Chicken poo

[jomercer]

Quote:
Leaving manure of any kind out to "dry", applying it to the surface of the soil, or composting it results in a quick net loss of nitrogen due (the first few days or weeks, anyway) to volatilization of the ammonia-N.

Get manure into the soil as quickly as possible once it's collected and spread to get the maximum N conservation. It would be o.k. to do this several weeks before you plant your spring garden or a cover crop like buckwheat, or incorporate the manure/bedding in the early fall and sow a cover crop like hairy vetch, oats, rye or wheat for the winter.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is a whole section on composting over on the sister gardening site. There are some people that really know what they are talking about over there too. That's not to put anybody down on this site either. There are some folks on this forum that know what they are talking about too. I'm just giving another source.

http://www.theeasygarden.com/

I'm having about the same problem with a compost heap. The chickens scratch anything out that they don't eat, so it is really hard to build up anything in the compost heap unless you really have it enclosed on all 4 sides. So I have two compost piles. In one, I let the chickens have their way. I throw food scraps, stuff from the garden, grass clippings, whatever in there. I put in things they have trouble scratching out, like corn stalks and sweet potato vines, but they still scatter that stuff a lot. I just rake it back into the pile occasionally. In the other compost pile, I pile the stuff I want to compost; the stuff I rake back up from the other pile, chicken poo, fresh grass clippings, stuff from the garden, whatever, trying to get a balance of nitrogen and carbon. To get the compost pile to heat up and work reasonably fast, you need certain proportions of nitrogen sources, llike chicken poo, and carbon, like woood shavings or leaves. I then cover it with plastic so the chickens cannot get to it and scatter it. It needs to stay damp but not soaking wet. I add water occasionally but here the plastic helps keep the water from evaporating and the pile from drying out. When I get fairly pure chicken poo, it gets added to this working pile.

If you want to store the chicken poo until you are ready to use it, I suggest finding a way to pile it on the ground and probably cover it. The chickens will scratch it if they can get to it. If you try to store it in anything, it is pretty corrosive, especially if it has any moisture in it. If you put it in a plastic lined feed bag, it will rot the bag real quick. Wood lasts a little longer but it will rot that too. Anything metal will rust. Maybe plastic trash cans would work. I haven't tried them. If it gets wet, it will stink, so you need to keep it dry.

You can put fresh chicken poo in the garden in the fall and it will be in good shape in the spring when you are ready to plant. But if you put fresh chicken poo straight inthe garden and it comes into contact with your plants, it can burn them, some plants worse than others. If you can keep it in between the rows where it does not come into direct contact with your plants, you can put fresh chicken poo directly in there, but I'm not that good. I always burn something when I try that, so I don't try any more. I think the poo gets washed down in the soil when it rains and it burns the roots then too.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[woodmort]

Generally when I clean the coop in the spring there is a thick crust on the piles under the roosts--it's so thick that I use an old ice chopper to cut it so I can remove it. Once that layer is off, however, the stuff underneath has decomposed into fine fertilizer than is cool enough to use almost anywhere. I believe this crust holds in the heat allowing the mixture of shavings and poop to break down. Also this heat helps keep the coop warmer than it would be otherwise--I suppose if I were really interested I should stick a thermometer in there to check this hypothesis.

 

[33yardbirds]

I'm a twice a year cleaner. The birds break down the straw with all their movement in the coop and I just shovel and sweep it into a tarp and carry it the 30' to the compost heap where the birds jump in and scratch around some more. Right now it is treally starting to look like dirt so I may cut it into the garden area and start a new one with the Fall leaves and the Halloween coop cleaning. Here in this sandy soil the poop really makes me maters plump up.

 

[SparksNV]

jomercer - thanks for the info - the more I learn about things, the more I realize I don't know! Just trying to get things down so that I can do the best for my chickens and garden!

Ridgerunner - thanks for the link! I think I will wander over there later today!

Carol