Cold composted chicken poop- Is it safe?

[FatChicksDigMe]

Well, I am no compost expert, but I will be lucky if my chicken poo here in northern Minnesota will even be thawed out in 60 days, let alone decomposed and ready for the garden. I suspect my compost bin will still be frozen until about mid-April (that's typically our ice out date on the lake).

As to hot compost, I watched some YouTube videos this past week and one of them said that heat itself does not create compost, rather, when the organic material starts to break down and microorganisms are working the material, that is what creates the heat. You could have a dry compost heap and little or no composting action going on even though you are in the middle of summer. Which is why everyone says you need to keep the compost pile moist - like a wrung out sponge. On the Edible Acres YouTube channel, he shows his winter compost piles steaming hot which are full of decomposing food wastes and carbon material. But he appears to constantly turn his piles when they start to cool down and restack them so they heat up again.

Anyway, back to the OP's original question


It is my understanding that a proper compost bin will heat up to 140F in the center and stay there for at least a few days and that is enough to kill off all harmful bacteria. But, it probably takes much longer for the organic material to breakdown and be ready for the garden. So I am looking forward to hearing more from some of expert composters on this topic.

I love his channel! But he does a lot of work sometimes! Still very interesting and useful

 

[Tonyroo]

For hot or cold compost, the easiest way to biodegrade coop and poop material is layer pile it with dirt into a mound, then water it once a week.

The biological organisms in the dirt have quick access to the material to break it down, which in turn creates heat from all the activity. In a month most of the mound should look like it flattened out. At that point you would want to turn the mound and rebuild it back up and start the process again to finish some of the materials that weren't totally composted.

Wood shaving may take longer to break down if you don't have enough chicken poop in the compost. You can supplement it with ammonium sulfate to increase nitrogen levels to break it down faster.

You can also do a smell test periodically, your looking for a clean earth smell, that tells you it's done.

That's what I've been doing since I started keeping chickens and having a garden.

Hope this is useful to someone.

 

[gtaus]

I love his [Edible Acres] channel! But he does a lot of work sometimes! Still very interesting and useful

Yep, I don't have the desire, or energy, to turn over compost daily like he appears to be doing. I just throw in the material and let the chickens turn it over. I'll harvest the compost maybe twice a year and I use my cement mixer compost sifter to screen out the larger, unfinished material. If I had a good way (non back labor) to turn over and stack my compost, then I'd do that. But I only have my pitch forks and that is too much work for me. Everything will compost in time. And I currently have more compost ready to harvest than I can use.