Chicken Manure

[quadracer]

I've never had a problem with the chickens burning my plants, but they also had lots of room to run around. When free ranging, there's not much you can do to control where they crap except for controlling where they are.

The bedding in the coop would be the basis of my compost pile. It is straw, manure, and feathers. Definitely made some good compost.

You can raise chickens on the cheap. First, if you let them free range, they will find their own food. I also collect spent grains from the organic brewery and "expired" produce from the organic super market. Literally trashcans full a week. This would be dumped in various places in the yard to encourage them to hang around different areas. If you are creative I'm sure you can find a place locally doing the same thing. Check the local bakery.

One thing you have to watch out for is predators. One thing I've learned is that everything in nature loves chicken. Dogs, cats, hawks, skunks, racoons, opossums, bob cats, etc. Having a predator-proof coop is an absolute necessity. You also have to watch out for the chickens as well. They have cleared out beds of leafy greens, berries, and mushroom blocks.

But that being all said, I just picked up another 25 through McMurray Hatchery. They have a great selection of all kinds of breeds. They threw in 5 extra too! 100% survival rate so far.

 

[quadracer]

A few things I should add:

Although I am rural, you can raise chickens in an urban setting. There are lots of websites and magazines that address this and give good tips.

You don't need a rooster to raise chickens, although I like having a rooster around, but I also have no neighbors. Chickens will make noise, especially when laying an egg, but not enough to warrant any complaints. This is especially true if you supply your neighbor with eggs. Check your local laws though, they may even limit you to a flock of 5.

Bantam chickens are a lot smaller and lay a smaller egg, but can fit more easily into a restricted space. Many feed stores will have chicks come spring time, and saves you the minimum of 25 that is required through hatcheries. But this also leaves you at the mercy of their selection.

 

[guest2012y]

I know a little old lady who has grown the same strain outdoor since 1979 using chicken shat and wood ashes. The herb is strong,pungent,sticky and sometimes burned due to outdated practices. Use after composting as fista says,and as I have also,it works well.

 

[MrFista]

I run a chicken tractor over ground to be garden twice. Once letting them eat the grass back to nothing then I let it grow again and put the chickens over a second time. about a month later I turn this new ground and plant. The results... sunflowers nearly a foot across, cauliflower big as a dinner plate, etc etc. I feed about half pellets, and half grass and veggie scraps. The scraps include both watercress and azolla, the chickens get fed mighty well. In season I feed them on ground acorns and sunflower seeds, flax seeds and grass seed heads from council lots. One big bag (25 kg) of pellets lasts 3 birds a year due to the supplements they get. So that's about 1/6 kilo per bird per week - chicken feed!

The nesting box is where the poop for compost comes from. The combo high nitrogen and straw (high C) is excellent for composting and you don't need a whole lot to enrich a pure veg pile significantly.

Add some rockdust or seaweed to the compost, or directly to the ground you break when planting. OUTSTANDING.*

*Yellow clay soils used here.

 

[Zen Master]

yeah you definitely dont need a lot of birds.

I just got 4 myself and they haven't quite reached egg laying age yet but produce a shitload of manure for the compost bin.

as many others have said, its very hot and needs to 'cook' before use.

plus you get ~1 egg a day per bird. You absolutely do not need a rooster unless you want to raise birds for meat.

 

[fungzyme]

And don't forget worms for chicken feed. I'm putting in a worm bin this year mainly for a little extra free feed for the chickens (once it gets established, that is)

 

[VerdantGreen]

i run a chicken tractor sometimes but usually its a chicken lawnmower - moving them over the grass every 3-4 days so they cant cause too much damage. they eat all the lawn weeds which is a shame as i like a few daisies etc. i keep bantams - but they are small versions of proper egg laying breeds and still lay reasonable sized eggs. i rake up the poo or most of it and compost it, and i compost the raised coop bedding which is shredded paper and manure. quite a bit of fresh manure gets broken up and raked into the lawn which keeps it really green. we're veggies so we have 'em for life and they slow down on the egglaying as they get older. around half a dozen keep my family of 4 in plenty of eggs most of the year. i try and buy a few new ones every year or two so the egg supply stays up.

if you live in a built up area then sometimes there are regulations and you cant do it. check your rental agreement if you rent. im in UK so ymmv

VG

 

[jaykush]

sorry im late to this party.

what i would do is keep their coop in a deep bedding method(when they poop add more straw). spray with the lacto bacillus every week or two. then when the coop is real full. take out the bedding and compost it in wire bins. youll have some amazing compost in no time. i usually get over 3 cubic yards of compost from my chicken coop. the coop is hooked up to a rotational paddock system where they will increase the soils fertility like you have never seen before.

there will be zero smell this way. lacto bacillus LOVES to eat ammonia for breakfast. and thats what makes coops smell.

 

[Iron_Lion]

You may want to check with your town before considering live stock, some towns have ordinances on how many and what type of animals can be kept on a certain sized plot of land. My neighbors all have chickens they don't bother me and they make not much noise. They do like to roam the neighborhood tho, doesn't bother me none but some uptight people might not like it. I welcome them, they come eat the bugs and crap on the lawn

I know of a unique way of farming that uses different sized animals to manage the land from fertilizing to pest control, interesting stuff. You could also consider planting clover everywhere and mowing it down to rejuvenate the soil with N, much like the living mulch used here. Poultry litter is stinky stuff.

 

[GEMiNi GENETiCS]

Well back a few years ago when I helped my Uncle out with his farm's and garden's he used and still has chickens

He had 2 gardens, 1 was 100x60' and the other was 5x20.

Chickens will lay eggs just fine without a rooster so if noise is an issue dont have one .. But if you want to easily "herd" your chickens then get 1 rooster. He had about 25 hens and cleaned the shed (turned it into a roost) every week and made a big pile every year .. Once a pile had seen winter it was used the following summer.

Chickens are also great for eating bugs .. We would put a rooster in the garden with some worms and crawling bugs and he (rooster) would call all the hens over within 2minutes and they would run around the garden eating up any bugs they found. They also scratch the top soil looking for bugs so it makes good tilling to the top 2" of soil in your garden lol

I have a horse stable 2 towns over from me and Ill go there with a big trash can and they let me fill it for free with horse manure/hay/shavings and I bring that back and dump it in a corner of my yard to decompose and use in the veggie garden come spring time.

 

[GP73LPC]

i've got a buddy who just started a garden and is using his chicken shit for fertilizer...

 

[kuracjusz44]

Don't know how rural you are, but if you want chicken manure it's probably best to just find a source of composted chicken manure. If you want chickens - and they're great, I have 3 hens and live in a suburban area - it's probably going to take a bunch to be able to get significant amts of manure. You'll have a shitload of eggs, though! My problem at the moment is that my compost piles are predominantly hay because that's what we put down in the coop and in the henhouse. There's manure mixed in with it, but not really enough. As far as noise/smell, they're a hundred times better than any of my neighbor's dogs - they squawk every once in a while, but they're in the henhouse at dusk and back out in the morning - not barking like crazy every time an emergency siren goes off 24/7 like the neighbor dogs. And no smell to speak of - if I had 2 dozen it might be a different story though.

If I could only train them to poop directly in the compost pile, I'd be in chicken heaven.

you can make a kind of compost in the chickencoop.you just have to make a deep mulch (50-100cm),which is straw,hay or even sawdust.then you mix poo with that straw etc. sometimes.also you can put worms into that compost,they will help with composting and chickens loves them.