Chicken and well

[Jerseycoop]

Hi everyone...I'm new to raising chickens. I have a question regarding coop placement and wells. I've read that the coop should be at least 50 feet from the well. I had a newly dug well that is 100 ft deep would that still apply?

And could chicken manure ever be used for Compost in a vegetable garden? Thanks for any info

 

[Tiffytoodles]

I don't know anything about wells but chicken manure for the garden is AWESOME!

 

[Jerseycoop]

Thank you for solving one of my problems

I assume you need to let it age a bit..lol....thanks!

 

[NCVic]

I was told to just add the manure to the compost pile, of course you would have to have a pile to add it to! Also have no idea about wells, sorry.

 

[Bossroo]

In my County, when I built our house, the Public Health code states that a well whose water is used for human consumtion has to be 100' from any animal housing or pen and 100 ' from a stream.

 

[Jerseycoop]

Thanks, we are in New Jersey and plan to close the well next year to convert to city water...here they say 50 ft. Although my well will be sealed in a year, I do have a neighbor that use their well. I want to be a good neighbor, and thought to build my coop closer to our well since it would be sealed.

 

[patandchickens]

There are sort of two separate issues here. One is conforming to laws/bylaws; the other is the odds of real-world effects.

As far as conforming to laws/bylaws, well, you look it up and there ya go

As far as the realities of the situation: it doesn't really depend on how deep your well is so much as it depends on how correct and intact the well casing and top are. In theory a newish well should be in good shape. In reality, not always. Moreso for older wells. And of course if you KNOW that you have an older well with a *poor* casing, or none in the case of shallow dug wells, then that would definitely be even more of an issue.

On the one hand, if you only have a very few chickens and they are kept in sanitary conditions and you don't have any awful flooding/runoff/mud issues, the risk of problems near an intact well casing is probably vanishingly low. OTOH, if there IS a problem, it doesn't necessarily ONLY affect your own well, it can affect neighboring wells that tap into the same aquifer.

As far as putting chicken manure or coop cleanings on the garden -- sure! For most plants, you want to compost it for at least several months just so it won't "burn" the plants, although if you are a very experienced gardener you may be able to make some reasonable bets on some particular restricted uses of fresh manure. There is a potential issue of contamination of veggies (that you eat) with splash from manure or compost containing food-poisoning type bacteria from the chicken poo (salmonella, campylobacter, pathogenic E coli strains, etc) so it is generally recommended (indeed required, for Certified Organic operations) that you hot-compost all manure for at least 2-3 months before applying to any food-crop gardens. But if this is just for your own use, it's up to your own tastes and preferences, and certainly there are a lot of people who take a middle ground about trying to keep fresh-ish poo away from some crops (e.g. lettuce) but use it on others (e.g. corn)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Jerseycoop]

Thanks so much Pat! Our home was new construction, the well is a long pvc tube that goes into the ground and comes out of the ground 2' with a sealed cap. Because we have high iron here in the water, they dug deep. My house sits very high up on a hill so there's never any flooding issues..but run off to the back yard which is lower than the well....(more effort into watering the grass) I will be spot cleaning the everyday and do a thorough cleaning once a week..don't want to offend the neighbors!

great news for the veggie garden...thank you so much for your help Ladies!

 

[WoodlandWoman]

We're on a hill, too. We built the coop and run down hill from the well cap.

 

[crossgirl]

Wow. The well is something I didn't even consider. Right now the coop, which is portable, is about 10' from the 20+ year old well. The compost pile too! darn.