how to not clean up the chicken poop

[#1California Chick]

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Yes, all the ingredients of your deep litter method make WONDERFUL compost for your garden!!! If you already have a compost pile going -- just add it to the compost pile and make sure that you add some water and turn it several times. If you don't have a compost pile, you can easily start one. You can put the whole coop output into a pile, alternating with dry leaves if you have some. Hose on some water and then cover with a tarp. In several months you will have "Gardener's Gold"!!!

If you clean out the coop in the fall (while it is still warm out), you will have some good compost ready for your spring planting. Then clean out your coop in the spring and you will have compost for late summer/early fall planting!!!

Good Luck!!

 

[peggyb43]

So let me make sure I understand this. I have been doing the deep litter method since last Oct. with young hens, and just cleaned out my coop this morning for the first time. By the way, I love the DLM and it isn't smelly at all. Anyway, is this mixture of poo, chopped hay and wood shavings okay to use in my garden now, or still too fresh. I was planning on tilling it in tomorrow. Too soon?

 

[#1California Chick]

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The question is how soon you will be PLANTING in the garden. If you till the DLM into your garden tomorrow and then don't plant for a while (give the DLM a chance to decompose) - you will be fine. If you are planting the day after tomorrow, you will burn the plants. If you let everything decompose in a single pile, you will have a better idea when it has "cooled" off.

Good Luck!!

 

[b.hromada]

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I use hay in my hen house, for both the bottom of the cage and the nesting boxes. when I clean it out, I just throw all the stuff away! I don't have a compost pile, should I be keeping this stuff?

 

[peggyb43]

Thanks California...you probably saved my garden! I'll let it compost till fall in a pile. Fall and winter gardens are wonderful too.

 

[ams3651]

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My dad gets trailer loads free from a local chicken operation for use on his several hundred acres of fields. He about to start spredding now and will then plow it under a couple times.