Brand new old compost pile, and chicken manure on the lawn

[chickenwhisperer]

Around a year ago, I started a compost pile out of the usual stuff from my yard.
I dont add food scraps to it.
Anyways, its mostly leaves and lawn mower leavins.
It just gets bigger and bigger, I never really seen it "do" much . . .

I had recently been reading a bit about composting, so last weekend decided to take a more proactive approach.

I built two 5x5x4 ft squares out of 6 Tposts and some chicken wire.
The middle Tposts are used for both squares.
I put the days new trimmings and rakings in and then shoveled my pile in on top of that.

I was amazed to see that the middle and lower sections of my pile were actually composting, and in fact alot of it was already dirt.
Anyways, I shoveled it all in and topped it off with more leaves.

Then I thouroghly soaked the entire deal.

This weekend, I unwrapped the wire and moved it to the next set of T posts.
Again, I put the days new trimmings in and put the new raked leaves in then shoveled my pile over.

It had actually actively composted in the last week in its new formation!
There was a really pleasant earthy smell and I am starting to see it all break down and look indistinguishable from what it all started out as.

I re soaked the pile again after the move.

So now that I am getting some really good compost/soil, I want to add the litter/poop from my chicken coop.

How should I add the mixture of pine shavings and chicken poop to the pile so as not to ruin what I already have going?
I also have many rabbits that create alot of manure, would it be best to just compost this as well? I been raking it into my lawn.
My pile now is made up of very few things, mostly lawn and oak leaves, with very little other stuff.

I am not in a hurry to get the compost, I dont want it till the spring anyways, at which time I need to rototill it in to my hard-packed sandy "soil", and use some in a vegetable garden I want to make.

And FWIW, when I water my lawn in the chicken yard, I make sure I blast the poop thats out there, it breaks up pretty quickly and my lawn in the chicken yard has never looked so good.
I have really poor soil at my place, it is pretty wasted and sandy, so I suspect that even the large amounts of fresh poop I water in are a needed energy source for my poor lawn.
I also empty the rabbits litter boxes directly onto my lawn and spread and water in.

 

[lesa]

Sounds like you are doing great with your compost. Just a suggestion- those chips from the chicken coop take about 3 years to compost. I put them in a separate area (or spread them where I don't mind wood chips). The poop is fine to add to compost. I also put just the poop down in the garden in the fall, and till it in the spring-skipping the pile at all. With rabbit and chicken poop you should have quite a beautiful garden in no time! Good luck!

 

[digitS']

It all has to do with how much carbon and how much nitrogen . . .

Sounds like you are doing great with your compost. Just a suggestion- those chips from the chicken coop take about 3 years to compost. I put them in a separate area (or spread them where I don't mind wood chips). . .

That is probably the most sensible way but if you are impatient to get the shavings in your pile, there may be some work and additions involved:

You may want to buy fertilizer and add it to the litter. Blood meal is a really high N fertilizer (about 12% nitrogen). It isn't pleasant stuff and is, apparently, dangerous if inhaled. Fertilizers never really are pleasant, however.

Or, you may just want to buy some urea or ammonium sulfate. At 21% nitrogen, you wouldn't need much ammonium sulfate (a common lawn fertilizer) to get wood shavings started towards decomposing.

A full bag of my wood shavings (fresh) weighs about 35 pounds. It is, essentially, nothing but carbon.

To figure how much how much to use for your shavings you can use this resource from Colorado State University: Organic Materials as Nitrogen Fertilizers

For 100% shavings, here are some ballpark numbers using CSU's calculations:

Using urea, you would need 1.5 pounds for every bag of shavings.
Using ammonium sulfate, you would need about twice that or 3 pounds for the bag of shavings.
Using blood meal, you would need to double the amount again to about 6 pounds per bag of shavings.

I've added ammonium sulfate to horse manure/shavings and made good compost. And, horse manure really is, just about, zero nitrogen.

Steve

 

[hoodat]

Don't forget the magic golden elixir. (pee) It really does wonders to cook down compost.

 

[chickenwhisperer]

Thanks for the replies!

I have about exactly half of a bale of the pine shavings that is under about 3 months worth of poop, there is probably more poop than shavings Id say.

What Im wondering exactly is, do I put it at the bottom of the pile when I turn it next, or on the top, or right smack in the middle?

I tried an experiment today with my pile . . .
I measured temp with a long probe and dug a small hole to that depth.
I added todays coffee grounds, filter and all, then reburied the hole.
I will measure temp before I go to bed, and when I get up in the morning, and so on.
I want to see for myself how this all works.


I just dont want to kill my pile or screw it up by adding a bunch of chicken manure in the wrong way . . .
I didnt think it was composting, but now that I know it is, Im all into it!


ETA- Im really not considering buying anything specifically to compost, I think I have plenty here to work with!

 

[hoodat]

I keep sort of a lazy mans compost pile. I just pile it up and seldom turn it. New material is just added at the top and nutrients such as urine, blood meal etc. are added there where it's needed. Watering causes nutrients to percolate downward. The material at the bottom is pretty well finished so when I need some I just dig down till I come to it.

 

[digitS']

Back to the carbon:nitrogen ratio:

We chicken-keepers have a tendency to over-estimate the power of chicken poop. First, we find out that it is a HOT fertilizer and that we have to be careful about burning our garden plants. Maybe then, we mix it with some leaves raked up from our yards and discover that this combination of tree leaves and chicken poop makes wonderful compost!

Then our coop gets smelly and we toss in a truckload of wood chips . . .

First of all, the compost experts tell us that a good hot compost pile is a mix of 30:1, carbon to nitrogen. We can go with less nitrogen but that means things take longer to decompose.

Cow manure has about a 25:1 ratio, CSU tells us. If we want a hot pile, adding much of anything is likely to slow it down.

Horse manure is worse, 50:1 ! What are you going to add to that . . ? The possibility is that you are still going to be looking at the same pile of poop after it has sat there for a year.

Chicken manure is 18:1. But wood is 400:1??!! If these 2 ingredients are mixed in about equal amounts . . . your pile is sitting there with above 150:1, carbon to nitrogen. That means a long wait for compost.

Steve

ETA: I guess I should say "above 200:1."

 

[hoodat]

Nice analysis Steve. That's why I don't worry too much about my pile heating up. Theoretically cold compost has more nutrients anyway and nature will do her thing eventually.

 

[digitS']

Well, you got me Hoodie!

While I'd grow things like basil or pumpkins/squash ON my 2nd season compost pile - I'd always go 18 months from the completion of a pile and spreading it in the garden.

That kind of schedule allowed me to use just about - whatever - in the pile. I gotta say, however, the only time I made the mistake of using a lot of shavings (and unfortunately, horse manure), it was still at a time when I was willing to mix in ammonium sulfate to get the pile to do something other than petrify over the course of the next millennium.

Steve

 

[chickenwhisperer]

Ok, so Im changing up my strategy here.
I bought a roll of 2x4 wire and a roll of chicken wire . . .
I made a bunch of 3x3 cylinders and placed them thruought my yard, in pairs.

My thinking is that I can have multiple bins going, and having 2 in each spot keeps the load down and makes shoveling to switch easier.

My entire routine of yardwork can completely fill a 3x3 cylinder all at once, but by having multiples I can spread the love so to speak.
Also causes the shavings/chicken poop mixture to not all go into one pile.

My chickens and lawn should give plenty of nitro to the plethera of dead oak leaves here.
It should be easier to regulate the mixture of each pile if I have more spots to dump.

I am really working with very few ingredients here . . .
chicken poop/shaving mixture
rabbit poop
Quail poop
used hay from said rabbits and chickens
lawnmower leavins
dead oak leaves with small amounts of privet/elm

Thats pretty much all that goes into my piles, and theres never a shortage of anything, cept in winter when theres no lawn or leaves anymore.

The dirt on my property is really poor- it is clay on top, then a layer of sandyness, then more clay bought 2ft down.
My main lawn struggles to hold water and nutrients, and has lots of places where only weeds will grow.
The lawn in the farmyard is doing way better with the chickens on it, they eat the crabgrass seeds so it is now getting choked out by my carpet of bermuda and fescue, and their poop that gets watered in really helps with nutrients.

My plan is to actively compost my piles now that its fall going into winter, so in spring I have lots of good soil to till into my poor lawn.
I will have a total of 6 wired piles, and it really only takes me 10-15 mins to shovel each pile so thats not too bad.

I started with a yard FULL of weeds this last spring, and thru constant grooming have gotten the nice lawn grass to come back and start taking over again.

I have also been amazed by my original compost pile which was just a ugly heap in the middle of my yard, that stuff is just about completely done now that I been turning it.
I can almost believe the 30-day claim of some, if one actively tends the piles.
That chicken poop really heats up the pile.