Composting poop for your garden. Biggest mistakes.

[Arthur]

I am composting my chickens poop for my vegetable garden and want to hear of what not to do. Currently I have chopped leaves, straw and kitchen scraps that i mix with the droppings and turn evry 2 wks. I want to make sure I don't ruin my garden with anything too hot or any other screw-up. thanks

 

[feather and mountain man]

I don't have any answers for you but I am so glad you asked this question. I have been searching the net for the very thing. So I will be lurking on this thread thanks!

 

[ODS-n-ENS FARM]

You want your pile hot. It kills the bad things(e coli ) and weed seeds. Grass clippings help heat it up.

 

[oldchickenlady]

One common mistake is not making your pile big enough amd thoroughly mixing the different ingredients. If your pile isn't big enough it wont 'cook' properly and break down the chicken poo or kill weed seeds. In this scenario you would either burn your plants or introduce more weeds into your garden...or both. Neither one is a good option so make sure your pile is big enough to generate heat. I made a pile last year about 4 feet high by 6 or 8 feet around consisting of horse poo, old hay, leaves, etc then covered it with a tarp. A few days later I went to check it. When I lifted that tarp the compost was so hot it almost burned me! By this spring that huge pile had broke down to about 3 feet high and was a rich black fertile soil like consistancy. Good luck in your compost making!

 

[sheaviance1]

So far, so good. What I've done that has worked without being a boo-boo has been exactly what you are doing until it no longer registers heat. I found a digital oven thermometer. The one I have has a long cable from the sensor (inside the oven) to the counter where the digital thermometer is. I straightened the sensor, used electrical tape and taped it to an old arrow. I use this to monitor my temps in the compost pile. Stick down deep to the middle of the pile. When it is no longer higher than the ambient air temperature, it's a safe bet that it is ready for use.

Also, when i clean out the coop during the fall/winter, I take and put the droppings directly on the garden. They will age over the winter. I turn them under early spring and have not had a problem doing it this way either. I live in Tennessee, so the droppings that I turn under as well as any other organic matter, is long gone by the time I'm ready to plant. I cannot get over the improvement in my soil structure!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Two biggest mistakes I've made over the years are:

1- keeping the pile too wet so that it went anaerobic. Man, does that stink. The cure is it turn it more to keep air in the middle.

2- either too much or not enough nitrogen in the pile so that it doesn't compost fast enough or you lose some of the nitrogen for not having enough browns to absorb it.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

deleted

 

[bakerjw]

Biggest mistake???

Not making it chicken proof. I look up the hill at ours and all too often see the free rangers kicking stuff from here to China. Bad chickens... Bad bad chickens...

 

[schellie69]

I don't know if it was mistake or not My DH made a quick easy compost pile I would put the straw from the coop in there weeds from garden grass clippings stuff from the house let the chickens out to free range they would stir all the stuff around by digging kicking what every they wanted. Went to add it to the garden last week and it was nice and brown dirt, so all of it will be tilled into the garden this year. I will see how my garden does this year. I didn't really make a big deal of it or do anything special so now I am worried that I didn't do something right.
Has anyone had luck growing radishes in the garden that you use chicken poo in. Last year I tried and I had great tops for the radishes but no radishes on the bottom. Any ideas?

 

[crossgirl]

Composting has been the talk of the house here lately when we're not talking about chickens. I'm so glad you started this! I feel like we generate a lot but then when you put it in terms of 4x8 like OldChickenLady suggested, I can't imagine how long that will take. We're just a family, not a farm!