how long does it take chicken manure compost

[Melky]

I have the compost tumbler and I've never been able to successfully compost in it. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

I've gone back to the pile. If you don't plant a winter garden, you can add the manure to the garden beds and let it sit all winter. It will be ready for spring planting - till it in and you're ready to plant.

This is true but now the suggestion is no till just lay in or bury and go. Tilling does not allow the soil to rest and develop good layers of soil. It disturbs the soil too much. Now everyone does rowing to plant without tilling.

 

[Hoytman]

No, not a typo - lol - but it's not as much work as it sounds. My poultry barn is 12'X20' and has a ramp up to a side door that leads to a covered run 6'X18'. The inside of the barn has two stalls: one large and one small, and an open area of concrete floor where I keep rabbit hutches used as brooding and infirmary coops. The stalls have layers of wood shavings as bedding, and I leave the lower layer and remove the top couple of inches and replace it with fresh shavings in the morning. By the end of the day, the chickens scratching around in the shavings, pooping on the stall rails and concrete aisle floor, flapping around to scatter shavings onto the concrete area, etc. requires another sweeping. Once a week I sweep out the outside run and the waterfowl pen to get rid of poop, debris and rocks they dig up.

At night the chickens roost in the rafters, and the waterfowl (4 ducks, 1 goose) come in from their waterfowl pen and stay in the large stall. In the morning, the floor and stall rails have chicken poop on them, the waterfowl have flapped their wings and blown wood shavings around the barn, and if everyone is moulting, then there are plenty of feathers too. So.... I clean in the a.m. and p.m.

In all it takes about an hour in the morning to clean plus give fresh food and water and all that. At night it's only around a half hour of cleanup and bringing the waterfowl in with a bucket of water for the night.

The 25-30 chickens (many are bantams) and 5 waterfowl produce a few buckets of "sweepings" a week.

I hope you don't end up with lung problems.