Yuletide Poo

Filtering the Yuletide poo using a simple screen
and an empty bucket.

What would be fitting for my first Three Backyard Hens blog post? It’s Christmas Day. Let’s talk about food, family, fun and of course presents! Well, my lovely three ladies left me thousands of little presents... in the form of droppings. Due to the busyness of the holidays, and busy fundraising at work I (admittedly) neglected the state of the girls’ run. So with Christmas Day off, I decided to accept their “gifts” with a smile on my face, and do a thorough chicken coop clean-up. Their run is only 4’ x 8’. It’s easily raked up in small piles.


Now me (being Dutch and very thrifty), I don’t like to toss out the sandbox sand that I purchased for a ‘whopping’ $4/bag. I filter the droppings. Yes... I admit it. I filter the droppings, separating the compost from the clean sand. This is kinda time consuming and dirty, but dang it, I’m saving money! 

For all you chicken owners who compost their flock’s droppings, this is a great way to keep your compost “clean.” Here’s how it works, I take a small bucket, put an old, used screen over the top and pile a couple  handfuls of droppings/sand. Then it’s just a couple “shimmies” and you’re there! Put the droppings/feathers left in the screen into a different, compost-bound bucket and let the clean, fine sand filter to the bottom of first bucket. Take the second bucket, full of droppings/feathers to the compost pile. Then just empty the fine, clean sand back into the run, and “VOILA” a couple dollars saved. You now have a “clean” compost pile, and an even cleaner chicken run!

The last thing you want is a boring chicken run. This is one of the lessons I learned early on. If chickens get bored, they could take over the world... they’re a lot smarter than many think. I recruited my husband to rake up some woodland leaves, full of North Carolina bugs and grubs, and we spread them in their freshly cleaned coop. The ladies love it. They had a regular Christmas party in the pile of leaves we left for them!

This isn’t the traditional way of spending Christmas afternoon, but I couldn’t have been happier! Ah, chickens the gifts that keep on giv... if they’d finally start laying eggs. I guess for now, the only ‘presents‘ they’ll be giving me are that of a well-stocked compost pile.