When I started on my chicken-keeping journey, I read every book, researched online, and talked with experienced chicken owners. I thought I was well-prepared for anything that would come my way. However, there is nothing that can prepare a new chicken owner for the unworldly amount of poop a chicken can produce.
Chickens will poo anywhere from 12 to 15 times PER DAY, and they even poo in their sleep! Depending on the size of your chicken, their poo can be the size of a small dog. That’s about 45 pounds PER CHICKEN, per year. Multiply that by the number of chickens you keep, and that’s a heap of poo. A mountain of poo. Holy crap! Where is all that poop going to go?
Composting Chicken Manure
Chickens produce lots of nitrogen-rich manure—what some gardeners refer to as “liquid gold.” But your neighbor may not appreciate a smelly compost pile along their property line. While a well-managed compost pile has numerous benefits for your garden beds, make sure you have a good location for it.
When I started with a flock of 8 chicks on my 2-acre hobby farm, I had a large, enclosed area for them to run. I just piled their manure against the back fence, well away from the house, but still inside their pen. But I quickly discovered that the chickens like to scratch and peck the ground for insects and other treats, and that growing manure pile became their favorite place to forage. Not good. That fresh manure is harboring crazy amounts of bacteria, and the chickens can get parasites from scrounging around in it. I relocated the poo pile and built an open compost bin outside of their reach.
I built this poop board with 1/2 plywood covered in floor vinyl. Once in place, I add 1/2-inch of play sand for easy scooping.
Inside the coop, I installed a poop board under the roosts. As the chickens poo overnight, the poop will fall onto the sand-covered board. In the mornings, I just pick it up with a cat litter scooper. It’s quick and easy. Some chicken keepers simply let it collect on the floor of the coop, then turn it over into the pine shavings, utilizing the deep litter method. Others find just shoveling it out every couple of weeks is more convenient. I find it accumulates too rapidly in my smaller coop, and I don’t mind scooping it out once a day or so. Once a week when my poop bucket is full, I dump it in the compost pile.
Gardening with Chicken Manure
When I clean out my coop, I dump the straw and pine shavings on top of the chicken manure in the compost pile. Throughout the spring and summer, we’ll bag a few of our grass clippings just to add a layer of carbon over the top of the chicken manure, like layering lasagna (if we raked, we’d add leaves, which is ideal). As we build the layers, we’ll turn it every so often to add oxygen and keep it evenly heated so it can cook and decompose, killing harmful bacteria.
It’s not a great idea to add fresh chicken manure to your actively growing garden. Poultry manure can harbor bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella and should be cured a minimum of 120 days before applying to gardens, and edibles should not be harvested for 120 days after applying chicken compost. Non-composted chicken manure should be applied to the garden in the fall, or very early spring to avoid contamination from bacteria, and never apply chicken compost while plants are sprouting.
If you have an overabundance of chicken manure and don’t have the room to compost, save your large feed bags for their waste. Once filled, offer the 30 to 40-pound bags to your gardening friends. They’ll be knocking down your door to get to your poop.
The girls helping me mix in the aged compost to the spring garden beds.
Adding composted poultry manure to your gardens is a great way to improve the soil structure and nutrient availability. To learn more about chicken composting, the University of Idaho has a great Extension publication on managing backyard poultry waste you can read here: https://www.cals.uidaho.edu/edcomm/pdf/CIS/CIS1194.pdf
Chickens will poo anywhere from 12 to 15 times PER DAY, and they even poo in their sleep! Depending on the size of your chicken, their poo can be the size of a small dog. That’s about 45 pounds PER CHICKEN, per year. Multiply that by the number of chickens you keep, and that’s a heap of poo. A mountain of poo. Holy crap! Where is all that poop going to go?
Composting Chicken Manure
Chickens produce lots of nitrogen-rich manure—what some gardeners refer to as “liquid gold.” But your neighbor may not appreciate a smelly compost pile along their property line. While a well-managed compost pile has numerous benefits for your garden beds, make sure you have a good location for it.
When I started with a flock of 8 chicks on my 2-acre hobby farm, I had a large, enclosed area for them to run. I just piled their manure against the back fence, well away from the house, but still inside their pen. But I quickly discovered that the chickens like to scratch and peck the ground for insects and other treats, and that growing manure pile became their favorite place to forage. Not good. That fresh manure is harboring crazy amounts of bacteria, and the chickens can get parasites from scrounging around in it. I relocated the poo pile and built an open compost bin outside of their reach.
I built this poop board with 1/2 plywood covered in floor vinyl. Once in place, I add 1/2-inch of play sand for easy scooping.
Inside the coop, I installed a poop board under the roosts. As the chickens poo overnight, the poop will fall onto the sand-covered board. In the mornings, I just pick it up with a cat litter scooper. It’s quick and easy. Some chicken keepers simply let it collect on the floor of the coop, then turn it over into the pine shavings, utilizing the deep litter method. Others find just shoveling it out every couple of weeks is more convenient. I find it accumulates too rapidly in my smaller coop, and I don’t mind scooping it out once a day or so. Once a week when my poop bucket is full, I dump it in the compost pile.
Gardening with Chicken Manure
When I clean out my coop, I dump the straw and pine shavings on top of the chicken manure in the compost pile. Throughout the spring and summer, we’ll bag a few of our grass clippings just to add a layer of carbon over the top of the chicken manure, like layering lasagna (if we raked, we’d add leaves, which is ideal). As we build the layers, we’ll turn it every so often to add oxygen and keep it evenly heated so it can cook and decompose, killing harmful bacteria.
It’s not a great idea to add fresh chicken manure to your actively growing garden. Poultry manure can harbor bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella and should be cured a minimum of 120 days before applying to gardens, and edibles should not be harvested for 120 days after applying chicken compost. Non-composted chicken manure should be applied to the garden in the fall, or very early spring to avoid contamination from bacteria, and never apply chicken compost while plants are sprouting.
If you have an overabundance of chicken manure and don’t have the room to compost, save your large feed bags for their waste. Once filled, offer the 30 to 40-pound bags to your gardening friends. They’ll be knocking down your door to get to your poop.
The girls helping me mix in the aged compost to the spring garden beds.
Adding composted poultry manure to your gardens is a great way to improve the soil structure and nutrient availability. To learn more about chicken composting, the University of Idaho has a great Extension publication on managing backyard poultry waste you can read here: https://www.cals.uidaho.edu/edcomm/pdf/CIS/CIS1194.pdf
