composting feathers

[rdak]

I have a load of fine feathers from some old cushions - would these be useful to tip into a bean trench for use next year? I've heard they rot down but not sure how long they take and where they are most useful.
thanks

[rdak]

[Hugh_Jones]

Feathers are an entirely epidermic feature, equating to the quills on a porcupine, the hair on humans, animal fur, or the wool on a sheep. so in theory it should break down as a slow release supplier of nitrogen - although quite how slowly, and just what percentage of nitrogen it would eventually release I couldn`t say.  However, I can say that when I constructed my own runner bean trench donkey`s years ago one of the many constituents was a couple of old pillow cases full of feathers.

Having said which, I now expect John to come along and give you a precise chemical analysis and tell you you`re wasting your time

[Mrs Ava]

Well, I was going to say that I should imagine feathers would be fine, so long as they were natural and undyed.  I have looked on google and found these useless bits of info....looks like feathers are fine in your heap or your trench!   ;D

Nearly everything in our compost pile goes down to a sweet and crumbly humus, except bones. Fur and feathers completely disappear, however, and thick stalks need a good bash with a hammer or they'll take forever to decompose.

What Should go into your Compost Heap
In
Fruit and vegetables
Animal hair
Animal fur
Animal nails
Banana peel
Small bones
Cigarette ends
Coffee grounds
Cooking scraps
Cork - small pieces
Cotton wool
Feathers
Fish and chip paper
Flowers - dead ones
Lawn cuttings
Human hair
Human nail clippings
Wood ash and shavings
Paper - wet/dirty with food waste
Prunings - non-woody
Small animal droppings/litter
String - not plastic
Tea leaves/bags
Tissue - soiled with food

Commonly used materials for making compost are food scraps, weeds, lawn clippings, manures, wool waste, feathers, lawn clippings, manures, straw, hay, paper, leaves, cotton rags, sawdust, wood shavings and garden refuse such as light prunings, old or dead plants, etc.

[ina]

How about that, animal nails on the list of compostables? Anybody have a bag of animal nails laying around for the compost heap? Ha haha.

[rdak]

Thanks for the replies. I will give it a go in the trench. Found some useful sites with what you can compost as well:

http://www.mastercomposter.com/ref/orgmat2.html

http://www.wascot.org.uk/do

[Beer_Belly]

I wouldn't want to put cigarette ends in - think of all the chemical nastie :P !

[teresa]

Oh BB
Think of it slugs hooked on to nicotine ;), craving another fix and leaving the plants alone :o.
ok too good to be true.
Teresa

[Hugh_Jones]

Sixty years ago nicotine was one of the only two effective greenhouse insecticides.  We used to set light to piles of nicotine soaked shreds and cleared all the aphids, whitefly etc. very effectively.  So all my cigarette ends go into the compost bin.  Whether it actually does any good I don`t know (although I never get the plagues of flies that so many complain about), but certainly it doesn`t seem to do any harm - and even f*g-ends are biodegradable.

[Hugh_Jones]

P.S. That asterisk in the last line of my last posting is taking PC to its limits , and what`s more it would completely ruin the next joke I was going to put up in the Shed

[ina]

I read somewhere that filters of cigarettes have a half life of 10 years! Made out of fiberglass or something.