Using All of Your Chickens-Feather Meal

[mocrab]

Does anyone know of a way to make feather meal for the garden? I am about to start slaughtering some of my hens (10) and I really need nitrogen in my soil. I keep reading that feather meal is great, but why buy it if I have a ton of feathers? Anyone know how to do this old practice? I can't seem to find anything on it when I google. Thanks!

 

[artfarmer]

Does anyone know of a way to make feather meal for the garden? I am about to start slaughtering some of my hens (10) and I really need nitrogen in my soil. I keep reading that feather meal is great, but why buy it if I have a ton of feathers? Anyone know how to do this old practice? I can't seem to find anything on it when I google. Thanks!

Hi mocrab, did you ever figure this out? I am wondering the same thing.

 

[Elke Beck]

You can just put the feathers into a compost heap with other stuff and they will break down into compost. Or, if you don't compost, just bury them in your garden and they will rot.

 

[riley17]

One of my Gene Logsdon books mentions that it is made by cooking the feathers, then drying them and grinding them up. It's not really specific, but I'm going to give it a try! Hope that helps.

 

[Kev]

No compost heap here, just buried the feathers around bushes and trees.

 

[HomesteadDucks]

I wouldn't buy feather meal. You never know what they fed those birds. But making your own would be just fine. From the looks of it, just grind the feathers to a consistency you're ok with using, then dry it out. Fairly simple. You can use in in the garden but I've even heard of people adding it back into their feed. But that's controversial. Some people don't think you should feed the chickens back what came from them.

 

[Cruza]

hi I just wanted to check if you have a way to make feather meal without hydrolyser?

 

[mich9510]

What do you use to grind up the feathers? And do you dry them first?

 

[Leihamarie]

Anyone figure this out? I'm about to process some meat birds and would like to use the whole animal rather than wasting some. I COULD put them in the compost but would like to make separate blood and feather meal for more targeted use.

 

[Maeschak]

posting to follow- I would also like to know!