Using Chicken Manure for fertilizer

[Flock Leader]

Are you using a gravity feeder, and keeping it out at night? IMO, that contributes to rat/mouse issues more than what you are using for bedding in run/coop. I feed fermented feed, so there is never any spilled on the ground that can be nibbled by rodents. They get fed in the morning, and perhaps later in the afternoon. If there is any left in the feeder (which is outside) when I lock up at night, I cover it up. I know that lots of folks hesitate to use snap traps or poison for fear of injuring a non target animal. But, if either rat or mouse signs are evident, I'd use both, and declare all out war. Put the traps/poison in a box or otherwise contained so that non target animals can't access.

What about a good cat? Ever since we got our kitty, I hardly see any mice or rats, though we used to have tons.

About the compost, I'm pretty new to composting so I'm not even sure what I'm doing makes any sense. I have a pile in the yard, where I daily toss all my garden clippings, any peels the chickens won't eat, and chicken manure from my weekly cleaning the coop. The pile is covered with a large dark plastic container with some ventilation holes. I water this pile from time to time and turn it periodically. I've noticed some rotting at the bottom, which is supposed to be good, right? Will I have good compost this way?

 

[lazy gardener]

Compost happens! You can hardly fail at it, unless your materials are bone dry or frozen. You can spend all of your time turning it, measuring the temp, even measuring out your blend of carbon:nitrogen. Or you can just toss all of your debris into a pile. It will naturally layer that way, especially if you keep a bale of hay or bags of leaves handy so you can add some high carbon material after a layer of high nitrogen material. Here's a good article to get you started.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/orga...ow-to-make-compost-zm0z12onzsor.aspx?PageId=5

You can put it in a bin, let the chickens do it, sheet compost, trench compost, vermicompost, turn it, water it, range far and wide collecting materials to add to it, or just use what your own kitchen and yard generate, and just pile it and ignore it... The important thing is to "just do it". The worst thing you can do is let all of that wonderful yard nutrient go to a land fill or burn.

A good active compost will be very hot in the middle. If it doesn't heat up, it may need more water, and more nitrogen. (You can even accomplish both tasks by peeing on it). If it starts to stink, smelling like a ripe septic tank, it's gone anaerobic. Still composting, but you don't want that smell, so turn it a bit and add more carbon, dry it out a bit. The goal is to get it hot enough to kill any pathogens and seeds. All of the materials should be pretty much unrecognizeable if using it for a mulch, and it should look like black soil if it's completely finished. It should smell like good earth.

DON'T spend money on special compost activators that you can buy. Toss a shovel full of soil in occasionally, or if adding weeds, any soil attached to the roots will provide all of the activity you need. Poop is good, unless it comes from carnivores. (So "they say".) Some old timers will toss in the occasional road kill, or the mouse the cat didn't eat. By the time the compost is finished, there should be no pathogens left, no matter what goes into it. I'd be more concerned about putting in any vegetation treated with herbicides than I would be about the occasional mouse or dog poo.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Compost happens!  

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree with everything LG said. I’ll add that the only things I don’t put in besides vegetation treated with herbicides are diseased plants, plants infested with certain pests that can overwinter or survive in the compost, and noxious weeds because of the seeds. Unless you are using a tumbler composter or something like that, you are not going to cook all the seeds no matter how much you turn it.