Chicken Poo in the garden

[jaykar111]

I know this topic has been covered extensively but have not seen my specific situation. I cover the bottom of my run (8 x 8) with straw. I have six chickens. About once a week I have been raking up the old straw and spreading it around my vegetable plants. Mainly that often because it has rained a lot and gotten tramped down and muddy. Probably less often in the summer with less rain. Will this straw and poo be to strong for the plants. You really can't even see the poo because it has been rained and trampled on but its in there. I was going to use straw around the plants anyway for weed control but now I'm concerned about the poo not being composted first. I'm thinking that the poo is not concentrated enough to do any harm but not sure at this point.

The pine shavings in my coop will go to a compost pile.

Thanks for any input.

 

[3goodeggs]

personally, I do not think it will be too strong. It depends a lot on your soil type though. If it can leach out and down into the sand like ours does, it should not be bad, however, if you have clay loamy soil...It might be too much.

The real concern would be bacteria and parasites that could get onto your leafy vegetables that are not cooked well, like spinach and lettuce. I am a garden grazer from way back... so I think about these things.
What composting does is heat up the bacteria and nematodes to high enough temps to hopefully destroy them. I have side dressed my garden with less that one year old compost from the coop. However I think I spent so much time washing each leaf and veg that I know I will not do it again.

 

[scratch'n'peck]

It may be safest to compost it first.

 

[jaykar111]

thanks

 

[packmomma]

I would agree not to put it in the garden. I use wood shaving in my coop and when I clean it all summer there is hardly any poo in there. I use that for my flower beds. It may turn them a tad yellow but it has never burned mine. I would suggest if you wanted to put it in your garden to put it maybe around perennials that you are done with like pick your strawberries then put it on them, I do that with my rhubarb too. I dont harvest all summer on that yet because they are still young plants. It keeps weeds down until the next year plus starts composting during the year. As my crops get done like my lettuce and I pull my plants I then place the shavings in that spot so that the weeds dont grow there during the rest of the growing season. I compost mine during the winter once I have all my garden covered with the wood shavings.

If you are looking for another thing to put in your garden to help with the weeds during your growing season I use grass clippings. We ask the neighbors who have lawn sweepers to call us when they mow. Then we pick up the clippings and place them in between our rows. It composts faster than the shavings. We broke down and bought a sweeper ourselves too. We also use shredded newspaper for nesting boxes. When that is extra we place that between rows also. It breaks down a tad slower than grass. Once our whole garden is covered with something we put the extras in the compost. HOpe that helps.