Chicken poop for vegetable gardens?

[Juise]

Out of curiosity, how does this work with chickens in the garden? Mine love to go through the veggies - and steal half of them, oh my kale! I wasn't worried about it "burning" my plants because it just isn't that much, but should I be keeping them out of garden areas we will be eating out of altogether then?

 

[RollinWithTheStones]

How do you get your compost to work so well? I know it's a dumb question but mine doesn't do anything just piles up and doesn't decompost like everyone elses looks

I made the mistake (I think) of using hay in the coop so now it's not really doing anything except sitting in the compost bin. I have both rabbit and chicken poo and I'd love to use it since I want to do four large garden beds in the front yard.

 

[cassidy22]

Compost needs both water and oxygen to work. You need to keep it wet, and stir it up a lot so that all of it gets exposed to oxygen and water. A dry pile that just sits, it going to continue to just sit.

You shouldn't let chickens hang out in the garden. You want COMPOSTED poop in your garden for the soil. A bunch of chickens in the garden pooping on your food can introduce bacteria taht can spread things like e. coli to your food. It often takes bleach solutions to remove e. coli from food - and I don't want either on the food I eat! So it's best to keep the birds out of your garden altogether. Once they figure out what's going on in there, they will eat the veggies, and sometimes trample the plants by taking dirt baths.

Compost the poop you clean out of their poop and put that on your garden the next year.

 

[Chicky1981]

I put my chicken poop in the compost bin. Just waiting for it to rot down now. I am so impatient. I want the compost now!!!! I think it is going to be great for my veggies. I buy pelleted chicken poop from the garden centre to fertilize my veggies and it works wonders so by composting my own I think it will save me money.

 

[CSWolffe]

Cassidy22 is correct, you need moisture and oxigen. Your compost should be as damp as a moist kitchen sponge. You can avoid the need to constantly turn your compost if you have a bin with holes, I have used three old wood pallets in the past, set up to form three sides of the bin, leaving the first open. This lets in plenty of air. You also need a balance of nitrogen and carbon, and the sweepings of your coop should provide both in spades. Do not just dump in your leaves from fall raking, or grass clippings, as either one alone will be too wet and you will get the wrong bacteria growing. I mix my leaves and clippings with the pine shavings and poop from the coop before adding, and I get a nice compost out of that.

 

[RollinWithTheStones]

I made my bin out of pallets it has 3 sides and then has a lip on the front to allow air in and to keep it from over flowing. It's always damp and i mix in lots of stuff, it just donesn't seem to be working I guess I'll just keep adding stuff and eventually it'll work.

Cassidy22 is correct, you need moisture and oxigen. Your compost should be as damp as a moist kitchen sponge. You can avoid the need to constantly turn your compost if you have a bin with holes, I have used three old wood pallets in the past, set up to form three sides of the bin, leaving the first open. This lets in plenty of air. You also need a balance of nitrogen and carbon, and the sweepings of your coop should provide both in spades. Do not just dump in your leaves from fall raking, or grass clippings, as either one alone will be too wet and you will get the wrong bacteria growing. I mix my leaves and clippings with the pine shavings and poop from the coop before adding, and I get a nice compost out of that.

 

[CSWolffe]

Hrm... if you are keeping it damp, and if it is getting air, the only other thing I can think of is you may not have the right mix, not enough carbon or not enough nitrogen. Carbon comes from wood shavings and leaves, nitrogen comes from grass clippings and kitchen scraps. Ideally you would have a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of nitrogen to carbon, no more.
You could also try digging into the center to see what is going on. If it's soggy and wet and smells bad, you have way too much wet stuff(like leaves), and you have the wrong bacteria.
Don't be discouraged, composting takes a long time, but once it gets going, you will be amazed at what you get.