Composting Chicken Poo and straw

I use the deep litter method in my coop using straw. However with my ducks sharing a coop with my chickens, the litter gets nasty quicker. I was wondering how to compost the mixture. I have a "typical black compost bin" that I use for grass clipping, leaves etc but I know I am losing valuable fertilizer with throwing out my chicken poop. I also have a "duck pond" that is a kiddie swimming pool. I am going to attach a hose to it this spring so that I can drain the "poop soup" into my garden. Any thoughts and ideas are greatly appreciated.

Just pile it somewhere and it will probably compost by itself. A mixture of chicken and duck manure with straw sounds ideal for a compost pile.

hoodat said:

Just pile it somewhere and it will probably compost by itself. A mixture of chicken and duck manure with straw sounds ideal for a compost pile.

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I agree. The straw will eventually break down if you make sure it stays moist. Also it's not bad to the till straw into your soil. The plants don't seem to care one little bit.

I toss my icky duck bedding on the the garden beds in fall after I harvest and over the winter. It is usually partially broken down by Spring. In Spring and summer I toss it in to some garbage cans with open bottoms and holes drilled in to the sides.

Chicken manure has a much higher nitrogen amount than other manures. And seems to start up the compost pile faster than anything! I work on a pasture raised chicken farm (4500 strong) so I'm constantly bringing home poo What I've been doing this fall and winter is making circle compost piles out of extra tomato cages and excess fencing and making a 1:4 mixture of poop:leaves & food scraps. Its decomposing extremely fast!

I think this mixture will be extremely high in nitrogen though, so I have other larger compost piles with a more 1:30 (poop:leaves) ratio to balance it out when filling up my raised beds this year..

I'm going to use the 1:4 mixed compost for bi-weekly fertilizing also.

sorry got chatty

Peace, Payden

Put your pool near the garden, and you might want to keep your eyes open for some kind of pump. That's EXACTLY what I do with my goose pool. I think geese make a greener poo, and put more of it in the water than ducks, but I don't think you can go wrong with that plan.

I had a large pool next to a small garden and pumping it through the garden every two days watered it perfectly all summer.

Waste not, want not!

Chicken litter goes in the garden too. My chickens usually begin the composting pretty well by scratching it up and turning it over, but I don't keep waterfowl in mine. As everyone said though, I'm sure it would be fine. I especially like cleaning the coop at the end of the growing season and putting it on the garden, if you don't plant cover crops.

I do the same! I compost it right in with everything else. However, I also put a pile aside to make "tea" with. I use a huge container to move it in when I need it, fill with water, and after 24 hours start using the water to feed the plants. Its fabulous for my potted stuff as well.

It time for me to clean the coop again, so gotta start a freeze bin... as soon as everything thaws this weekend.

vfem said:

I do the same! I compost it right in with everything else. However, I also put a pile aside to make "tea" with. I use a huge container to move it in when I need it, fill with water, and after 24 hours start using the water to feed the plants. Its fabulous for my potted stuff as well.

It time for me to clean the coop again, so gotta start a freeze bin... as soon as everything thaws this weekend.

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I also make chicky poop tea, but I'm curious.. How often do you give it to your plants?

We put the chicken house litter directly in the field at various times of the year. We make sure it is watered in well and turned under about 4 weeks before we plant anything in it. We have different "beds" or areas that are in use at different times of the year, so we usually have at least one area that is fallow at any given moment. That is the bed we dump the chicken litter on.

We use rabbit poo for manure teas. We use it about once a week, as we empty the rabbits litter box once a week.

I am getting ready to clean my coops out and I have raised beds. I bury mine in my beds.I use a fork or shovel and dig a 4x4 square in the garden bed about 1 foot deep.and put a wheelbarrow of waste in the hole and cover with the soil I dug out.
Then move to the other end of the bed and dig.This also ariates the soil.I use lime in the chicken house and if I want add more when I do this.

I also add bagged leaves and newspaper if I have it available.I cover the bed and let it set until time to plant.The worms take over and I usually never see the news paper at planting time.
If its too frozen I will wait till we have a few nice days to work it up.