Sure beats a nutibullet. You'd be there forever lol I know it's coming to the end of the season now, but as a gardener, I'd actually like to see your garden. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of your 'outside'.
Hi Suzanne! It’s actually the beginning of my garden season! Where the chickens were is where our main garden is. It’s in process of being weeded out - that’s why the girls were so happy! All the disturbed dirt brings up the bugs. Thanks for the request! I’ve been thinking of doing a few ‘how I use castings in my garden’ videos. 👍❤️🪱 Haha! Pulverizing manure in a nurtibullet! Even worse than all the work I put my vitamix thru! I’m so glad to have a grain mill now - that’s helped a lot with time spent making chow. I’ve got to keep getting smarter and invest a few bucks where it makes sense. I tend to be too cheap sometimes 🙄.
@@RockinWorms Oh, that's so cool you're about to get your grow on. I love seeing other people's gardens as I sit here through my miserable winter. It helps keep me inspired. I need it with our winter feeling like it lasts forever! lol
@@RockinWorms I'm in South Yorkshire. It's kinda like the twilight zone here, because we have a micro climate. We don't get the typical cold Northern winter, so instead it's wet, dark and windy. I'll be lucky to get prolonged hard frost, let alone snow. We also may get the best week of summer in March, whilst having the worst of our winter too. It's a bit weird here like that lol
The garden season is just kicking off again here in southeast Louisiana. Its the best time of year for brassicas. At least for us. Give it a try its pretty awesome.
This is so cool! You saw my video where I use the pulverized dried leaves. I know I use a household size Vitamix for that, but I have to wonder if there's a huge commercial size Vitamix style machine that could take care of your cow manure without going through the sifting. I absolutely love how you problem solved to make the cement mixer work, though, Jayne! ~ Sandra
Hi Sandra! I’d guess there is a super commercial blender. How costly plus easy to get would be the question. Some of the manure chunks are quite hard. I’m always worried about my kitchen vitamix getting damaged if I put in super hard stuff. When I used to do leaves like you I had to double and triple check for thick stems or hard seeds. Makes me nervous. The sifting is actually not a big deal as 80% or more of the work is passive in my part. Sometimes I get our weekend worker to collect the cow poop 😆. I don’t mind doing it except when it’s so freaking hot out. Now that I’m heading into to cool season for you know, 15 nanoseconds in south Florida (🤣🤣) it’s a good excuse to get out of the house for a bit! I have big plans to build an insert attachment (working off others design ideas) for the mixer to make it be a castings sifter. Can’t wait to make that happen! Problem solving is something I love to do ❤️❤️🪱.
I could definitely see the concept working for sifting castings! That would be incredible. It was the hard chunks of manure why I thought of the power of a blade rather than those golf balls to break them up. Regarding your Florida weather, I'm a bit surprised you can dry the manure sufficiently with your humidity. ~ Sandra
@@NanasWorms It’s a trommel type set up for the castings. It’s made to sit in the bowl opening and be secured. Then it can be removed and the mixer can be used as normal. I think I’m going to make it my Christmas present. We take a weekend and make it, and everything else can go hang! 🤣. The sun is hot enough to offset the humidity when it’s not raining. Which it has been a lot the last several days once again. Sometimes the manure is uncovered for only a few hours before the rain comes in. It can take several days to a week when it’s like this. During the dry season, which is right around the corner, it’ll dry in a day or two max. As I mentioned in the video, I’m not concerned if bits of manure don’t sift. They simply go around fruit trees as slow release fertilizer. ❤️🪱
Thanks Leo! I love problem solving. It’s a long running ‘joke’ that my best idea is around the 10th idea I come up with to solve the problem. It’s fun! ❤️🪱
I have been enjoying your videos. It was years ago when I last raised worms. I don't think I understood as much as I do now, and I am still learning. I got ahold of some manure recently and love all the ideas I am gathering on how to use it! I was concerned how to know when it is cool enough it won't kill my roses! I like the idea of sending it through the worms, and have already started. They like it so far.
Hi Amy! I’m so glad you’re enjoying my content 😍. Worm wrangling is pretty basic but there’s lots of tips and tricks to make it easier, cheaper and healthier for you, the worms, and the earth 👍. Your roses will absolutely love worm castings! Not only will they get the goodness of the manure passed thru the worms but all the great biota that will come along too! And no worry about the manure being too hot to use. Thanks for watching! 👍🪱🪱
Yippee! Congratulations! You’ll have plenty of new cocoons soon enough 🤗. If you can split the bin to give them more room to grow that’ll help them a lot. I got that info from Rey @pachamamaworms. He was totally right of course. It’s made a difference 👍❤️🪱.
Thanks Jayne, that's the information I was waiting for. I've seen cement mixers used for mixing bedding, and those with trommel attachments, but yours is the first I've seen used as a seive. Is the screening metal or fiberglass? Also, can you expand on your comment that driveway stones was a disaster? That would have been my first experimental as well.
Hi Chris! The screen is window screen or pool cage screening. You can buy a roll at any hardware store type place. I don’t know what it’s made of. It does conform to the bowl shape after several uses and that helps a lot in subsequent uses. At first with the screen being flat and stiff it was a struggle to get it onto the bowl. The magnets help a lot. Just so you know. The driveway stones were various sizes, some very small. Oh wait. I just remembered that I was trying to pulverize leaves at that time, not cow manure. I couldn’t sift or sort the stones out of the leaves easily. And it also didn’t work as I wanted it to with breaking the dried leaves down. So I then took the leaves and ran them thru the vitamix. Obviously it was crucial that no stone got into the blender. I had to hand sort the leaf pile to remove stones. Small tiny stones would somehow still cling to leaves. Grr. It was a disaster like I said. However, if I had used larger rocks that I was confident wouldn’t flake off they would have acted just as the golf balls do with the cow manure or even the leaves. FYI I didn’t say on the video but I bought those used golf balls off marketplace for like $2. I was at my daughters and didn’t have some of the same options I do at home 😊. In summary you have to figure out how to separate your desired material (manure, leaves, castings if you’re looking into that although I’m going to try an insert trommel for castings) from the ‘mill stones’. Peggy suggested billiard balls. I keep weight in mind as I’m very leery of denting either the fins or the bowl shape by using too heavy banging mill stones. The golf balls work great for the manure. If I go back to trying leaves I need to start fresh with my problem solving. Which (cough, cough) I may be looking into soon! I’m not sure in that but it’s circling around in my mind. 🤣❤️🪱
Great video Jayne! You might want to search for one of those playing tunnels or these tunnels dogs run through during agility matches. Attach one end on the opening of the mixer and the other into your collecting bin. I think it will help to prevent the dust from going airborne.
Good afternoon my fellow worm herder from Jesus and me! I noticed your bucket handle does not have the plastic "gripper" where you grab hold of it. My buckets are sometimes similar. I cut a piece of old garden hose the length to fit where the other "gabber" was. Cut a slit the length of it, slip it onto the bucket handle and wrap some duct tape around it several times. No more hurt hands when carrying the bucket full of whatever.
Hello!! That’s so smart! The plastic cover gripper things break off for several reasons. Goodness knows I have old garden hose laying around ready to be put to good use! I hope others see your tip!! ❤️🪱
Yes, it’s not going to be a common thing people can do but I have received quite a few questions about it. People do often have access to other manures, like horse and rabbit. They can be dried and broken down into smaller chunks and used in a worm bin. The rabbit manure can go straight in and doesn’t even need to be aged. ❤️🪱
@@RockinWorms I totally agree there…. Also in the uk it’s harder to get things like that unless you have a farm or know a farmer. Lol it’s a good thing to have if you can. I can buy and do for the garden, bags of farmyard manure… but I can’t say what’s in it, or if it’s safe for the worms
@@cherylhowker1792 You can always do a test batch bin to try the manure out. If you’re putting it in your garden you’re already tacitly approving whatever is in there for your food chain. Having it go thru the worms first isn’t going to change it. Here the big deal is the herbicides sprayed on the hay. Some are forever chemicals. Really bad stuff. And we’re feeding it to our animals and often into the food chain. Feeding contaminated manure to the worms may not kill the worms but it still isn’t good for us when it hits the garden. It’s really difficult to know what’s in stuff these days 😡.
How stinkin' clever! I guess I never really considered what you do to get that manure down to such a fine consistency, but I wouldn't have came up with such a cool process! Still mad jealous of your "clean" manure source! I just worked out a deal with our local waste people a deal to come grab some residential green waste from their drop-off location tomorrow. You suppose that stuff should be safe? 🤔
Thanks! We brainstormed several ideas along the way. It was actually hubby that came up with the cement mixer idea. Then I did the Facebook marketplace hunt. Want to hear the funny part? Sure you do 🤣 We were in the small city where our daughter lives (7 hours by car away from our home), using it as a base for several vacation visits to other cities for a total of 3 months (So yes, I brought the worms AND the chickens up with me so she could watch them!!) when we finally decided on the cement mixer idea. I found this cement mixer plus it’s non working twin (!!) and bought them both (good to have spare parts handy right?). I also found and bought so many other good deals that we had to buy a trailer to bring everything home 🤣🤣🤣. Trailer was a good deal too. That was in addition to the trailer we bought for the trip to begin with so we could travel the chickens safely. I know, I’m a bit crazy! But it all works out and we get great use out of these things. Anyway, the manure sifting works a treat. And as I mentioned to Sandra below, I’ve got plans for an insert to use the mixer as a castings sifter! That’s coming soon as I am getting desperate to make sifting easier and faster. ❤️🪱
@@RockinWorms Holy crap, that's some dedication! 😳 It's really cool that you were able to bring along the chickens and worms! It's like they got a vacation too! Was the trailer another Facebook Marketplace find as well? I was just thinking about looking for one myself.
@@evelynknight5627 I didn’t have much choice. My chicken sitter quit sorta last minute. It was take them to our daughters with us or I didn’t go on several planned trips. The ‘home’ trailer we bought off a neighbor. It’s one of those mesh ramp ones used a lot by landscapers to move mowers between jobs. We decided against it and then came back a few hours later and bought it 🤣🤣. The chickens went into large dog crates I’ve been picking up out of people’s garbage for years 🙄. People throw them out when the door breaks but it’s an easy fix 👍. I use the crates for mama hens and chicks too and right now 2 are being used as nest boxes. Lots of uses for large dog crates that have nothing to do with dogs! The trailer we bought at my daughters was indeed off of Facebook marketplace. That’s an enclosed box type trailer. That’s where the cement mixers, 55 gallon barrels, etc stuff went. The chickens and worms came back in the same mesh trailer they went up in. The crates and buckets protected them but they got lots of air flow which was crucial. I didn’t lose any chickens at all (and I was kinda expecting someone would heart attack out but nope!). I need some replacement chicks and my daughter wants to do it. She’s run hatches before. We’re trying to figure out logistics. Anyway, marketplace can be a great source of super deals. But it’s buyer beware so be careful. And always always check prices against buying new or from a store or similar. I’m pretty much a 50% or higher discount off retail prices to even be tempted to take the risk of buying something unknown. And I’ve made some mistakes, don’t think I haven’t! But the vast majority have worked out really well. And of course, back to the garbage picking! My absolute favorite ❤️.
You can store pre-compost indefinitely as long as it remains a little bit damp to keep the biota alive. Seriously, I felt the same when I started making pre-compost. An 18 gallon tote seemed to last for a few months. But then the worms were so happy and the population got a bit bigger and they started turning the pre-compost into castings quite fast. Then it was taking the castings out and replacing the pre-compost quicker and the cycle was off to the races! If/when your bin populations stabilize the cycle will slow down a bit but trust me, you’ll be using the pre-compost up in no time! 👍🪱😎
@@RockinWorms I don't even have the worms yet and I have 3 bins composting , around 100 gallons total. 🙄 I'm trying to be as careful as possible so as not to kill them when they arrive. I'm going to focus on pure red wigglers for now.
@@traceybier1128 Wow! That fantastic! Having great bedding ready to go puts you far ahead of the normal starting worm wrangler - me included! When are you planning on getting the worms? And of course how many you start out with will affect the speed of composting as well as we talked about above. If you can store the feed bag castings in a cool place like a basement or garage they’ll keep moist longer 👍
Hi Troy! Saying out the cow manure is part of the aging process. The aging process helps reduce the amount of nitrogen the manure contains. High levels of nitrogen can easily lead to hot composting and we definitely don’t want that in a worm bin 😳. I also like the sifted part as not having chunks in my worm bins makes them easier to manage for me. I don’t even like whole seeds and leaves in my bins 😝. That’s just my personal preference though. There’s nothing wrong with chunky stuff in a worm bin. I do mix the manure in with pre-compost (heated and cooled shredded cardboard, coffee grounds and liquid of some type) to make what I call basic bedding. This basic bedding goes into all of my worms bins. I do add water as needed to the basic bedding to make it appropriately moist for the worms. So in a very real way I’m doing exactly what you’re asking about! Just in a few steps vs all at one time 👍. Ok? 🪱🪱
Hi Michael! Thanks! The magnets really do help a lot, especially in the beginning when the screen is still stiff and hasn’t confirmed to the mouth shape of the mixer bowl yet. 🪱🪱🪱
Hi Jeremy! That’s along the right thought line for sure. I wonder if they’d be too heavy though…? There needs to be a balance between hard and heavy enough to break up clumps and not so heavy that their weight rips off the screen mesh that’s held on by tight string and magnets. I’d be worth a try if Bullard balls were handy! Thanks for the idea 🤗🪱❤️👍
@@RockinWorms Such a great idea to use the cement mixer. I just bought a tumbler composter off FB Marketplace to help with mixing worm bedding and to make my potting soil. I have nerve damage in my elbows and hands and mixing potting soil sets me back weeks. Since the tumbling composter is made of plastic, I was thinking about using raquetballs. They are made of hard rubber and not too heavy. They are larger than a golf ball so it might work better in a cement mixer than a compost tumbler, which is significantly smaller. Just a thought.. Love your ingenuity! Learning a lot!
@@martizavala6713 I’m glad you can use a cement mixer type contraption to ease the strain and pain of mixing bedding and soils. Smart! I’ll keep the racquet balls in mind if I ever need to replace the golf balls. They still work for me so I’ll stick with them for now 😎. Sparking ideas that others can use and tweak makes me happy! Thanks for watching 🥰🪱
Sure beats a nutibullet. You'd be there forever lol I know it's coming to the end of the season now, but as a gardener, I'd actually like to see your garden. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of your 'outside'.
Hi Suzanne! It’s actually the beginning of my garden season! Where the chickens were is where our main garden is. It’s in process of being weeded out - that’s why the girls were so happy! All the disturbed dirt brings up the bugs.
Thanks for the request! I’ve been thinking of doing a few ‘how I use castings in my garden’ videos. 👍❤️🪱
Haha! Pulverizing manure in a nurtibullet! Even worse than all the work I put my vitamix thru! I’m so glad to have a grain mill now - that’s helped a lot with time spent making chow. I’ve got to keep getting smarter and invest a few bucks where it makes sense. I tend to be too cheap sometimes 🙄.
@@RockinWorms Oh, that's so cool you're about to get your grow on. I love seeing other people's gardens as I sit here through my miserable winter. It helps keep me inspired. I need it with our winter feeling like it lasts forever! lol
@@thenodiggardener Where are you located? I’m from Buffalo NY area so know a few things about winters!
@@RockinWorms I'm in South Yorkshire. It's kinda like the twilight zone here, because we have a micro climate. We don't get the typical cold Northern winter, so instead it's wet, dark and windy. I'll be lucky to get prolonged hard frost, let alone snow. We also may get the best week of summer in March, whilst having the worst of our winter too. It's a bit weird here like that lol
The garden season is just kicking off again here in southeast Louisiana. Its the best time of year for brassicas. At least for us. Give it a try its pretty awesome.
This is so cool! You saw my video where I use the pulverized dried leaves. I know I use a household size Vitamix for that, but I have to wonder if there's a huge commercial size Vitamix style machine that could take care of your cow manure without going through the sifting. I absolutely love how you problem solved to make the cement mixer work, though, Jayne!
~ Sandra
Hi Sandra! I’d guess there is a super commercial blender. How costly plus easy to get would be the question. Some of the manure chunks are quite hard. I’m always worried about my kitchen vitamix getting damaged if I put in super hard stuff. When I used to do leaves like you I had to double and triple check for thick stems or hard seeds. Makes me nervous.
The sifting is actually not a big deal as 80% or more of the work is passive in my part. Sometimes I get our weekend worker to collect the cow poop 😆. I don’t mind doing it except when it’s so freaking hot out. Now that I’m heading into to cool season for you know, 15 nanoseconds in south Florida (🤣🤣) it’s a good excuse to get out of the house for a bit!
I have big plans to build an insert attachment (working off others design ideas) for the mixer to make it be a castings sifter. Can’t wait to make that happen!
Problem solving is something I love to do ❤️❤️🪱.
I could definitely see the concept working for sifting castings! That would be incredible. It was the hard chunks of manure why I thought of the power of a blade rather than those golf balls to break them up. Regarding your Florida weather, I'm a bit surprised you can dry the manure sufficiently with your humidity.
~ Sandra
@@NanasWorms It’s a trommel type set up for the castings. It’s made to sit in the bowl opening and be secured. Then it can be removed and the mixer can be used as normal.
I think I’m going to make it my Christmas present. We take a weekend and make it, and everything else can go hang! 🤣.
The sun is hot enough to offset the humidity when it’s not raining. Which it has been a lot the last several days once again. Sometimes the manure is uncovered for only a few hours before the rain comes in. It can take several days to a week when it’s like this. During the dry season, which is right around the corner, it’ll dry in a day or two max.
As I mentioned in the video, I’m not concerned if bits of manure don’t sift. They simply go around fruit trees as slow release fertilizer. ❤️🪱
How creative! I love the way your brain thinks! Nice tip!
Thanks Leo! I love problem solving. It’s a long running ‘joke’ that my best idea is around the 10th idea I come up with to solve the problem. It’s fun! ❤️🪱
That’s a brilliant idea. I wondered how you made it into such a fine powder. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Bev! It took some brainstorming and many ideas before we worked it out. But it works super well and I couldn’t be more pleased ❤️🪱
I have been enjoying your videos. It was years ago when I last raised worms. I don't think I understood as much as I do now, and I am still learning. I got ahold of some manure recently and love all the ideas I am gathering on how to use it! I was concerned how to know when it is cool enough it won't kill my roses! I like the idea of sending it through the worms, and have already started. They like it so far.
Hi Amy! I’m so glad you’re enjoying my content 😍. Worm wrangling is pretty basic but there’s lots of tips and tricks to make it easier, cheaper and healthier for you, the worms, and the earth 👍. Your roses will absolutely love worm castings! Not only will they get the goodness of the manure passed thru the worms but all the great biota that will come along too! And no worry about the manure being too hot to use.
Thanks for watching! 👍🪱🪱
One of my nurseries have semi hatched. It has teenage sized worms all through out it. There werent many cocoons to start but they are growing.
Yippee! Congratulations! You’ll have plenty of new cocoons soon enough 🤗. If you can split the bin to give them more room to grow that’ll help them a lot. I got that info from Rey @pachamamaworms. He was totally right of course. It’s made a difference 👍❤️🪱.
Thank you for sharing this important information listening from Bangs Texas
@@johnfitbyfaithnet Hi John! Welcome! Going with the stereotype here… do you have access to cow manure?? 😆😎❤️🪱
Thanks Jayne, that's the information I was waiting for. I've seen cement mixers used for mixing bedding, and those with trommel attachments, but yours is the first I've seen used as a seive. Is the screening metal or fiberglass? Also, can you expand on your comment that driveway stones was a disaster? That would have been my first experimental as well.
Hi Chris! The screen is window screen or pool cage screening. You can buy a roll at any hardware store type place. I don’t know what it’s made of. It does conform to the bowl shape after several uses and that helps a lot in subsequent uses. At first with the screen being flat and stiff it was a struggle to get it onto the bowl. The magnets help a lot. Just so you know.
The driveway stones were various sizes, some very small. Oh wait. I just remembered that I was trying to pulverize leaves at that time, not cow manure. I couldn’t sift or sort the stones out of the leaves easily. And it also didn’t work as I wanted it to with breaking the dried leaves down. So I then took the leaves and ran them thru the vitamix. Obviously it was crucial that no stone got into the blender. I had to hand sort the leaf pile to remove stones. Small tiny stones would somehow still cling to leaves. Grr. It was a disaster like I said.
However, if I had used larger rocks that I was confident wouldn’t flake off they would have acted just as the golf balls do with the cow manure or even the leaves. FYI I didn’t say on the video but I bought those used golf balls off marketplace for like $2. I was at my daughters and didn’t have some of the same options I do at home 😊.
In summary you have to figure out how to separate your desired material (manure, leaves, castings if you’re looking into that although I’m going to try an insert trommel for castings) from the ‘mill stones’. Peggy suggested billiard balls. I keep weight in mind as I’m very leery of denting either the fins or the bowl shape by using too heavy banging mill stones. The golf balls work great for the manure. If I go back to trying leaves I need to start fresh with my problem solving. Which (cough, cough) I may be looking into soon! I’m not sure in that but it’s circling around in my mind. 🤣❤️🪱
Great video Jayne! You might want to search for one of those playing tunnels or these tunnels dogs run through during agility matches. Attach one end on the opening of the mixer and the other into your collecting bin. I think it will help to prevent the dust from going airborne.
@@millyzwezereijn9177 Huh! What a cool idea! I’ll look into it. Thanks! 👍🪱🪱
Thanks!
Wow! Thanks so much for the Super Thanks! I appreciate your support ❤️❤️😊
Good afternoon my fellow worm herder from Jesus and me!
I noticed your bucket handle does not
have the plastic "gripper" where you grab hold of it. My buckets are sometimes similar.
I cut a piece of old garden hose the length to fit where the other "gabber" was. Cut a slit the length of it, slip it onto the bucket handle and wrap some duct tape around it several times. No more hurt hands when carrying the bucket full of whatever.
Hello!! That’s so smart! The plastic cover gripper things break off for several reasons. Goodness knows I have old garden hose laying around ready to be put to good use! I hope others see your tip!! ❤️🪱
Very interesting.
Don’t have access to it but good to see how you do it. X
Yes, it’s not going to be a common thing people can do but I have received quite a few questions about it. People do often have access to other manures, like horse and rabbit. They can be dried and broken down into smaller chunks and used in a worm bin. The rabbit manure can go straight in and doesn’t even need to be aged. ❤️🪱
@@RockinWorms I totally agree there…. Also in the uk it’s harder to get things like that unless you have a farm or know a farmer.
Lol it’s a good thing to have if you can.
I can buy and do for the garden, bags of farmyard manure… but I can’t say what’s in it, or if it’s safe for the worms
@@cherylhowker1792 You can always do a test batch bin to try the manure out. If you’re putting it in your garden you’re already tacitly approving whatever is in there for your food chain. Having it go thru the worms first isn’t going to change it.
Here the big deal is the herbicides sprayed on the hay. Some are forever chemicals. Really bad stuff. And we’re feeding it to our animals and often into the food chain. Feeding contaminated manure to the worms may not kill the worms but it still isn’t good for us when it hits the garden.
It’s really difficult to know what’s in stuff these days 😡.
How stinkin' clever! I guess I never really considered what you do to get that manure down to such a fine consistency, but I wouldn't have came up with such a cool process! Still mad jealous of your "clean" manure source!
I just worked out a deal with our local waste people a deal to come grab some residential green waste from their drop-off location tomorrow. You suppose that stuff should be safe? 🤔
Thanks! We brainstormed several ideas along the way. It was actually hubby that came up with the cement mixer idea. Then I did the Facebook marketplace hunt. Want to hear the funny part? Sure you do 🤣
We were in the small city where our daughter lives (7 hours by car away from our home), using it as a base for several vacation visits to other cities for a total of 3 months (So yes, I brought the worms AND the chickens up with me so she could watch them!!) when we finally decided on the cement mixer idea. I found this cement mixer plus it’s non working twin (!!) and bought them both (good to have spare parts handy right?). I also found and bought so many other good deals that we had to buy a trailer to bring everything home 🤣🤣🤣. Trailer was a good deal too. That was in addition to the trailer we bought for the trip to begin with so we could travel the chickens safely. I know, I’m a bit crazy! But it all works out and we get great use out of these things.
Anyway, the manure sifting works a treat. And as I mentioned to Sandra below, I’ve got plans for an insert to use the mixer as a castings sifter! That’s coming soon as I am getting desperate to make sifting easier and faster. ❤️🪱
@@RockinWorms Holy crap, that's some dedication! 😳 It's really cool that you were able to bring along the chickens and worms! It's like they got a vacation too! Was the trailer another Facebook Marketplace find as well? I was just thinking about looking for one myself.
@@evelynknight5627 I didn’t have much choice. My chicken sitter quit sorta last minute. It was take them to our daughters with us or I didn’t go on several planned trips. The ‘home’ trailer we bought off a neighbor. It’s one of those mesh ramp ones used a lot by landscapers to move mowers between jobs. We decided against it and then came back a few hours later and bought it 🤣🤣. The chickens went into large dog crates I’ve been picking up out of people’s garbage for years 🙄. People throw them out when the door breaks but it’s an easy fix 👍. I use the crates for mama hens and chicks too and right now 2 are being used as nest boxes. Lots of uses for large dog crates that have nothing to do with dogs!
The trailer we bought at my daughters was indeed off of Facebook marketplace. That’s an enclosed box type trailer. That’s where the cement mixers, 55 gallon barrels, etc stuff went. The chickens and worms came back in the same mesh trailer they went up in. The crates and buckets protected them but they got lots of air flow which was crucial. I didn’t lose any chickens at all (and I was kinda expecting someone would heart attack out but nope!).
I need some replacement chicks and my daughter wants to do it. She’s run hatches before. We’re trying to figure out logistics.
Anyway, marketplace can be a great source of super deals. But it’s buyer beware so be careful. And always always check prices against buying new or from a store or similar. I’m pretty much a 50% or higher discount off retail prices to even be tempted to take the risk of buying something unknown. And I’ve made some mistakes, don’t think I haven’t! But the vast majority have worked out really well. And of course, back to the garbage picking! My absolute favorite ❤️.
Great way to sift horse manure
It’ll work with any herbivore dried manure I’d think. A great thing is that most of the process is hands off 👍.
I love this! Can you let me know how long I can store or keep the pre composted bedding? I may have over estimated how much I will need. By a LOT. 🙄
You can store pre-compost indefinitely as long as it remains a little bit damp to keep the biota alive.
Seriously, I felt the same when I started making pre-compost. An 18 gallon tote seemed to last for a few months. But then the worms were so happy and the population got a bit bigger and they started turning the pre-compost into castings quite fast. Then it was taking the castings out and replacing the pre-compost quicker and the cycle was off to the races! If/when your bin populations stabilize the cycle will slow down a bit but trust me, you’ll be using the pre-compost up in no time! 👍🪱😎
@@RockinWorms I don't even have the worms yet and I have 3 bins composting , around 100 gallons total. 🙄 I'm trying to be as careful as possible so as not to kill them when they arrive. I'm going to focus on pure red wigglers for now.
@@traceybier1128 Wow! That fantastic! Having great bedding ready to go puts you far ahead of the normal starting worm wrangler - me included! When are you planning on getting the worms? And of course how many you start out with will affect the speed of composting as well as we talked about above.
If you can store the feed bag castings in a cool place like a basement or garage they’ll keep moist longer 👍
Is there a reason for dying in out and sifting versus wet and mixing with straw or paper? Thank you
Hi Troy! Saying out the cow manure is part of the aging process. The aging process helps reduce the amount of nitrogen the manure contains. High levels of nitrogen can easily lead to hot composting and we definitely don’t want that in a worm bin 😳.
I also like the sifted part as not having chunks in my worm bins makes them easier to manage for me. I don’t even like whole seeds and leaves in my bins 😝. That’s just my personal preference though. There’s nothing wrong with chunky stuff in a worm bin.
I do mix the manure in with pre-compost (heated and cooled shredded cardboard, coffee grounds and liquid of some type) to make what I call basic bedding. This basic bedding goes into all of my worms bins. I do add water as needed to the basic bedding to make it appropriately moist for the worms. So in a very real way I’m doing exactly what you’re asking about! Just in a few steps vs all at one time 👍. Ok? 🪱🪱
Makes perfect sense. Thank you!
using magnets was smart!
Hi Michael! Thanks! The magnets really do help a lot, especially in the beginning when the screen is still stiff and hasn’t confirmed to the mouth shape of the mixer bowl yet. 🪱🪱🪱
Use Billiard balls!!!! 🎱
Hi Jeremy! That’s along the right thought line for sure. I wonder if they’d be too heavy though…? There needs to be a balance between hard and heavy enough to break up clumps and not so heavy that their weight rips off the screen mesh that’s held on by tight string and magnets.
I’d be worth a try if Bullard balls were handy! Thanks for the idea 🤗🪱❤️👍
@@RockinWorms Such a great idea to use the cement mixer. I just bought a tumbler composter off FB Marketplace to help with mixing worm bedding and to make my potting soil. I have nerve damage in my elbows and hands and mixing potting soil sets me back weeks. Since the tumbling composter is made of plastic, I was thinking about using raquetballs. They are made of hard rubber and not too heavy. They are larger than a golf ball so it might work better in a cement mixer than a compost tumbler, which is significantly smaller. Just a thought.. Love your ingenuity! Learning a lot!
@@martizavala6713 I’m glad you can use a cement mixer type contraption to ease the strain and pain of mixing bedding and soils. Smart! I’ll keep the racquet balls in mind if I ever need to replace the golf balls. They still work for me so I’ll stick with them for now 😎. Sparking ideas that others can use and tweak makes me happy! Thanks for watching 🥰🪱