Compost Chicken System

Building on the work of compost connoisseur Karl Hammer and permaculture educator Geoff Lawton, we’ll be testing whether a small farm can run a profitable egg enterprise by feeding chickens on local food wastes, producing compost as a by-product. Details of the system are published here on this page.

Chickens can be fed on worms, bugs, food waste and forage alone. This can eliminate the need for grain purchases entirely. Please have a look at the approach that Karl Hammer of Vermont Compost has taken.

Typical Economics

• A buck per chicken, indicating that the industry standard is a loss leader - [1]
• Dressing percentage for heritage chicken is 68-70% - [2]

Videos

Interview with Karl Hammer:

Video from Vermont Compost:

Internal Links

• Most relevant: Compost Chicken on Steroids with Geoff Lawton
• Chicken and Top Heritage Chicken Breeds for Meat and Chicken Market Research
• Fertilized Chicken Eggs
• Automatic Chicken Door
• Agriculture Log
• other compost-related pages: vermicompost, black soldier fly, wood ash

More information: grain-free eggs

• OSE Blog April 2016: "Introducing a New Distributive Enterprise: Grain-Free Eggs and Aquaponic Greens"
• Treehugger: "How to grow chickens without buying grain" (embedded video broken but here is a copy).