Chicken poop when you don’t compost

[SamIamNam786]

Hey there! I would like to know what do you do with chicken poop if you don’t compost?! I only have 3 chickens but their poop every morning is almost 1/2 c . Imagine a month of this and it will be 15 cups of poop! What I currently do is throw it in a garden bed, the side that has no plants, just dirt. But I’m worried about having flies There soon. We don’t compost bc I have no clue about it. I have 1/5 acre land, and 1/2 of it is the backyard. So not a lot of space to work with.

 

[Sussex19]

You could dig a hole to put it in? Might be a bit to hard work though lol!
Our compost heap is literally just a heap, and everything gets dumped on it. Each year it gets moved along and a new heap starts in the first spot. At the end of the third year its ready to go.
Hopefully other people will have more helpful ideas...

 

[rosemarythyme]

Any nearby friends/family that garden? We used to take half our chicken poop to my in-laws. In winter I just toss it in the bushes that line our driveway but we have a ridiculously long driveway.

If you 100% have no use for it, it can always go in the trash. Not ideal but can't be helped especially in more urban set ups.

 

[Lillith37]

I do compost for my own garden but I also store the poop in empty feed bags and keep it undercover behind the garage. After six months I give it to people in my social circle or even leave it on the nature strip and someone will take it.

 

[Perris]

What I currently do is throw it in a garden bed, the side that has no plants, just dirt

not even weeds growing there? is there something wrong with the dirt in that bed?
Assuming it's ordinary soil just lacking plants at the moment, you could open a traditional bean trench, throw the chicken poop + any kitchen waste in through the winter, covering with a sprinkle of the dug-out soil as you go, and come spring you'll have a fertile bed ready to plant up with beans (or other hungry vegetable or flowers).

 

[littledog]

You have chickens - you have a garden - no reason why you should not compost! In fact it's a waste if you don't! 1/5 acre is not too small! You can make a compost bin out of almost anything - wood, concrete blocks, or just a circle made of 3 T-posts surrounded by wire. It doesn't have to take up a lot of space, and it doesn't have to be complicated!

The key to it not smelling bad or attracting flies is:

1. Keep it contained instead of spread out in a big pile, so it will cook. You need it pretty compact for it to generate heat, which discourages insects and kills their larva and eggs.
2. Allow air to get in, and keep it moist but not soaking - the wire-circle style works well for this when you are starting out. If you live in an area that gets a lot of rain, you might need to have a cover for it.
3. Make layers of 1 amount "green" (nitrogen: like chicken manure, vegetable and fruit scraps, fresh lawn clippings) then 2-3 amounts of "brown" (carbon: like fallen leaves, shredded paper or cardboard, dried lawn clippings, wood chips, straw, twigs.)

What I would do to start out in a smallish yard: Drive in 4 T-posts to make a 3x3 square near your coop, and wrap them around with poultry wire. Every time you clean the coop dump it in there, then cover with twice as much dead leaves and twigs, office paper from your shredder, ripped-up pizza or amazon boxes, crumpled pieces of newspaper. Same for kitchen scraps, every gallon you dump, cover with 2 gallons of "brown" stuff.
Grass clippings are awesome to add anytime, they heat up really quickly and get the whole pile cooking. If you get a ton of rain, put a cover (tarp, plywood) over to cover the compost container.

As the container heats up and decomposes, it reduces in size, so by next gardening season you'll have some good, healthy soil to add to your garden beds.

Composting doesn't have to be hard or complicated, and it doesn't have to be smelly or noxious to your neighbors, or take up a lot of space!

 

[K0k0shka]

Dig a hole and keep adding to it. You can temporarily cover the hole and then open it up to add to it. It will compost over time. But why do you have to clean out poop every day? That sounds like a lot of work, and will require an active pile/hole/bucket etc. that you need to access every day, as opposed to burying it and letting it naturally compost over time. The setup I have is a large coop with a very deep bedding of pine shavings. The poop falls in the shavings and gets lost in there. Over time when it starts to build up, I just toss more fresh shavings on top. I clean the coop out twice a year, and at that time I either bury the soiled shavings in the garden in the fall, or add them to a compost pile, or bury them somewhere else on my property. I don't have smell issues.

If you 100% have no use for it, it can always go in the trash. Not ideal but can't be helped especially in more urban set ups.

Check your town regulations though. In our town you can't dispose of manure in the trash. Only cat/dog/bunny etc. actual pet poop, not livestock manure (and yes chickens are considered livestock even if you treat them as pets).

 

[SamIamNam786]

not even weeds growing there? is there something wrong with the dirt in that bed?
Assuming it's ordinary soil just lacking plants at the moment, you could open a traditional bean trench, throw the chicken poop + any kitchen waste in through the winter, covering with a sprinkle of the dug-out soil as you go, and come spring you'll have a fertile bed ready to plant up with beans (or other hungry vegetable or flowers).

So there is a patch with six veggie plants but I took out one tomatoe one that seemed to be dying, and this is where I currently have been burying the chicken poop. I do mix it into the soil but if the tomatoe plant was still there, I’d have no idea what to do with the poop. Can we just throw it into a garden bed?

 

[SamIamNam786]

Dig a hole and keep adding to it. You can temporarily cover the hole and then open it up to add to it. It will compost over time. But why do you have to clean out poop every day? That sounds like a lot of work, and will require an active pile/hole/bucket etc. that you need to access every day, as opposed to burying it and letting it naturally compost over time. The setup I have is a large coop with a very deep bedding of pine shavings. The poop falls in the shavings and gets lost in there. Over time when it starts to build up, I just toss more fresh shavings on top. I clean the coop out twice a year, and at that time I either bury the soiled shavings in the garden in the fall, or add them to a compost pile, or bury them somewhere else on my property. I don't have smell issues.


Check your town regulations though. In our town you can't dispose of manure in the trash. Only cat/dog/bunny etc. actual pet poop, not livestock manure (and yes chickens are considered livestock even if you treat them as pets).

I have a poop board that catches a lot, so I just clean it when I come home from work everyday by walking it to the patch And tossing it in. Takes five min. The bedding is hemp and only an inch or two thick over the floor of the coop. I haven’t touched the poop in The run , but when it rained yday I finally smelled the stench. I added zeolite all over, and it’s better, but that’s stench is what I’m trying to avoid.

 

[RubelliteRose]

Unfortunately, fresh chicken poop is not good for your plants. In addition to the bacterial contamination of your vegetables, fresh manure contains too much ammonia/nitrogen and too much salt- both of which will most likely kill your garden rather than help it.
We use a compost bin, but you could look into buying or making a tumbling composter that should keep the flies out of your compost.