Composter question

In the past, I have composted kitchen scraps in a worm bin and cold/sheet composted my leaves and yard trimmings. This has worked fairly well, although it is hard to get to the older, composted leaves at the bottom of the huge pile that accumulates after several years.

This year I am adding backyard chickens to the mix. That means I will have much more "green" nitrogen material to add to the pile and could possibly hot compost this year. I want to buy a commercial composter to facilitate the process. I have found that if a garden/recycling task is easy to do, I am much more likely to stick with it. I have been using my commercial worm bin for 10+ years and a very nice seed starting set for about the same. Definitely got my money out of those!

Here is the composter I can get through my local waste management department.

http://www.cboinc.com/mecklenburg/wishwell.htm

My question, do I need the top? It costs extra. I am thinking yes because it will get the compost hotter and help block odors if something goes wrong. Also, do I want the aerator and thermometer? Those would end up costing almost as much as the bin, but might be helpful to d the job right. Again, I am thinking of this as a long time investment.

Finally, should I just grit my teeth and buy a barrel composter? Those seem easiest of all. I could just dump the poo from the chicken house, green trimmings from the veggie garden and some of the endless supply of brown leaves I have stockpiled in the back of the yard into the barrel. After that, all I would need to do was crank the handle every few days. Sounds easy-peasy.

Experiences? Opinons? Thanks.

However, if you are composting table scraps you might get varmints. I had a barrel composter many years ago. The up side is they make compost much faster and you don't have the trouble of turning everything by hand. The downside is they don't hold much.

I think if I were ever to get another barrel composter, I would just make my own. I kind of like this design:

Apparently the cleaning fluids come in them, Maybe I will stop in and ask next time I see one. Couldn't hurt.

We have a homemade rotating system. We used a clean recycled metal barrel.




It doesn't really get hot. As a result i haven't been using it for chicken bedding but it certainly breaks down all the kitchen scraps and lawn material added pretty quickly. We will be adding sawdust soon as ours is getting a little wet. We intend to add wheels to the frame for easy movement but got distracted by some new chickens. :)

Our next composting project involves Black Soldier Fly Larvae and we are going to try and develop a homemade type of BioPod You can add ANY type of scraps to this. Even meat and manure and the larvae break the material down so quickly that there is no smell. I hear that yard waste will not work in this system. The best past is that the larvae self harvest at a specific stage of their development and make a highly nutritious, high protein and calcium food for the chickens.

I already have a worm bin, which is good for most kitchen scraps. We don't have much meat and dairy leftovers, and what we do have is taken care of by the dogs (and soon chickens). You know what I really need ? A dog poop digester. But I guess that is for another thread. Eeeewww!