Compost when can I use it ??

Dutchman · Oct 7, 2009

I have a couple dozen chickens .. and I use saw dust[ pine shaving .. like the horse people use ] and straw for bedding ... I clean my chicken house out about ever month or two ..
<>
Question: my son say's I have to wait a year or so BEFORE I can put it on my garden .. say's it will give my garden ecoli [sp] or something that will harm the garden..
What does the experts say ??
I want to put it on and PLOW it under this fall...
THANKS for your advice ...
Mark

kyplowboy · Oct 7, 2009

Some people say that with out composting it will kill you deader than a hammer. Some people around here still shovel a few five gallon buckets full out from under their birds to put on their garden every year and have been for years. Make"n a pile some where in the dry, letting it heat up, and turning it a few times is better but I know folks some folks who never do it.

Dave

RayP(MI) · Oct 7, 2009

We always spread when we could, farmed when we could. Never had any problems with fresh manure.
Have been known to top dress my sweetcorn when growing with rabbit barn cleanings. Rabbit pens cleaned weekly, so droppings are fresh. A few days in the sun should kill most bacteria.

Anonymous-0 · Oct 7, 2009

Here in Calif, they clean out from under the chicken cages. It goes into a truck with a spreader, and right on the ground. Stan

ChrisinMO · Oct 7, 2009

My uncle had an chicken house for egg layers when I was a kid. My mother's secret recipe in the garden for a bunch of stuff was, as she quite graphically called it, chickensh.. She got a pickup load delivered every year or so, though it was usually pretty well rotted by the time it got to our house.

You can definitely compost it. If it doesn't get composted hot, the weed seeds and pathogens won't get killed off, but there is plenty of that in the soil anyway. Composting will make it into a form that is much more usable and balanced for your plants. However, if your going to till it in this fall, it'll be ready to use next spring. A lot depends upon how well bedded the chickens were.

No offense to your son, but I get kind of cross-eyed with people getting paranoid about germs in manure. There is a huge difference between a chicken house with tens of thousands of birds where pathogens can really get going and a small home flock.

If you spread it fresh, you're gonna want to till it in right away or you'll lose a whole lot of nitrogen in just the first day.

Hope this helps.

Christopher

da-bees · Oct 7, 2009

To compost before appling has more to do with making the nitrogen available and killing germination of weed seed than health risks. The shavings and straw will tie up nitrogen during the decay process,making composting first the best. Plowing the straw and shavings under limits oxygen nessary for decomposition. There was a recent discussion here about making silage that talks about packing to limit oxygen and arrest decay which is opposit what composting does. Top dressing is different from plowing under for the afore mentioned considerations. Your local extension service has free publications which explains it in more detail.

fixerupper · Oct 7, 2009

Around here we have a bunch of turkey buildings, and they always pile the litter and let it sit there a few months to compost before spreading. I never did hear why. They used to use wood chips and then they switched to peanut shells, but again, I don't know why.

The local 'chicken farm' (6.5 million birds) piles the litter in buildings to compost also but it's the pure stuff, no bedding except for the cornstalks they mix in the compost pile to make it less chunky for spreading. Jim

ChrisinMO · Oct 7, 2009

How local is that chicken farm? My uncle's layer house was I guess about 200' long and I don't remember how wide. When we visited the farm or the one week each summer my younger brother and I stayed there, that was the ONLY building on the farm we did NOT explore or even go in!

I guess the switch to peanut shells in the turkey house could be explained by availability, I suppose.

Christopher

Anonymous-0 · Oct 7, 2009

Are You guys still allowed to Raise Chickens in Cages in CALIFORNIA ?,, I heard PETA and animal rights nuts took over the entire STATE last election? ,,,

old · Oct 7, 2009

I just cleaned out my chicken house the other day and it went right on my garden. But it will sit all winter so it will be just fine. That is how I have done it for years. Chicken manure in the fall horse in the spring

IAFarmer37 · Oct 7, 2009

It was The Humane Society of the United States. They put pictures of sad puppies and kittens in ads and recruit kids from elementary schools and idealistic college kids to help save the little puppies and kitties. In actuality, they are a very well funded political org that has something like $80,000,000 to pass laws that will outlaw modern livestock farming and force everyone to either pay $25 for a hamburger (using meat from mexico or worse) or turn vegan.
They do it through 'puppy mill' laws. If you hear about those laws being proposed in your state and you make a living either directly or indirectly from livestock (that's you grain farmers...) you would be well served to get informed and write to your state reps.
The HSUS is well funded, highly motivated and very good at what they do. Be afraid, very afraid...

IAFarmer37 · Oct 7, 2009

You are exactly right RayP. If you put anything 'starchy' like straw or shavings down, they will tie up the N. The bacteria that live in the soil will rob the N from the soil, thus depriving your plants of N needed to grow. When the bacteria get their fill, anything left can be used by the plants. It's a complicated system and there are scientists that spend their whole carreers working on understanding this process.

Another theory behind compost is that finished product will condition the soil so that it will release nutrients and micronutrients that are held too tight for the plant to use otherwise.

T_Bone · Oct 7, 2009

Hi Mark,

We have been composting for many thousand years and will be composting for many years to come.

Composting takes:

(3parts) carbon (wood, leafs, toliet paper, newspaper, wheat straw. etc) Also called "browns"

(1part) nitrogen (manure, human or animal it don't matter, hay, vegetable scraps, or other nitrogen source) Also called "greens"

Water (enough water that it will slightly drip when squeezed in your fist in a earth ball)

Oxygen (as much as it can get, as in turning the pile)

If the compost pile has a odor other than a "earth smell", an ingredient is not in balance, most likely a lack of "browns"!

Septic systems also work on the composting principle.

I can compost my garden scraps in 30days with using a large stack pile. Here in AZ I have to water the pile every day or it'll dry out and takes longer too go thru the compost process. If I add water, then I can have compost in 30days.

I will not use human, cat or dog manure in my garden compost. For trees, yes.

T_Bone

fixerupper · Oct 8, 2009

The 'local' chicken farm is four miles away. A lot of people around here call it that but it's actually a mostly self-contained industrial outfit that takes in local corn and soybeans in one end and ships out the egg product, either in liquid or dried form, ready for the store shelf, out of the other end. They even extrude the soybeans and sell the oil.

I know the manure is shipped at least 60 miles and maybe farther. There's really not much smell, considering the amount of birds they have on site. The most smell comes from the lagoon that takes the waste from the breaking plant. Jim

El Toro · Oct 8, 2009

We never waited to put it on the garden. We would pull the manure spreader right up to the chicken house and load it then spread it on the garden. When we had rabbits we would collect the droppings in 5 gallon buckets and I would spread it directly on the garden. Sure would like to have some now. Spread it on the garden and plow it under. It will give the worms something to work on. Hal

greenbeanman in Kansas · Oct 8, 2009

The link will provide the answer you seek.
What ATTRA says about using manures and composted manures.

Compost when can I use it ??

Dutchman

Well-known Member

kyplowboy

Well-known Member

RayP(MI)

Well-known Member

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member

ChrisinMO

Member

da-bees

Member

fixerupper

Well-known Member

ChrisinMO

Member

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member

old

Well-known Member

IAFarmer37

New User

IAFarmer37

New User

T_Bone

Well-known Member

fixerupper

Well-known Member

El Toro

Well-known Member

greenbeanman in Kansas

Well-known Member

Similar threads