Urban Chickens Are Excellent Composters | Chicken Houses And Runs

Urban Chickens Are Excellent Composters


Putting it bluntly: urban gardeners are silly for not also having urban chickens.

It turns out nitrogen-rich chicken poop isnt the only way that urban chickens rock the compost pile.

According to an (otherwise mediocre) article in the Columbia Missorian:
A study found that a hen can consume about 7 pounds of food scraps a month, or about 84 pounds a year.

"If a city had 2,000 households with three hens or more each, that translates to 252 tons of biomass thats diverted from landfills," [Andy "the Chicken Whisperer"] Schneider said. "They are really good compost-ers."
Im surprised more cities and towns arent taking this into consideration when debating whether to legalize urban chickens.

Think of the cost-savings in reduced traffic to and from (and within) the local landfill if more folks had their own backyard egg-producing, insect-eating, weed-eating scrap composters!

I know our girls loved grapes and blueberries and lightly wilted greens as treats. What have you been surprised to find your urban chickens will eat?

Photo credit: Watt Dabney on Flickr

Urban Chickens Are Excellent Composters