's our newer compost pile. Look, is it? Quite possibly. Oh, there it is! Somebody's gonna come lay an egg already. Bless you. There it is, it says steam. Oh yeah, so when we turn this today, we need to mix in more carbon. Bless you for getting the feet out. Are you just gonna move it up? Yeah. Ready?

Go!

There's a chain over there.

Oh. You want to go get it? You go get it then. We don't want to drag over it. Go ahead. That's good. Lift it up. Set it on your foot. Pull the wheel off. Grab the axle. Let it down. A little side note here. I'm almost to half a million subscribers. Half a million of you guys. Half a million. To celebrate, I've got a dare for myself. How about when we get half a million, I live with these chickens for 24 hours. 24 hours. These guys. You agree? I think that would be to, I don't know, raise awareness for chicken raising, celebrate 500,000 subscribers, and get some awareness, maintain this area, just get a better sense of the chickenness of the chicken. I may— I'll have one less worry during here, won't I, Jonah?

Yeah.

Okay, I'm sorry, buddy, but you're, you're kind of rowdy. You're kind of mean. He's kind of pick food here in a little bit. Look at this old bird. She's so old, I doubt she's given barely any eggs. Oh, missed that casualty. Let's take this back, and then Jonah I think I might have been holding off on it.

We did it not too long ago, a week ago.

It's time to turn the compost pile. I see you guys have already eaten breakfast number 1. Okay, good. That means maybe you'll be hungry for breakfast number 2. I'm coming for you now. We're gonna turn this pile. It's probably about 3 cubic yards after they shoved and pushed away much of the material. But you know what, I'm gonna keep this stuff out so that we don't have bare earth. Nature is modest, she likes to be covered. This whole area is covered. And since I still have enough to keep a compost pile breaking down, I have enough bulk, let's just turn it right here, leave that spread out. We'll start spreading it for us. All right, one compost pile turned, Mom. Good job, thanks for helping me. You came just in time. I don't see JD anywhere. You see him?

No, he's not feeling so good. He was feeling not so good last night.

Chickens are no stranger to this now. They absolutely love it. I don't know what they're eating, but they're eating something. Oh, they're popping a wheelie. And is that a bunch more broody hens?

I hope not.

So what I'm thinking here, Rebecca, we've got smell coming off of this one, so we need to mix in some wood chips. It's going to be easier if we can do it with this corner still to where the chickens can't get in here, don't you think? So I'll take this pallets off and maybe we'll just stack the pile right there. I'm doing wire on these pallets hold them together. It's just easier than string. What's wrong? What's wrong?

Every time Jonah was trying to catch his broody hen, he was going after him.

You know, a lot of it is him doing his job. I know, but there are a little more— they're more timid roosters, and we don't want our children afraid to come out and check the eggs by themselves.

No, I'm afraid.

You're afraid? Yeah. What's gonna happen? He's gonna flog me.

He's gonna poke me with his little spur. I don't want that. Look at him. He's got—

he's got one eye on you.

He's got— he does. He's got one on me. That's what I'm talking about.

We got our pallets off. It's ready to be turned. You know, I was wondering if our old pile was breaking down. Heck yes, it's breaking down when compared to that other one. All of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, that's breaking down. That's 2 weeks old since we've been turning it. We've turned it twice. Let's see what it heated up to. That's 100. Okay, 120. That could be a little— we want it to at least be to 130, so It's going to 130, maybe a little bit more. It's super dry.

What happened?

Is that your reaction to the dead chicken? I don't know, it just died. It got smashed. And we can, we can open it.

There's a lot of hay in there. I feel like maybe we should add poop to it.

Yeah, and it wasn't that hot. It was only 135-ish. I think water is going to help.

Yeah, because it's real dry. And then I need to go get the water.

I'd say we're about halfway done. We decided against the wood chips because it wasn't heating up like crazy. Just 130, and that means it needs more nitrogen. So actually, we actually went and got more manure-infested bedding. But what was that smell? I don't know. I don't know. I teach you guys things I know. That's, that's something I don't know. Could it just be stinky bedding and we just need to get it wet? Needs to be breaking down a little bit faster. Like, look how dry it is. Boom, finished! Well, Sort of. We need to water it down. Beauty had to go inside for a minute. She's gonna come back. I'm gonna have to milk. I think I've got an idea to get more nitrogen throughout this whole thing. Hopefully the cows will cooperate. We're gonna need this. JD never showed up. Boy, it must be bad. Uh, let's, let's feed that rooster for this afternoon evening chores.

All right, JD's up. Yeah, he did the dish. He dumped the dishwasher. Look at him, he's loading, he's loading it now. Okay, and he's gonna make coffee.

Where you been snoozing late morning and now trying to catch up on some dishes? Okay, how's he finding your keep somewhere there?

I know I gotta do something.

Well, well, well, let's see what we have here. Flossie has cooperated. Oh boy, that's a juicy one. Oh, Slothy has cooperated. It's very juicy though. You know who else cooperated? Yo, urine. We hold my urine? Yes, that's love.

Smells great.

Pretty sick. We've got our water, JD. We've got our urine. Let's dilute it. That urine is going to help us break down this compost pile. It needs more nitrogen. Urine's a nitrogen.

Didn't know that.

We're diluting it because we want to spread more evenly about this. My idea is we have this manure, let's go ahead and dilute it. So fill this, fill this wheelbarrow up with some water. You never know what you're going to get into here, do you?

Something new every time.

What's the weirdest job you've ever done here at the Holler?

Probably water down some manure.

This chop saw, huh? This is the weirdest. What's the most exciting memorable job you've ever done here at the Holler?

Well, it wasn't a job, but most exciting thing was seeing a black bear last night, right?

Okay, what do you think, JD? I think it's good. I can only push you so far. Yes, I'll do the scooping.

All right, I'll watch.

Here, you hold the camera. JD, yo, I gotta ask you something. Come over here, check out the pigs in the pig port. This is for folks like you in suburbia, city slickers. Yeah, so does it stink?

Doesn't at all.

No, no stink.

It does smell like bacon a little bit.

You're a visionary.

Gosh, bacon.

I knew I could smell it from outside.

Delicious. Try it. It's the best I've ever had.

For sure, best bacon ever at the Holler.

You see, that's homegrown, home cured, home cooked bacon. All right, evening chore time. JD, we got to dispatch this rooster.

He was a tough guy earlier, not anymore.

That's right, because sometimes the kids come to collect eggs, he threatens them. We don't need him. He's not like our prize breeding rooster, so we're gonna feed him to the chick pigs. So we'll dispatch him as soon as we can so he's not under stress. Come here.

You want me to hold him like that?

Here, catch his blood. Did it. We just caught the bird, dispatched him as soon as we could. Sharp knife is a humane knife. Um, he's not even struggling. Once you cut, there's no blood going to the brain and there's no feelings anymore. So the only possible pain is when you slit just the skin there a little bit. That's why I say sharp knife.

It's almost done.

It takes about 3 minutes to bleed out. Here we go. So we'll put this in here tonight. It'd be better if I could have cooked it, but we're out of time. So how was that, JD?

Very impressive how fast and just painless.

Yeah, peaceful, peaceful.

Absolutely.

It's hard, it's never easy, but if that rooster would have done something stupid to our kids, and now it's— that'd be annoying. And so yeah, now it's, it's not like it's went to waste or anything.

That's our first to be—

you want, you want to be the honors to show her? Okay. Oh, she's right there.

Okay, hang on.

No way!

Yeah!

Oh my gosh, this is so amazing.

Where was this?

I was actually thinking I needed to check the tomatoes.

Are you surprised?

Not really, but yes.

Okay.

I think the first tomato is always just great joy.

You were very excited. Don't you like to eat it raw?

I do, but I'm drinking a smoothie and I don't want to eat it with— Okay, I will eat it tonight, don't worry.

Okay.