Is it possible to have too much chicken manure in your soil?

[mystarget]

Hey,

I'm currently collecting all of my chickens' manure and putting it into my two moderately-sized compost piles. I was wondering, can you have too high of a ratio of manure-to-soil? Should I be saving and drying some as straight fertilizer instead of putting it all in to my compost? I like the simplicity of adding it all to my compost piles, but I don't know that much about the properties of chicken manure as a fertilizer.

I free range my chickens in my backyard and have my garden area completely fenced off to protect my sprouts and more delicate plants (although I do let them in sometimes for supervised chicken-gardening hours). I was thinking that once winter rolls around and there isn't much left in the garden, I might reverse the function of the fence and use it to keep them in the garden area so that they might fertilize it without any work from me. So again, the same question stands, is there a chance of them adding too much manure? The garden area is about 600 sq. ft., and I have five birds.

Thanks for your help,

Mystarget

 

[Judy]

I doubt very much that 5 birds in 600 sq ft will be a problem. The biggest problem with chicken poop is when itis used fresh, as it can certainly burn plants that way. Composting and letting the chickens loose after the crops are harvested are both excellent methods. I wish my garden fence butted up to the chicken yard....

 

[Jared77]

This is an excellent idea that many folks use especially if they have all winter to let the soil absorb and breakdown your chicken waste.

One other idea is to plant a cover crop and let your chickens in when its time to take it off. They'll mow it down for you, and still produce waste. Then till it under and your ready for next year.

There's also a design I saw that has a single coop with a two runs and a door to each run. The runs share a wall. One side is your garden and the other side is the chicken run. In the fall you shut the door to the run and open the door to the garden. This way the chickens can go crazy and eat the plants that are done producing. Then in the spring you plant the run side and let the garden become the new run for the following year. The year after that you switch again. That way each year your garden is full of chicken waste and gets recharged, and the chickens get to clean up the garden for you.

Only problem with that design is having enough space to set this up.

 

[gunnarwordon]

Yes it is possible. Chicken manure has a lot of nitrogen that can kill many plants like tomatoes, eggplant, pepepers............

 

[chickencoop789]

You dont want too much poo because it will kill your plants.