Separating manure from pine shavings for garden use

[toletiquesbysam]

Could you possibly put a poop catch board under your roost and then scrap the poo off there to compost?

 

[russ_t]

I don't separate mine, but I think you make the water solution as mentioned in the earlier post, and pour it over your compost heap. If you are composting veggie matter, the poop tea should help break it down faster. (Adds nitrogen and keeps it moist). Putting black plastic over it will help it cook after you pour, but I don't bother with that either.

 

[Kezzie]

It all should be composted anyway so I'm not sure why you'd bother separating it. Even making a tea from fresh chicken manure is going to be too high in nitrogen for many plants. That will give vegetables lots of leaves but little fruit.

Here's an article on using chicken manure for compost.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1630379/using_chicken_manure_as_compost.html?cat=32

 

[RendonRoo]

Thanks Kezzie that's a good article.

 

[JeninMN]

We have a ton of bedding/waste that we were going to put in the garden this spring...its from all winter and its been bagged up as we've cleaned the coop...can we just throw this in and till the garden up and then plant? that was our plan...

 

[Kezzie]

Quote:
If it's going to be for vegetables, you really should till it in and wait a month or so. Next year, clean out the coop earlier and let it mellow in the bed for the early spring. Nitrogen can burn plant roots and leaves or at the very least, that much nitrogen will make veggies turn into Jack and the Beanstalk but give you little food. Part of it depends on how much you are mixing in. If it's less than an inch, it might be okay. Buying a nutrient test kit will tell you for sure.

 

[Barry]

Quote:
OK, You have 1 ton of manure but how big is your garden? If you have a real big garden it will be good, if you have a small garden it will over fertilize it and the things you were hoping to grow...won't!

 

[JeninMN]

Quote:
OK, You have 1 ton of manure but how big is your garden? If you have a real big garden it will be good, if you have a small garden it will over fertilize it and the things you were hoping to grow...won't!

Well, we have a vegetable garden that is like 30 x 70 and then some various flower beds around the yard.

Alot of the bags of used bedding have been sitting bagged up since early November. We were burning it as we cleaned the coop but all winter we were not able to access the back door of our shop for that due to the amount of snow & height of snow drifts in that part of our yard so we've just been waiting until we could do something about it and then we figured maybe we could put it in the garden instead of burning it!

When I say bags, I am talking about the 50 lb chicken feed bags...we have probably 10 of them.

It was so wet here this last fall that we were unable to get our garden cleaned out..we had 1 day where we could actually get in there to get vegetables out and then after that it rained and rained so the plants themselves have to be yanked out and I am starting to do that now. If I get those all out and then put the bags of used bedding on the garden and let it sit there and till it in about a week before planting will it then be safe within the next month? I highly doubt we'll be able to start planting until towards the end of May due to the moisture we still have here...until a week ago we were flooded so...

 

[gimme sum eggs]

I'm gunna try 2 methods. First thing to try is a "shaker table". I will also try the air nozzle on my air compressor hoping to blow the less dense shavings off, leaving the manure behind. I plan on putting the mix on a 1/2" square hardware cloth. I'll blow from underneath and adjust the distance to hopefully only blow the shavings out.

 

[norcal]

RABBIT poop can be directly added to your garden as fertilizer. That's the only one I know of that won't burn. Or so I've read & learned in 4H.