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Soil, Compost & Mulch

Ageing Chicken Poop without a compost heap?

10 years ago

Hi all,

I have chickens but don't have a compost heap or any place I could put one in my and was wondering if it's workable to age chicken poop in plastic container with a lid before eventually using it on the garden. Obviously with no contact with the ground or worms it's not really composting per se.

Is it feasable or will I just be making a toxic sludge?

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Comments (7)

toxcrusadr
10 years ago
You will be making a toxic sludge for the following reasons:

1) Chicken manure is very high in N and you need a high-carbon ('brown') material like leaves, sawdust, straw etc. to balance it out. Otherwise it will smell of ammonia and worse.

2) A lidded container will keep out air which is essential to an aerobic, non-stinky pile.

3) A plastic container will also hold water and not allow drainage, which can contribute to smelly conditions as well.

It's a recipe for disaster. However if you have room for a plastic container, you have room for a similar sized woven wire cylinder on the ground that you could pile it into. Hide it behind a bush if appearance is a problem. Even w/o browns this will be better than a plastic container with a lid. If you can get some browns to layer in, it'll work even better.
david52 Zone 6
10 years ago
I don't know where you keep your chickens, but one technique is a 'deep litter' approach, were the droppings, spilled food and water go on the floor litter ( saw dust, wood shavings, rice husk, etc) where its stirred in by the chickens.

After 6 months, you shovel this out, get it moist with a hose, pile it up, and and voila, instant steaming compost.
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toxcrusadr
10 years ago
Indeed, if you have them in a coop with any kind of bedding, the bedding is usually a 'brown' by definition so it's a good mix right off the bat.

Martin did not mention bedding, only manure so that's what my answer was based on.
Martin_B12
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for the replies! I'll stop with my plastic toxic sludge hopper and have a think about finding somewhere on soil to site a mesh container.

You're right toxcrusadr I was only asking about manure, this is just the stuff I scrape up from the ground, I use deep litter in the coop.
toxcrusadr
10 years ago
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
tishtoshnm Zone 6/NM
10 years ago
I suppose it really depends on how much you are scraping off the ground. We have deep litter in our coop and run but when we let the chickens out of the run to forage over a wider area, the only poop I scoop up is on the porches/walk ways, otherwise I just let it naturally break down wherever it lands.
Kimmsr
10 years ago
Any animal manure, including chicken manure, will loose up to 50 percent of the Nitrogen and between 5 and 20 percent of the potential Phosphorus and Potash if simply left to "age", but it is unlikely to produce a toxic sludge.
It is best, however, to mix any animal manure 1 part manure to 3 parts vegetative waste and let it compost. A compost pile does not take that much space and if there is room for a container to hold the manure there would be space for a compost pile.

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