Chickens and other birds tend to poop….a lot! The manure itself can be harmful to your birds if left to sit and accumulate overtime which is why it’s important to regularly clean out your chicken coop, but instead of tossing it in a pile somewhere in your yard to be forgotten, you can put it to use in your garden as free organic fertilizer.
Using chicken compost in garden beds is an excellent way to enhance soil fertility and promote healthy plant growth. Chicken compost is rich in essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which are vital for robust plant development.
When properly composted, it transforms into a nutrient-rich organic amendment that improves soil structure, increases water retention, and enhances microbial activity.
The Benefits of Chicken Manure
Nutrient-Rich Fertilizer:
Chicken manure contains high levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—key nutrients that plants need for growth. On average, it contains about 1.5% nitrogen, 1.0% phosphorus, and 0.5% potassium, making it an excellent organic fertilizer. It also provides a range of micronutrients like calcium, magnesium, and sulfur, contributing to overall soil health and plant vitality.
Improved Soil Structure:
The organic matter in chicken manure improves soil structure, increasing its water retention, aeration, and drainage capabilities. This is especially beneficial for both sandy and clay-heavy soils.
Enhanced Microbial Activity & Disease Suppression:
Adding organic matter from chicken manure also helps build humus in the soil, which supports plant roots and enhances microbial activity. These microbes play a crucial role in breaking down organic matter and cycling nutrients. As an added benefit, the enhanced microbial activity from using chicken manure can also help suppress harmful pathogens in the soil, contributing to overall healthier plants.
Sustainable Gardening Practice:
The use of chicken manure recycles waste from backyard flocks, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers and contributing to a more sustainable and eco-friendly gardening practice. Chicken manure is a natural and renewable resource, making it an eco-friendly alternative to chemical fertilizers.
Cost-Effective Solution:
If the other benefits aren’t tempting enough, using home-grown chicken fertilizer is also cost-effective. This leaves more cash in your wallet and not spent at big box stores for over-priced mass produced chemically enhanced fertilizers.
Safety Considerations
It’s important to note that chicken manure can contain various harmful pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli. Because of this manure should be handled with care and kept in a safe place away from pets and children.
Fresh chicken manure contains high levels of ammonia and should not be added to plants, especially fruit and vegetable plants that you’re planning to eat from. Not only can the ammonia potentially “burn” the plants, but it can also transfer harmful bacteria to them.
To ensure safe handling and processing of chicken manure, follow the below guidelines:
- Wear gloves – while you don’t have to wear gloves while handling chicken manure, I highly recommend it. This will help keep your hands clean and prevent bacteria from the getting under your nails or on your face or other surfaces by means of your own hands.
- Wear face protection – this is another one you don’t have to do, but I highly recommend. Depending on how often or not you clean your chicken coop, they can get awfully dirty and dusty and you most assuredly do not want to be breathing in all of the dust and particles or getting it in your eyes. If I’m doing a full deep clean of my chicken coops I’ll wear eye protection and sometimes a mask depending on how dusty it is.
- Store collected manure in a safe and secure location – It’s best to store and compost your chicken manure in a protected area of your yard away from your house and where people frequent. You may also want to enclose the area to keep out children and other pets. I store mine in the far corner of my yard in a compost area made from cinder blocks and recycled wood with some scrap hardware cloth on top to keep critters out.
- Age the manure – chicken manure (and any animal manure at that) should be well-aged before using in the garden. Aging it for several months (or longer) in the form of compost, will ensure that any harmful bacteria is gone, and the ammonia levels have been lowered.
- Compost correctly – composting doesn’t necessarily happen on its own. The composting process requires moisture (but not too much), oxygen, beneficial microbes etc to properly work. As such it’s best to know a bit about composting before undertaking the feat. I go a bit more into composting below but you can also check out this post on the deep litter method which also discusses composting. (LINK)
- Protect your produce – when using composted chicken manure around fruit and vegetable plants it’s best to apply the manure at least 90 days before you plan to harvest and eat your produce. Also make sure to wash all fruits and vegetables well before consuming.
One more thing to note is that people who are susceptible to illnesses, such as pregnant women, young children, elderly, and those with illnesses that damage their immune system should avoid handling manure of any kind.
Collection
There’s nothing really fancy to the collection of your chicken manure. Whether you do daily, weekly, or monthly coop cleanings, simply scoop all the droppings and add them to their own designated chicken-poo compost pile. You can also include the bedding in the compost mix if you’re using easily composted materials.
While you can add chicken manure to your regular compost pile, I personally prefer to keep separate compost piles that contain animal waste. I will usually compost these piles for a longer period of time in order to make sure they’re well composted and any harmful pathogens are no longer present.
And remember, gathering chicken manure is NOT a chore. It’s a harvest! Harvesting that free fertilizer which will help make your garden flourish.
Composting
Chicken manure is considered a “hot” manure. It’s full of nitrogen and has a strong tendency to generate heat as it decomposes. While this type of manure is beneficial for gardening, chicken manure is also full of ammonia which can be harmful to plants.
Composting the manure reduces nitrogen and ammonia levels while the high temperatures achieved during the composting process will help kill off bad bacteria. In order to achieve these high temperatures your compost pile needs a couple things.
- Brown & green matter – While chicken poo is typically brown (and another assortment of colors) it’s considered green matter. While your chickens bedding, whether made out of pine shavings, hemp, straw etc are considered brown material. Compost piles require about equal amounts of both to properly do their thing so it’s a good idea to toss your chickens old bedding out with the poo. If using a sand base then some sand in the compost won’t hurt, but you wouldn’t want there to be a significant amount of it.
- Moisture – Most of the time when composting you want to make sure it stays moist, but not soaked. This ensures a good environment for beneficial microbes to live and work on breaking down the compost matter. However, when it comes to chicken manure, moisture tends to keep it smelly, so it’s actually better to err on the side of dryness when it comes to chicken compost. If it rains a lot where you live, you may want to cover the compost pile with a tarp or something to keep excess moisture off.
- Oxygen – The microbes that live in compost piles and help break them down also require oxygen to thrive. If there’s no oxygen incorporated into a compost pile it can become anaerobic and may start to smell bad. This would also encourage bad bacteria and potentially kill off the good bacteria. To incorporate oxygen, simply turn your compost pile a couple times a week making with a gardening fork or shovel.
If your composting correctly, the internal temperatures should reach fairly high which will kill off bad bacteria and help with the composting process. You can continue to add material to your pile, but if you’re wanting to use it within a few months, it’s better to stop adding to one pile and create another one. Let the first pile have time to sit and compost without any new material being added and after a few months you should be good to start adding it to your garden as fertilizer.
Personally, I let chicken manure compost for at least 6 months before adding it to regular plants, trees, and shrubs. If I’m planning to add it to a vegetable garden or around fruit plants, I’ll actually let it sit for closer to a year (or more) to make sure it’s extra safe to use.
You’ll know the compost is ready when the matter has turned into a dirt-like substance. Since it’s not traditional compost, it won’t necessarily look like normal dirt unless you were incorporating it into a normal compost pile with a lot of food scraps etc.
Some things to keep in mind:
- The ratio of green (manure) to brown material is important. If you’re including your chickens bedding in the compost mixture, you’ll want to make sure the ratio is as close to 50:50 as it can be. If you find there’s more bedding than manure, you may want to add some other green materials such as kitchen scraps to the mix.
- If you’re using wood chips or shavings, these may take longer to decompose.
Using Compost in your Garden
To use chicken compost, spread a layer over your garden beds and work it into the soil before planting. This helps to ensure that the nutrients are well-distributed and accessible to the plants’ roots.
Additionally, chicken compost adds organic matter to the soil, fostering a thriving ecosystem of beneficial microorganisms that further support plant health and growth. By incorporating chicken compost into your garden beds, you create a sustainable and natural method to boost your garden’s productivity and vitality.
