Update on our American Guinea Hogs

On November 14, 2014, we bought two young American Guinea Hog gilts (un-bred female pigs) from Cathy Payne's Broad River Pastures. (Broad River Pastures is located in Elberton, Georgia.) 

The video below shows an update on the two girls. They are smart, growing rapidly, and very healthy animals! We love them.

We are function stacking with these animals. They encourage soil life on our property. We intend to rotate the pigs to different areas over time. For now, we have them rooting about in a small stand of white oak, hemlock, dogwood, pine, and beech trees. The pigs are digging in the ground for acorns, roots, and nuts, and at the same time, enhancing the soil quality by encouraging aerobic microscopic soil life. 

Improving our soil biology is just one of the functions of our cute AGHs. If you want to know about the improved soil biology that we are aiming to achieve with all of our diverse set of animals, we recommend you read the scientific work of Dr. Elaine Ingham at her blog.  

Berkley Method of Composting in 18 Days

I watched Geoff Lawton's instructions on a basic composting system.  This post summarizes the method Geoff described, which was a modified Berkley method.

First, your goal is to obtain a carbon:nitrogen ratio of between 25 to 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen. The ingredients of your compost pile vary in richness of nitrogen.  A detailed table is at the link in this sentence.

Your pile ought to be at least 1 M cubed (about five feet).  Do not exceed 1.5M or you may compress the bottom of the pile and encourage anaerobic compost organisms.  Make the pile longer instead of higher.

Cover the pile to keep rain out of it.  You do not want to put the tarp or cover directly on the hot compost or you will encourage anaerobic organisms where the tarp touches the pile. Put branches or something on top to lift the tarp off the top of the pile.

The ingredient mix to achieve the right C:N ratio is approximately 1/3 high carbon (wood shavings, etc.), 1/3 green material, and 1/3 high nitrogen.  These ingredients are thoroughly mixed together.

Mix this together into a pile.  Use a long handled, three to five pronged pitchfork to manage the pile.  Use a rake to smooth it out.

At the beginning, you may use an activator in the middle of the pile.  That could be a dead animal, dead fish, chopped up comfrey or plant with lots of mineral content, or old good compost.  You do not need the activator, but it will help to speed up the process.

At day 4, turn the pile over.  Turn it again every other day thereafter until day 18.

All along you need to keep the moisture content approximately correct.  Geoff recommends a squeeze test.  You grab a big handful of compost and squeeze it tightly in your hands.  If you can get a single droplet to fall out, then it is the right moisture level.  If you can almost get a drop, it is ok.  If it dribbles a lot of drops, it is too moist.

Also, you must periodically test the temperature.  Unless you have a thermometer, you can do this by sticking your arm into the pile.  The temperature should be between 50 - 70 degrees C, but try to keep the temperature between 55-65 degreesC.

At day six, you need to test the compost.  If it is not hot enough, then something is wrong.  Here are the questions:

1. Is it big enough?
2. Is it too wet/dry?
3. Is the mixture right?

You test the heat by sticking your arm into the pile toward the middle.  At 50 degrees C the pile will be uncomfortably hot.  70 degrees will burn and you will be unable to get you arm into the pile.  This is good. The temperature means that the compost is working hard.

If the pile gets too hot, then you will see a white powder developing on the pile.  That is a sign of anaerobic activity.  You need to cool it down some.

If something has gone wrong, you will need to add days lost until the compost is finished.

In the end, hopefully at day 18, smell the compost. It should be earthy smelling and not noxious.  It should be fine. It should be dark brown.  This material is full of beneficial soil life.  You may use it to make compost tea.

Different plants like different flavors of compost.  Trees like fungal rich compost.  Vegitables like bacterial rich compost.  You can mix into the compost different elements to encourage these preferences within a pile after it is done.

Geoff says flour makes a great addition to encourage fungal growth.  Mix into the pile three kilos of flour.  The fungal net will grow rapidly over ten days and then you have compost that is great for planting trees.

Red Wriggler Compost Bin: Manure See-Saw

I made a red wriggler compost bin for the worms I bought on March 15, 2013. The construction was pretty simple and easy. In early February, before the worms arrived, I just stacked up cinderblocks in the middle of my garden. I added a couple wheelbarrow loads of horse manure. I filled the area to the brim with the manure. We let the manure sit for a few weeks.

When the worms arrived, we put them into the manure-filed bin. Then, I covered it with some thick sheets of cardboard to keep the moisture inside. (I may add some plywood to the roof later this summer as it gets hotter.)

Over the early spring, the level of the manure decreased by about half. That means that over ten weeks, the 2000 starting wrigglers decreased the pile by fifty percent. Once there is nothing left to eat, the worms will die if you do not keep feeding them fresh manure. We did not start with tremendous quantity of red wriggers (relative to some systems). However, we believe (and hope) the wriggers are multiplying so this process should accelerate as their population gets larger and larger.

I shoveled the half-eaten manure from the eastern side of the bin to the west side. In the picture above, you can see what it looks like sloughed off to one side.

I went out to our horse pasture and gathered a barrow full of fresh manure. Then, I carted it up to the garden and dumped it into the once empty half of the bin. I still need to add one more barrow full of fresh manure. I covered the bin back with cardboard until I bring up the next load.

The wrigglers cannot eat the fresh manure. It is too hot for them, so they will safely stay over in the west side munching away on that stuff. Once that stuff is depleted, the wrigglers will migrate over to the east side that has the fresh manure and start munching away.

At that point, the plan is to harvest the castings from the west side and spread it into the raised beds and gardens for our plants.  What goes into the empty western side of the bin at that point?  You guessed it.  More fresh horse manure.

It is a worm manure see-saw.

Vermicomposting: Red Wriggler Composting Worms

I ordered 2,000 Red Wiggler(Eisenia Foetida) composting worms from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm.  These are Pennsylvania worms so they will have to adapt to the western North Carolina heat.  We intend to feed the worms food scraps and horse manure.

Eisenia Foetida is a species of earthworm that lives on decaying material.  Colorado State published an article, Vermicomposting Horse Manure, which discussing setting up windrows.

Here is a blog post about how to rotate the worms and incorporate them into fertilizing gardens with chickens, TheModernHomestead blog, Raising Earthworms to Feed the Flock

Composting Links

Research

1. Black Soldier Fly Blog
2. Uncle Jim's Worms