When I picture raising chickens, it’s always free range (of course!), I see a farmer walking through a flock of hungry chooks tossing handfuls of grain onto the ground for feed. It seems that Karl Hammer has figured out how to raise chickens, over 600, without having to purchase even one bag of grain. Watching this video, it’s amazing to see all of these chickens roaming free, scrambling over and digging up tall mounds of compost. Karl is a compost king, he has various (and huge) compost piles set in strategic places to funnel and capture the leachate that drains through and from each pile into the next. This is designed so that none of the nutrients are lost and they don’t end up polluting their potable water source nor the neighboring properties.
These compost piles consist of many different sources of material, from cow and donkey manures, waste food from various restaurants from town and the other things you would find in a compost pile. They are HOT, meaning they are active, in fact, Karl is producing his first batch of black garlic in one of the heated piles. I had never heard of black garlic, but it’s something I am very interested in now, you can learn more about it here.
I started watching this video thinking I was only going to learn about chickens and compost, but Karl has much more up his sleeve than that. He raises and uses American Mammoth Donkeys (Jackstock), seems they were very important in history, in the USA and in other countries, one of his jacks ancestry goes back to an animal that was given to President Washington by the King of Spain, another gift came from the Isle of Malta. (LINK) These animals not only provide valuable manure, they are working animals, pulling equipment and being guards for the other livestock on the farm.
Watch and enjoy the video, I certainly did.