Open Source It

“Because everybody dies.”

After over a year, and many iterations, we finally nailed our chicken-integrated composting process. Our goal was to apply on a micro-scale what Karl Hammer of Vermont Compost Company does, for our urban farm.

We wanted our chooks to obtain the maximum amount of nutrition from the food scraps. It was important for us to incorporate a “pickle” (what Karl calls the fermentation stage) to make more nutrients available — also, after fermenting the girls have a fresh, enthusiastic new interest in those residuals. All this had to occur within a 10' by 10' space, before the final stage, 9 months in a Johnson-Su Composting Bioreactor. While we’ve been doing the bioreactors since last fall, the “feed pile” portion was perfected in the last couple weeks.

Excited to see this working beautifully from start to finish, I began thinking how to best share it with others. Would this be part of our future Urban Ag School? Franchise this full circle food wonder? Working at the time next to Beth, who is my voice of reason, I asked her if we would make this proprietary, or open source it. Her reply was stellar: “Open source it! Because every body dies!”

So there it is. Open-sourcing would likely reach the most people, and allow for collaboration and improvements, of which there will be many. It also aligns with my life mission to be a catalyst for many small businesses. Look out for our GitHub page for this!