Very low levels of these bacteria will not cause disease if you have a normal immune system. If you garden, chicken manure is black gold when composted and applied appropriately, returning nutrients to the soil and helping produce better plants, fruits and vegetables for you and your family. Your email address will not be published. There is error while submitting your request. Think bedding material, such as rice hulls and wood shavings, and put it in a composting bin. The bedding materials, along with any additional yard plant debris, leaves, small sticks, and paper would be your brown parts. University of California Cooperative Extension. When asked the major reasons they kept backyard chickens, 95 percent of the respondents mentioned food for home use followed by 63 percent who listed their chickens as gardening partners: Think pest control and manure as a fertilizer. The bacteria can come into contact with your growing produce and either stick to the surface or move inside the plant’s cells, making cleaning impossible. Gardens. What plants or vegetables are you planning on growing this season? About one cubic foot of manure is produced by each chicken in approximately six months. Copyright © 2020 EG Media Investments LLC. It is still advisable to carefully wash any produce grown in a compost-fed garden. After approximately one year, you should have some very rich, valuable compost suitable for your garden. This is a numbers game in that your starting material had millions of these bacteria per gram of manure. Step 1: Collect chicken manure and used bedding. (One cubic yard is recommended for the size of the bin). The manure and kitchen scraps would be the green parts. After a few days, the mixture will begin to “cook” or rise in temperature. This approach is not practical for backyard gardeners, but it’s important to recognize that more is not always better and the timing of application is important. If you garden, chicken manure is black gold when composted and applied appropriately, returning nutrients to the soil and helping produce better plants, fruits and vegetables for you and your family. All of the E.Coli and Salmonella should have been destroyed by the heat produced during composting. After you’ve filled up your compost bin with your collection of green and brown parts, thoroughly wet down the mixture. Aside from macronutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are essential for plant growth, chicken manure also contains calcium, magnesium and sulfur, which are not found in synthetic fertilizers. Hot composting is the fastest method to compost chicken manure. Compost does not have the unpleasant odor. The higher temperatures in such systems mean that the material breaks down more quickly and pathogens usually die at these higher temperatures too. In its raw form, however, poultry manure also has high concentrations of bacteria, including pathogenic salmonella, meaning that you should never apply raw poultry manure to your edible garden. Backyard chicken keeping has many benefits aside from farm-fresh eggs. This waiting period helps to ensure that the pathogenic bacteria have been killed. Aside from providing nutrients to your plants, the manure adds organic matter to the soil and increases the water-holding capacity and the beneficial bacteria present in the soil, but processing it properly is paramount. Occasionally check the inner core temperature of the material. When using chicken manure, a recommended level of 2 parts brown to one part green is recommended because of the high nitrogen content in the manure. As chicken keepers who need to scoop the poop daily, the gathering can be an ongoing process. Always wash produce thoroughly before eating. When your last garden is finished for the year, you will take all of the chicken manure you have and spread it over the garden. The temperature is key: Submitting compost samples to a lab for detection of pathogens is not practical or effective. Place all the materials in the compost bin or composter. If you don’t achieve that temperature, the chances of pathogen survival for an extended period of time will increase. In a 2014 survey conducted by UC Davis Animal Science Master’s student Carine Elkhoraibi and her adviser, Dr. Joy Mench, more than 1,400 backyard chicken-keepers responded. Required fields are marked *. A temperature of 130 degrees F or up to 150 degrees is recommended to allow the soil bacteria to break down the pathogenic bacteria from the manure. In a 2014 survey conducted by UC Davis Animal Science Master’s student Carine Elkhoraibi and her adviser, Dr. Joy Mench, more than 1,400 backyard chicken-keepers responded. Deal to the high temperature in aerobic fermentation process, aerobic decompose is also hot composting. Do this daily with a composting thermometer, which you can find online or at a home-improvement store, and keep a temperature log to refer to. When using chicken manure, a recommended level of 2 parts brown to one part green is recommended because of the high nitrogen content in the manure. It’s still recommended to always wash freshly picked fruits and vegetables. Do not add dog, cat or human feces to your compost pile, as, You shouldn’t smell ammonia associated with manure inside the coop; aside from being bad for our lungs, it can cause ulcers in the chickens’ corneas. If you want your compost samples analyzed for macronutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and E. coli and salmonella levels, you can collect a sample and send it to a private diagnostic lab. Your email address will not be published. For the definitive work on the method, here’s a link to the paper published by Dr. Robert Raabe, the professor behind the study. Straw, though commonly used, isn’t the best choice for bedding, as it’s relatively nonabsorbent compared to wood shavings or rice hulls, and can contribute to that strong ammonia smell. Fresh manure will burn the plant’s roots and leaves because it is too strong or “hot” unless it is composted. Please let us know a convenient time to call you on, (*All time slots are available in CDT zone.). Multiply that by the six chickens in an average backyard chicken flock and you have a mountain of manure every year! Chicken manure compost adds organic matter back into the soil and contributes nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to the soil. This article is written by Pramod Pandey and Maurice Pitesky, faculty members at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California Cooperative Extension. Most chicken owners know that fresh chicken manure can contain Salmonella or E.Coli bacteria. This article appeared in the March/April 2017 issue of Chickens. Therefore, repeat the process at least two more times to make sure all parts of the pile have been treated. © 2020, Countryside - All Rights Reserved, Ask the Expert — December 2014/January 2015, Ask the Expert —December 2015/January 2016. Mix and regularly stir and turn the composting material. http://iamcountryside.com/shop/chickens-from-scratch/. The best way to dispose of the manure is to first compost it and then use it correctly and safely. Please try again. Chicken farmers use sawdust, shavings, dry leaves, or straw as dry bedding for chicken. (The birds often will “till” their manure with their bedding as part of their normal scratching behavior.). The used bedding should be collected together with the manure and put into the compost Remember that after you compost the material can still contain low levels of salmonella, E. coli and other pathogens, which is fine. In general, always apply compost as near as possible to planting time and apply it between 1 and 2 inches deep to your garden crops or 1/2 inch deep to your lawn. The first, and quickest way to compost chicken manure is using a hot composting system. 2. Clean your coop as needed, but ideally, if you have the right density of birds and the correct amount of bedding material, you shouldn’t need to clean your coop more than once every couple of months. You’re aiming for approximately 25 percent manure and 75 percent other materials, which can include the aforementioned bedding material, leaves, plant material or kitchen scraps, and lawn clippings. In addition, if you apply raw, noncomposted manure to your plants, they may very well die due to excessive available nitrogen and salts. Turning and stirring the pile allows air to enter and the good bacteria need some fresh air to continue working. Chickens provide us with hours of companionship, fresh eggs, and manure! Compost is a safe and ideal fertilizer for your home garden—if processed correctly.

how to compost chicken manure

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how to compost chicken manure 2020