Use and Reuse

I'm not at all a fanatic about recycling.  But I really enjoy things like having a compost pile, saving my food scraps for the chickens and using manure in the garden.  The horses and the chickens seem to be working together to recycle, too.

Here's how it works:

Chickens are not picky eaters.  In fact, they walk around eating off the ground constantly.  When I let them out of their house yesterday, there was some pushing and shoving because the first girls out had to stop and eat.

Horses are very picky eaters.  They want clean, dry, first quality hay.  In the bale they are eating right now, they have eaten a hole into the middle to get the heart.  Sort of like wanting the middle brownie.

And, somehow, they leave lots of clean, dry, first quality hay on the ground.  I can't stand it.  I have tried picking up the hay off the ground and putting it in their feeder, but they turn their nose up at it.  Such a waste!

SO, we pick up the hay and put it in the chicken pen.  The chickens need something on the floor of their pen and they love it!  It has spent some time in the dirt and must be full of all types of little bugs.  They scratch and peck, recycling what would have been trash.  Before we know it, the hay has been broken down into tiny pieces, and we shovel it out like dirt.  And that goes in my compost heap!

And one last thing.  Remember the hole in the hay?  It makes a really good hiding place!