Chicken Manure Compost HELP!

[snkjohnson]

Help a composting newbie out!

Does anyone make compost only with chicken manure and brown materials? Would love some advice on how to do it. I built a 2-bin composting system (pictured) this week and am excited to use it. I have 12 chickens whose poop collects on a board under the roosts. My questions are these:

1. Can I collect the poop, say, weekly, and use it as the only green material in my compost recipe? Kitchen scraps go to the pigs and chickens so I'd rather not bother with trying to further divide it up for the compost pile.
2. Would doing it this way change what the ratio of browns to greens needs to be given the nitrogen level of chicken poop?
3. How often does it need to be turned? If I were to empty the poop into the bin once a week with a bunch of brown materials and turn it, could I leave it for a week and then repeat? Would love for it to be just a once a week chore.
3. Would it be a better idea to just collect the poop in a container winter-summer and throw it on the empty garden area in the fall when I clean out the rest of the coop (pine shavings) and let it sit there until spring, then till it in? Am I wasting my time trying to compost it??

Thanks in advance!

 

[Freeloading slacker]

Hope this helps. We just use the chicken poop, egg shells and old bedding and turn it once every 3 months, works great and is super easy. I bet there's a better way though.

 

[boskelli1571]

Help a composting newbie out!

Does anyone make compost only with chicken manure and brown materials? Would love some advice on how to do it. I built a 2-bin composting system (pictured) this week and am excited to use it. I have 12 chickens whose poop collects on a board under the roosts. My questions are these:

1. Can I collect the poop, say, weekly, and use it as the only green material in my compost recipe? Kitchen scraps go to the pigs and chickens so I'd rather not bother with trying to further divide it up for the compost pile.
2. Would doing it this way change what the ratio of browns to greens needs to be given the nitrogen level of chicken poop?
3. How often does it need to be turned? If I were to empty the poop into the bin once a week with a bunch of brown materials and turn it, could I leave it for a week and then repeat? Would love for it to be just a once a week chore.
3. Would it be a better idea to just collect the poop in a container winter-summer and throw it on the empty garden area in the fall when I clean out the rest of the coop (pine shavings) and let it sit there until spring, then till it in? Am I wasting my time trying to compost it??

Thanks in advance!

I hope you are young and strong b/c turning manure is a killer
Personally, when the winter months are upon us, I usually dump the poop and straw straight on the garden beds. During the summer months keep your ratio of green/brown 2:1. Browns can be leaves, bedding etc. - shavings don't do well.
Turning it once a week is perfect for the hot days of summer, but in spring let the heat build a bit, so once every couple of weeks.
You say you have 12 chickens - I think your bins will need to be bigger. Chickens will poop about 4lb of poop per week..
It makes very good compost btw

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Chicken poop is considered a green manure I believe. The easiest thing to do would be as others have suggested, spread it on the garden in the fall. It should sit for at least six months to be safe from dangerous pathogens like salmonella and e. coli. I just dump my poop in a big ole pile near the coop and this fall I'm going to put it into a wheel barrow and dump it on the garden.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I don’t follow any formulas or ratios. I just dump what I got on a pile of composting wood shavings, lawn clippings, or leaves, and let nature takes its course.

The most dramatic results I get with chicken manure is by using a movable coop to raise bitties for 2-3 months and leaving it in place during that time. Every time it starts to get nasty I add several inches of organic bedding such as pine shavings or lawn clipping hay and I let the bitties mix it all together with their droppings. When its time to turn the bitties loose I then move the coop and use the spot as a plant bed. I do make sure it gets rained on good for a couple of weeks before planting, or else I douse it with the water hose several times. I find a couple of weeks with plenty of water is all it takes to take enough edge off of the nutrients to make it ready for planting. The best yields I’ve ever had all came from moving coops and planting in the coop dirt in this manner.

I’ll also ferment chicken poop and wood ash in a barrel and water plants with it as a liquid fertilizer. Again I follow no formula. I just drop in whatever is compostable and handy and let it break down for a minimum of a couple of weeks. My current batch is about 6 months old. I’ll periodically drop in new ingredients as I find them.

 

[PajamaGardener]

Fascinating. BTW that compost bin is gorgeous.
I do it slightly differently. I have two stackable tubs right next to where I pull out the droppings board. I scrape every day straight into the tub, which also has bedding just from the nest boxes. When I scrape, I also mix this up a bit using the paint scraper. When the top tub gets full, I empty the bottom one into the garden, and the tub I had been filling goes to sit on the bottom to keep breaking down for a while.
It doesn't smell unless you are turning it, and then you notice the ammonia but it doesn't linger.
I dug "finished" manure into the garden when the shavings had still not all broken down yet, and I planted corn seedlings into it straight away and they didn't burn. The snow peas all germinated in this beautifully as well.