Know Your Egg Shed, Part 1

Reader Contribution by Pat Foreman
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Above: More than 1,200 working chickens provide 365 days of turning and cleaning compost for the Vermont Compost Company, located on 5 hilly acres within the city limit of Vermont state capital, Montpelier. The expert composter chickens eat entirely off the composting food residues — no feed is purchased for the birds. They provide an average of 1,000 eggs per month for the local egg shed while merrily clucking and creating compost and top soil.

I first heard of the term “egg shed” while chatting with Karl Hammer, owner of the Vermont Compost Company (VCC). We were standing on a hillside overlooking mountains of compost. These compost piles were made from food residues collected from about 49 institutions including the schools, restaurants, company cafeterias, and any other organization that produced enough food scraps to merit collecting.

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