Put it in a bin and layer on other stuff.

Preferably mix in 1 part of the chicken manure to 3 parts of organic material, and be careful about adding moisture since in a garbage can composter it is very easy to have a too wet mix.

kimmq is kimmsr

Don't overthink!

How many chickens? You might consider deep litter management. Composting in place.

Well, dump it out of that can and make a pile. If it's not evenly moist, spray it with some water as you pile it up. You want it damp, not too drippy. If there is more manure than pine shavings, add more browns - dry leaves, straw, shredded paper, sawdust, etc. If it heats, great, but it doesn't have to. If it gets very hot and smells bad, it needs more low-nitrogen browns. If it doesn't get hot, it was heavy on the browns and will take longer. Or you can add more stuff to it. I assume you're also composting garden trimmings, kitchen scraps and all that? You could mix/layer those in when you make this pile.

Hot compost goes faster but slow cold composting will make compost too, so don't get hung up on that.

Thats similar to what we are doing annpat, started last year with 6 large fowl and 5 bantams and added 50 large fowl this year (chicken math). According to most sources the average chicken will produce about a cu ft of manure every six months, with 60 chickens that will be close to 4 cubic yards each year. We are wanting to garden much more and our ground is sandy with not much organic matter in it so the chickens are playing a big part in the future fertility.

If you have space in the run composting there is about as good as it gets. Ours are 12 x 24 with 25 to 30 chickens in each. Right now we are just piling weeds and kitchen scraps in there but I have some old 6 x 12 that are going to form a 4' x 8' compost bed in the middle of each run. They love to scratch all day though this pile finding seeds, insects and of course eating whatever greens or scraps they decide they like. Pretty much everything goes in there, it gets scratched, turned and pooped on over and over. When cleaning the coop the straw and manure from there goes into the pile too.

After some time this will fill up and we will be able to harvest the chicken made compost, it will go to a finishing pile so some time will be allowed to pass before using in the garden. Other than piling it in though and giving it a spray with the hose each morning, maybe having the rake up some stray bits tossed out our only work in it will be removing it to age.

Too many positives in the idea of chicken composting for me to ignore. While we have not been at it long enough to realize the benefits it is quite plain to see it happening.

I clean my houses out twice a year. My bedding is mostly straw, wood chops and leaves. My greens are pumpkins, chicken poop and kitchen scraps. I have flipped over some major steam in January a few times. Flora, won't you come over to a new forum?

I told my fiancé I want to compost this but he complained about the smell and flies? Are flies a problem? We already have flies around the kitchen scrap compost? He says he doesn't like touching the chicken poop but he has to anyway? Such a baby, it's just poop! Lol

I was wondering what the best way to compost it quickly is? I assume having it damp and warmer would attract more flies? But if it gets done quickly then the flies can leave!

Any tips on keeping flies down around the chickens? This year is gonna be pretty warm, and they are annoying!

sphinx, composting is pretty easy and need not be smelly or attractive to flies or other vermin. A properly constructed compost pile will only smell pleasant, never offensive. Putrid odors, unpleasant odors, are indications of problems with the compost. The appearance of flies, or other vermin, are indications of a problem that needs to be corrected. A mix of material that is o be composted can be too wet, and that too wet displaces the air the bacteria need to function and could cause anaerobic digestion which does produce an unpleasant smell.

After a short time of learning composting I found it much easier to wet the material before piling it up rather than waiting until the pile is made. Perhaps this composting tutorial may be of some help. http://sarasota.ifas.ufl.edu/compost-info/

Keeping flies from any animal can be difficult but cleanliness is a major part of that.

kimmq is kimmsr

Chicken manure makes excellent compost. It breaks down very quickly. Mine is mixed in with 5 other types of livestock manure but all I do is have mine in a pile on it's own. I don't add anything else to it other than the straw and hay that is in the barn for bedding. It makes excellent compost though the straw takes a long time to break down. Last summer we used pine shavings for a few months because it was hard to find straw. It composts better than a straw.

spinx_face Chicken manure doesn't smell very badly IMO once it starts to dry out of is in the compost pile. Now cow manure on the other hand, or pig, that's nasty. Once it starts to compost well there will be no smell at all with any of the manure. You may get flies though if your pile is too wet. They prefer to lay their eggs in a moist environment from my experience. My chickens actually pick all the bucks out of the compost pile (our piles are over 4 feet tall). We also have ducks which are good fly catchers, we still have flies though. I find the manure pile is nothing compared to where the cows hang out.

Flies are naturally attracted to fresh manure. Cover the pile with dry leaves, wood chips or sawdust several inches deep. That will not only close it off from flying insects but will absorb odors coming out (if any). Although there should not be if it's a balanced pile. Same goes for your kitchen scraps - if you don't have enough browns, it will get stinky and draw pests. I keep a pile of last fall's leaves next to the bin and cover each addition of kitchen scraps with several inches of leaves. No flies.

In our chicken coop we have a poop board under the roosts that we put about 1-2" layer of Sweet PDZ (a horse stall freshener) on. The poop board catches all of the manure while they are on the roost. Then every couple of days or so we use a cat litter box scoop to collect the manure and put it in a 5 gallon covered bucket. The Sweet PDZ is very much like cat litter in that it will cling to and coat the manure. When the bucket is full it gets mixed into a compost pile with some shredded leaves and there is no smell or flies. Sweet PDZ is a volcanic Zeolite that is excellent at ammonia absorption and oder neutralization so the flies are not drawn to the coop or compost pile and as an added bonus it is also great for mineralizing your soil. It is also safe for the chickens to peck at and eat. I just wish I could get my chickens to poop more as we are down to 6 old biddies and one fat rooster now.

Below is a study on Zeolites in agriculture from Princeton if interested.

https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1985/8512/851210.PDF

I have been thinking of getting a couple of chickens and making a portable chicken tractor over a bed each year, adding leaves for the chickens to scratch around in for a few months.

I've had chickens in the past, but the feed brought us rats! We now have several barn cats (all fixed!) so we should be OK. Nancy

We have rats, but as long as we keep their feed locked up at night or keep it supervised, they don't become a problem. We will never get rid of them though because of our regular compost bin

We get mice all the time in the barn. They often drown themselves in our water buckets. They actually have dug tunnels into the barn where the concrete wall and floor meet! You'll likely never get rid of them completely, but the barn cats will for sure help. We keep our feed in a lockable garbage can. It's keeps out mice AND goats. We do feed our chickens and ducks 2x a day though and the nighttime feeding we normally put the food down and leave it overnight so I am sure the mice get that food.