Quote:
x2. This was going to be my suggestion as well. To test the theory you could even place an ad ahead of time, just to see how many responses you get. Heck, maybe you could even charge for it!
Quote:
Am I understanding correctly that you can get chickens that don't have salmonella? Does that mean that if they don't have it when they are young they will not get it? That would be great and helpful!
Quote:
Am I understanding correctly that you can get chickens that don't have salmonella? Does that mean that if they don't have it when they are young they will not get it? That would be great and helpful!
Last month on craigslist,in my area, there was a ad for chicken manure. the guy reuses his 50lb feed bags to shovel it in after allowing it to compost. Win-win in the recycle, reuse area.
Salmonella is everywhere in nature. It is in my body and your body. Likely in our hair, on our skin, everywhere.
The danger is when an environment is right for it to multiply and breed voraciously, such as in meats and foods. It is real.
That said, exercise normal precautions and safe practices of hand washing, of course.
Chicken litter/manure is a fabulous material used our production gardens. I could not garden without it. Our soil is far too poor without it. It far surpasses chemical fertilizers in quality. Again, follow the guidelines of manure application and/or composting. Chicken poop is pure gold.
With as many people as there are with both children and chickens, if it were a high risk, you'd hear an awful lot more about children with Salmonella than you do. My grandkids are around mine, the lady next door has a granddaughter who is 5 and handles her chickens all the time. Handwashing after this activity is very lax. Yet she's not gotten ill in two years of having chickens. They even spend the night in the house for the last 2 months because of a predator problem.
Chicken manure is only a salmonella problem in the garden if fresh manure contacts the part of the plant you eat, and doesn't get washed properly before eating. I won't use fresh manure in my garden, but I use tons of not-fresh in there and so far I haven't gotten ill either.
People have varying degrees of spookiness about germs. If you are a germophobe, then by all means do what you need to be comfortable with it.
We don't have a compost pile, but when I shovel out the chicken coops, I usually just pour the old manure and shavings on any bare spots in the yard and field; it seems to have improved the soil in the areas where I've spread it as there's grass growing there now when there wasn't before.
So can someone tell me, is it okay to throw the chicken waste on the garden in the fall and winter when there is nothing growing in the garden, so that by spring it has been fertilized or should I only be composting the waste first no matter what time of year it is?