Topic: Chicken Manure

[Peasticks]

Hi, I have some questions about chicken manure and would appreciate any help that people can give, sorry for all the questions but as they are on the same topic it kind of made sense to post them in one go

I breed chickens and have nearly 200 so have more chicken poo than I can shake a stick at, my chicken bedding ranges from hemp to shavings to straw depending on the coop

My questions are:

I recently cleared some of my raised beds and rashly topped them with the contents of a compost bin as the bin had blown over in the high winds, the content wasnt fresh but wasnt ready either, what should I avoid growing in these beds in the spring? (or if its easier what would be ok to grow in them?)

Secondly what can I grow on my manure heap please? I know I can grow the obvious squashes but is there anything else that would thrive there? the heap is mainly straw bedding

Thirdly I have some compost that is ready do I need to add anything to that if I want to grow particular crops in it? I understand that brassicas wont tolerate chicken poo of any age??

Also I scrape the roofs of my coops and so get pure chicken poo with no bedding, can I make some sort of plant feed with that or would it burn?

Lastly does anyone want any chicken poo?  ;D

[pigeonseed]

Hi peasticks
Regarding the compost, I think you can just plant whatever you want, it's not that 'hot' is it? After all, you can mulch with leaves and stuff instead of putting it on the compost heap. So I wouldn't worry.

Regarding chicken poo, I'm no expert - I think someone else will come along who knows more.  :)

[Mr Smith]

Last time I turned free Chicken poo down the following year the Farmer was charging for it, bag it up and sell it, :)

[green lily]

The concentrated stuff should be a v.good compost activator. Don't think I'd use it direct.

The beds with the unfinished compost  tipped on them will be great for all the pea/bean tribe. Just dig it well in and sow on top. If you can organise it into trenches and sow on top even better...

Otherwise your spare chicken waste could be sold on the lotties as dynamic compost activator. Think its a bit strong to use directly under crops. May not heat but its far to concentrated in its raw state. Can still burn roots

[steve76]

[quote I understand that brassicas wont tolerate chicken poo of any age??[/quote]

 :o Never heard this and i have emptied my compost bin on my plot which has all my chicken bedding added to it as well as all the normal stuff is it 12months + old will my brassicas be ok :-\.

Thanks for your help and sorry to hijack the tread.

Steve.

[Peasticks]

I could be wrong Steve but I thought that Brassicas dont tolerate acid soil but chicken poo is quite acid..

I could be confused, it doesnt take much!

Thank you to everyone for taking the trouble to reply  :)

[pumkinlover]

Its a good point Peasticks but by using chicken poo in the compost and adding at the appropriate stage in rotations it should be OK. Lime put on before the brassicas are planted should counteract the acidity.

[Sparkly]

I dug a deep hole and filled it with our chicken bedding (to be honest it was fresh-ish). Mainly because the compost was full and I was running out of space to put it last winter. I covered it and left until spring them planted my sweetpeas there. They did great. It was a deep hole though!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Add the chicken poo to your compost.  When one is done, the other will be as well.