Great idea! You are correct, our Ace hardware used to sell bagged chicken manure. In fact, there are lawn care companies whose organic fertilizer is chicken poop pellets. I use hemp in the coop, and when I need fertilizer or at clean out time, I put the hemp/poop bedding mixture in the garden and work it in the soil.
You don’t need to watch them every second but be alert to anything unusual is happening. Sounds and movement. Like if they start running, or if the rooster rounds them up or heads for the barn or makes particular noises that you know are warning noises. One day I was trimming my peach trees about 50 feet from where I was letting my chickens free range. They were happily taking a dirt bath around old stump of a tree. I thought they were perfectly safe but somehow I perceived movement out of the corner of my eye. I took a second look and Lo and behold in the taller weeds of a nearby pasture, a coyote was lurking. I jumped up and down and waved my long handled pruning shears, and he trotted away at the same time that apparently the rooster became aware of it, and started rounding up the chickens which is probably what I was also alert to. That was several years ago. This year has been a good year. I’ve only seen one coyote at a distance. They must’ve moved to another neighborhood for now. But they’ll be back. This year is was raccoons. Evidently there was a board missing that left a gap, 6 feet up on the covered Chicken yard. I believe the board went missing during a thunderstorm that we’d had a few weeks before. Evidently something got in and massacred my Drake leaving his mauled body there, but had taken with it a chicken. The intruder had to pull the chicken all the way up climbing up the fenced covered yard and pulling that chicken through a 4”x10” hole And down the other side. Broke my heart. Especially because I feel responsible for it because I should’ve noticed that board was missing but it was in an obscure place. But the raccoon knew. I saw muddy smears - evidence of some thing that had climbed up the side of the covered chicken yard. That place is built like Fort Knox, but this fella found a way in. I repaired it and although he’s come back looking, has not been successful at getting in. I have not said a live trap for him, but I think he’s gone elsewhere now. The lesson here is be alert to anything different or unusual. Muddy smears on the frame of the covered chicken yard were the clues that I was missing in the beginning. And the fact that my dogs who were in the house, barked up a storm. I looked out toward the barn and saw that the motion detection light was on, but I didn’t see any critters running around like sometimes I might see a deer or some other critter. So I didn’t go out and check. That’s the second mistake I made. I should’ve heeded my dogs warning- but I was off duty that evening. You can’t be off duty. You’re on duty 24/7.
Several breeds... Oegb, phoenix, cochins, brown leghorn, Sumatra, Yokohama... I think that's it... I have heard them alarm call and run for cover at every thing from birds to dog to cat... The cochins aren't great fliers, but the go to roost just fine...
