Fresh Chicken Manure

[Chrispy]

A fellow plotter has just come across a nice chap that keeps quite a lot of chicken quite close to our site, so it looks like we will have a regular supply of fresh chicken manure.

A quick read up, and as it is from a domestic source, it looks like the only thing to do is add it to the compost with a lot of extra 'browns'.

Is this the case, anybody add directly to the soil or use in any other way?

[Chrispy]

[Robert_Brenchley]

You could put some in a hessian bag or something similar, and put it in a barrel of water. It makes lovely liquid manure.

[goodlife]

I add it straight on soil with the straw bedding during late autumn-winter on beds where there is nothing growing. Using it 'straight' in winter it will have time to 'weather' down and loose the ammonia that would other time of year be too strong for the crops.
In november some of my beds received good 4" layer on top and already it has beed 'eaten' down by half..by May I'm not expecting much to be left other than nice crumbly soil, full of fat worm ;)...lovely stuff.
Just a warning though...any woodshavings will take couple of years to compost down,,that stuff I've only used under hedges and paths..keeps weeds down.
You could still spread it ground where you are planning to grow some potatoes later on..but don't dig it in just leave it top...it will work it's way down eventually.

[goodlife]

forgot ::)...another way I've used chicken much is laying bit of cardboad under the fruit bushes and laying thick mulch of the manure on that. The idea is again that by the time the cardboad rots down and the manure gets into contact with soil and roots it not burning anymore. Some of the excess nitrogen is used up by cardboard for the 'composting' and fruit bushes particularly black currants are hungry feeders.
My chickens manure always have lot of bedding to go with it anyway so it is not that consentrated.
Raspberry rows had in past had heaps of the stuff too..but only during winter.. ;)