Washing poop into the dirt

Sweetles

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My two chickens are free-ranging in our large backyard. When I first started keeping chickens, I would walk around twice a day with a pooper-scooper to clean up the poopers. It's amazing how much two chickens can produce! Move ahead a few years and my husband is now insisting on using the hard-spray on the hose to wash it into the soil. He does this at least twice a day and then whenever one "pops up". They disintegrate almost instantly! He says this will nourish the grass. It also keeps them from smelling and it keeps the flies at bay. He doesn't soak the whole area, only the spots where the poopers are. So we're not talking about the entire backyard being wet all the time. And the chickens don't like the hose so they take off to other areas.

We never walk around barefoot in the backyard. So it's not like we are walking around on this dirty dirt. And, we have separate outside shoes that come off at the door way. So we're not tracking into the house.

If we picked the poopers up, they would be dumped into the compost pile but the chickens like to dig around in there (no matter what we've done to try and stop them). So which is the lesser of the two evils? Is it safe to wash it into the dirt? I was reading recently about coccidiosis and it is good to keep your grass short so that any pathogens are more exposed to the sun's UV rays which kills them. This is what got me to question his practice of washing the poopers to get rid of them. Does washing them into the dirt expose them more to the UV rays or does it just spread disease and make things worse? By the way, the girls aren't sick, so it doesn't seem like it's ever affected them.

What do y'all think? Does anyone else do this or is it just him? Is it okay to do this or are we asking for trouble?

Thanks!!
 
All of the options sound fine to me.

Yes, your husband is right that the chicken droppings will nourish the grass.

I was reading recently about coccidiosis and it is good to keep your grass short so that any pathogens are more exposed to the sun's UV rays which kills them.
Coccidiosis is a fairly common problem with chicks, but much rarer with adult chickens. There will always be some coccidiosis around, but chickens usually develop a resistance to it as they grow up.

Then it is only a problem if conditions change so the coccidiosis grows MUCH faster than usual (a long stretch of rainy weather, when everything is wet for days on end, can sometimes cause a coccidiosis outbreak.)

I'm pretty sure it will be fine to keep doing any of the things you have been doing to manage the droppings.
 
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All of the options sound fine to me.

Yes, your husband is right that the chicken droppings will nourish the grass.


Coccidiosis is a fairly common problem with chicks, but much rarer with adult chickens. There will always be some coccidiosis around, but chickens usually develop a resistance to it as they grow up.

Then it is only a problem if conditions change so the coccidiosis grows MUCH faster than usual (a long stretch of rainy weather, when everything is wet for days on end, can sometimes cause a coccidiosis outbreak.)

I'm pretty sure it will be fine to keep doing any of the things you have been doing to manage the droppings.
Whew! Thank you so much! I just didn't want to do something horribly bad for my girls when we thought it was good. That's a relief off of my mind!
 

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