Thursday
Mar262009
Chicken Manure in the Garden
Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 2:41PM
After an email conversation with a friend - I thought this was some good information that belonged out of GMail and into the public domain. It started with his email about how much money you can save by having a garden and eating out of it - which moved into how do I increase the yield of things in the garden naturally - to chicken poop (most of our conversations compost down to some from of manure anyhow).
Anyhow - here's the highlights - in all their unedited glory.
Jeff said:
Ooh, and just imagine the manure you'll be getting from them. On the podcast I was listening to yesterday, they were talking about applying chicken and/or pigeon manure directly to the beds with onions I believe? ? I was kinda surprised - I thought chicken manure was too hot? I would still like to find a source for the stuff around here - something to really get the compost pile cooking!! ;-)
I replied:
Dude - you DO NOT want chicken crap from somewhere you don't ABSOLUTELY know and trust - it's one hell of a way to get yourself REALLY sick fast...
That said - if the chickens are raised correctly while in the brooder - there is a high concentration of carbon (wood shavings are a great source) to offset the high level of nitrogen in chicken poop... So - although it's got a lot of nitrogen - the litter plus poop doesn't burn the veggies.
Last year I cleaned the brooder out - resulting in a 55 gallon drum of manure + litter. Put it all on the asparagus - and it worked like a charm keeping the weeds down and making the asparagus triple in fern size.
Let me explain the first statement - again in the spirit of sharing - chickens, if not kept well, can carry some pretty nasty diseases that can be transmittable to humans in their feces - and I'm not talking about bird flu. this, of course, applies primarily to fresh poop - as in the kind that came from the chicks in the brooder last year.
Now - if you can find a source of chicken manure that has sat for a bit and cooked on it's own - then - the standing recommendation for all gardeners is - GET AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AS FAST AS YOU CAN.
Anyhow - here's the highlights - in all their unedited glory.
Jeff said:
Ooh, and just imagine the manure you'll be getting from them. On the podcast I was listening to yesterday, they were talking about applying chicken and/or pigeon manure directly to the beds with onions I believe? ? I was kinda surprised - I thought chicken manure was too hot? I would still like to find a source for the stuff around here - something to really get the compost pile cooking!! ;-)
I replied:
Dude - you DO NOT want chicken crap from somewhere you don't ABSOLUTELY know and trust - it's one hell of a way to get yourself REALLY sick fast...
That said - if the chickens are raised correctly while in the brooder - there is a high concentration of carbon (wood shavings are a great source) to offset the high level of nitrogen in chicken poop... So - although it's got a lot of nitrogen - the litter plus poop doesn't burn the veggies.
Last year I cleaned the brooder out - resulting in a 55 gallon drum of manure + litter. Put it all on the asparagus - and it worked like a charm keeping the weeds down and making the asparagus triple in fern size.
Let me explain the first statement - again in the spirit of sharing - chickens, if not kept well, can carry some pretty nasty diseases that can be transmittable to humans in their feces - and I'm not talking about bird flu. this, of course, applies primarily to fresh poop - as in the kind that came from the chicks in the brooder last year.
Now - if you can find a source of chicken manure that has sat for a bit and cooked on it's own - then - the standing recommendation for all gardeners is - GET AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AS FAST AS YOU CAN.
Reader Comments (1)
Hm, I'm not sure I gave permission to reprint that conversation. Copyright laws, y'know...? ;-)
But seriously - so I'm guessing any of the "local eggs for sale" places where you can just drive up and see healthy chickens running around the yard are probably taking decent care of their coop as well? You think I should ask to inspect the coops? Or maybe I should mail samples off to Kelli and have her stick it under the microscope?
Odds are I'm not gonna find a source of chicken manure anyhow...but you never know! A coworker's daughter HAS kept chickens for 4H the last few years!