Chicken Manure for Fertilizer

[urabus]

Does anyone use chicken manure for fertilizer? I've been collecting mine, mixing with water and pouring over my leaf pile. I plan to put in on my garden soil before planting NEXT year. Anybody have other ideas or suggestions on what to do with all the poo?

 

[HEChicken]

Yours sounds like a good idea. In my coop I am doing DLM (deep litter method) so I hope to pull out semi-composted litter/manure when the time comes to give it its first clean out. I will then put it in one of my pallet compost "bins" and let it age until its time to use it on the garden.

 

[peterlund]

I do something like you are doing. I get a big tub... Put 2 to 3 shovelfuls of manure and the same of plain garden dirt... Fill with water... Let it stew for a few days stirring occasionally, and it makes a wonderful tea for plants... That way the intense nitrogen content is mellowed and diluted.... Great for potted plants and veggies too, as the garden soil and manure tea gives the planting medium a kick.... I also drop in anything I weed from the garden into the concoction....

 

[grammaC]

Right now I have a 5 gallon bucket full of chicken poop, rain water, and more chicken poop. I'm letting it sit in the sun, hoping it will kill any bugs, but what should I do with it? Is it too late in the season to fertilize flowers & trees? Would this mixture be too "hot" to use?

Any advice is apprecited. I get plenty of poop every weekend when I clean the coop. By the way, it is just poop and a little sand. I separate it from the pine shavings.

 

[YankeeRider]

In the fall of each year, I make a pile of the leaves raked from our large yard. Once the pile is in place, every week when I clean under the roosts, the manure and shavings get dumped on the pile. Every couple of months, I turn the pile to help with the mixing. I stop dumping the manure on the leaf pile the next year, when I build a new leaf pile. The old leaf pile is used as a compost and mulch on the next year's vegetable garden. This has been working very well for me. In fact, I only eat 1 to 2 eggs per week. I tell people I got the chickens for their manure more than for the eggs.

 

[Hinotori]

The chickens flattened the pile of litter and veggie scraps from last year that I had. I have volunteer acorn squash growing there now. I've been tossing this years litter in the garden area that I will be planting in next year since this year was my first year with a garden here. I don't think I can get enough chicken litter for that thing. The soil just really needs it.

 

[Mtn Laurel]

Chicken poop is the second best reason to have chickens - the first being eggs, of course!

Mine all goes into the compost pile with the sand that accompanies it, straw, clippings from the yard, and weeds and trimmings from the garden [the stuff that the girls don't like, that is]. My compost is cooking so hot right now that it fogged up my son's glasses when he went to turn it a few days ago. I'll continue to add leaves, etc. and it will all go into the garden late fall/early spring once it's cooled down.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Poultry manure makes excellent fertilizer. I use it either straight or in the form of used brooder bedding all over my property. Usually directly as in not composted.

Of course direct manure use has two caveats. The first being you have to have a feel for how much to use as straight manure is pretty hot and too much can burn up your plants.

The second is WHEN to use the manure. I go by the 90/120 day rule. If the edible portion of the plant is on or near the ground (where the manure is), especially if it's eaten raw, then put the manure down no less than 120 days before harvest. if the edible portion won't be in contact with the soil then put it down no less than ninety days before harvest.

As Mtnlaurl says chicken manure is the second best reason to keep chickens. Get double duty out of that increasingly expensive chicken feed!

 

[growyourbrew]

Chicken poop is excellent fertilizer. But as others said, it's 'hot' and high in nitrogen. That means it will burn the roots if applied fresh. The best thing to do is to let is compost for a year before applying. I use it in lasagna gardening, starting with cardboard at the bottom.. The cardboard kills all the feeds. Then I layer with chicken poop. Wood/cardboard will tie up nitrogen so adding the poop over the cardboard supplies the nitrogen which the the cardboard would otherwise tie up from the ground.
Then I just keep layering with other stuff, hay, straw, whatever. Then cover with plastic to solarize (to kill off weeds/diseases)

 

[mama dixie]

I took some hort classes and two teachers had so many different feelings on manure of any kind one said he would never use it on veggies or even flowers unless it had aged for at least 6 months due to diase and contamination of food. the other teacher when I brought this up in his class said what i so disagree you lose all your nitrogen and good stuff that way. now one teacher grew up farming potatoes and living on a farm and one grew up in town on a small lot and got in to hort in college, can you guess which one is which? I use my chicken poo a lot for flowers especially. what I do it make manure tea. then I dilute it and use it in beds and then water it in. I top dress with the straw from the coops taking out any big peaces I then use in the manure tea and pour over the straw. it has worked so far. I agree that you have to be careful because it is common sense not to get it on lettuce then eat it the next week, but I also don't let mine age all that long especially for flowers. I will also tell you if you make manure tea put it near the side of the property with the neighbor you don't like because it do smell. keeps my horrid neighbors at bay they are the ones posting that they will come over and get rid of my roo's on there face book page. yea there is a real good person for ya, can not come over and talk to me just is hiring hits on my roo's. but that is for another use of manure if I only had the nerve to do it...turning the other cheak is getting harder and harder,