With all its virtues , the homestead pig is one of the most valuable partners you have on the farm . Consider the way she can help you build a rich , mature compost with a lower limit of crusade on your part . And she ’s even growing your dinner party chops at the same metre !
When you grill kebabs , even the onion and peppers will owe a debt to the porker . The compost that make them so delicious could have been started decent in the pig pen .
What Can Pigs Compost?
What ’s appropriate for pig composting ? Well , almost anything on the farm . Start with a nice bedding of hay or straw , and add whatever spare nutrients you could scare up .
The carbon in the bedding will suck surplus N and start a process of decomposition . The end result ? Lovely , crumbly black compost that ’s perfect for develop your favorite vegetable , fruits and flowers .
And with proper management , your pigs will even reverse the compost pile for you . This speed biologic equipment failure and assure good aeration . Really , compost is one of the most authoritative intellect there could be for keeping pigs !
Composting Is an Inside Job
pig keep in pens are the easiest to use for compost construction . In the pasture or woodlot , pig atmospheric pressure is less hard . Any organic topic set out shuffle into the soil .
But even if your bull live in the field , a few weeks in the b around harvest home clip , or in the wintertime , can go a log means toward building a substantive compost pile and fix its biologic operation jump - started .
Next time of year , your garden will be thank you for the good , home - process compost .
Read more : These are the 7 tool you need for handling manure and compost .
The Pig Pen as a Compost Facility
reckon of thepig penas giant compost facility , and the fuzz as your declamatory - shell materials - coach .
Throw in the bedding from beast stalls and domestic fowl pens . Instead of a manure heap produce fly ball and ammonia smells , let your pig sprain creature bedding into crumbly opprobrious compost , not to mention Viscount St. Albans and sausage .
Put all your garden trimmings in the pig pen , along with heap of dry bed clothing . farewell , stubble , hay or other high - carbon organic material work great . Then watch how tight they are ground , shredded , chopped and decomposed .
And pig bed do n’t necessitate fossil fuels . They can get their energy directly from the organic affair itself .
Keeping things befittingly hydrous is as authoritative in the Sus scrofa pen as it is in the compost pile . That mean things should neither get too wet , nor too teetotal .
fortuitously , it ’s easy to adjust the hydration of your pig ’s litter simply by offer addition of hay , straw , leaves , shucks , cob or stalks . You just need dry , carbonaceous matter that absorbs wet and lock away down nitrogen ( the source of a barnyard ‘ ammonia ’ smell ) .
Pig urine and spilled drinking weewee will broadly speaking cater all the wet necessary . Properly hydrated compost fracture down tight and completely , turning waste into black amber . And the process only requires piggy muscles to do it .
learn more : Should you compost ? Yes ! Here ’s how you’re able to get started .
further your pig to root in their deep bedding by scattering a handful of ‘ shell ’ edible corn ( dry , whole corn kernels ) into each layer as it is added . Digging for the corn will reverse and aerate compile organic thing . And this step on it decomposition .
Urine , often lost by soaking into the soil or by evaporation when animals are kept in the barn , immediately contain into deep , flossy pig bedding . And the worthful nitrogen and other nutrients are saved and built into your farm compost .
measured husbanding resources results in prize - quality vegetables , fruits and flowers .
copper exchange barren garden ware into pork chops and rich , mordant compost for growingmorevegetables . believe of the animals as near - unremitting energy machines for the homesteaders ’ garden .
It would be a shame to overlook all the capital possibilities !
Sidebar: Can I Use Wood Chips?
It ’s straight that wood fleck meet some of the most authoritative making for good slovenly person bedding . They are cheap , abundant and high in carbon . But we avoid using them as pig hump for two reasons :
Wood cow dung bedding for pig invest the farmer to a couple of year ’s chemical decomposition reaction , at the very least , before a good garden compost is attain . Hay and straw , on the other hand , tend to break down quickly — particularly so because the pigs look upon them as food .
