harvesting ...... poop (for compost)

[gerryhouser]

Chicken droppings are generally considered too "hot" to use directly in the garden. It needs to mellow for a while. I have tried to use it after only 3 month's in the compost pile, this was a big mistake, it burned the veggies. I how have a compost pile on a 12 month rotation and have not had any additional problem related to "hot" chicken droppings.

 

[new world]

I have found out quickly how fresh poop can burn things as I rinsed off my poop trays on the lawn and now I have all dead patches on what was once green lawn, oopsy.

I am sure it will green up again soon

 

[redriver]

Fred's Hens :

For most folks in the mid-west, gardens are not planted in any earnest until May. That means that manure can safely be applied raw through February. Most gardens have large areas that are done by mid-September. So, raw manure applications can be applied to gardens roughly from mid-September until February with absolute reckless abandon.

For the remaining portion of the year, raw manure can simply be piled up and allowed to rot down and spread later. Easy.

We've had hard frosts in June the past two years. This week brought the official end to our growing season, with temps in the twenties.

And this is in California.

 

[claudicles]

The beauty of a tractor is that you can choose one of two methods, both of which are best used if you are putting the tractor where you want the poop, rather than collecting the poop. You can either leave it in one place, say your dormant vegie patch, for a while, and let the poop accumulate. Then either collect it or work it in. If you put it on your vegie patch after harvest with any bits of the vegies you don't want, the chooks get a feast and fertilise for the next crop. Or you can move it regularly so the poo gets delivered straight onto the lawn. I like this method but if you leave it too long there won't be much lawn left to be fertilised. I just give it a bit of a hose when I have moved the tractor to water in some of the manure then there is very little in the way of burning that happens. It is a bit of a rush between me and my dogs as to who gets to it first.... yuk

 

[wyododge]

Quote:
Pelletized gypsum will solve the problem of burning. It will lock up the available nitrogen and stop burning. It is also a good soil amendment. A preventative sprinkle prior to placing the tractor in more sensitive areas might be a good idea. Our chickens run throughout our large turf areas will little if any impact, but they are not concentrated as with a tractor. Moving regularly, would seem to be a very good idea, and provide more food and insects for them to eat. Or so it seems.

We have never had an issue with top dressing the garden, you just have to leave enough space around the stalk of the plant, and leave the poop and shavings mixed up together. The breakdown of the pine shavings uses nitrogen from the poop. If lightly placed as a dressing, directly on the ground and not the plants themselves, and allowed to water in, nitrogen burn has not occurred. We also don't put it on the ground where there is any possibility of fruit touching the compost, thus the 12" (max) rule of plant growth. By the time any fruit is ready, the compost has broken down for 60 to 90 days. We don't top dress things like lettuce. We plant in late april, early may and harvest around late July. We also lightly top dress throughout the year with grass clippings, and straw to encourage the worms to come up and have lunch.

Just how we do it though, my mother has been gardening this way for years, and so we do too.