Question anbout chickens

Our laying hens (6 red sexlinks) are on the garden area now...but we'll move them off a month or so before planting. All the coop cleanings have been dumped in the area during the fall and winter and they've turned it over nicely. Except during that time, we compost it...that high nitrogen will kill plants unless it's aged well first. But with only 6 birds, it's not too much. We're going to try our hand at just a few meaties this spring as well. They'll be housed in the rabbitry so all their "fertilizer" will be scooped up and composted with LOTS of soil and "brown" matter. We'll give it pretty much a whole year to cook before using it. In the meantime our bunnies will be pumping out that brown gold that can be put directly around the plants in the garden.
 
Horse manure only takes 4 months or aging to be usable in the garden, and I don't think it takes much longer for chicken manure. Rain will leech out the urine. I till my manure first, then add it my beds. I prefer the chicken manure bc my horse's manure sometimes have weed seeds in them, and the birds manure doesn't.
It's amazing how worn out a lot of our soils are, so be generous.
 
ducks4you said:
You will probably have about 1-2 wheelbarrows full of manure/month. I own 40 chickens right now. Chickens and rabbits produce the most valuable manure. I moved to the country to have my horses in the back yard, and the chickens came later. So, my manure handling is from what you do with horse stall soiled bedding--you pile that up to kill parasites and start it degrading from the heat. Therefore, I just pile manure from both together, then let nature break it down for at least 4 months before the planting season starts and I can till it into my gardens.
You should be on BackYardChickens.com--a sister site--and study up. Mostly, the best chicken bedding is pine shavings. Pine shavings in a pile take a full 5 years to break down on their on. BUT, you could use a rake and try to separate the manure from the bedding.
If you haven't owned chickens before, I can tell you that an unkept coop hits you with a wall of...filth. NOTHING is worse, even a dirty kennel is less offensive. (NOT my personal experience with my birds, but I've smelled it before!) Most people like to use the deep litter method, where you put down ~4 (3 cubic foot size) shavings in the start of the winter, then rake it often to get the poo that is old, and dried, to fall to the bottom. Then, you strip the bottom of the coop in the Spring and use it for gardening and for mulching (the shavings.)
I've owned chickens for about 6 years now, and I started with one hen. You're really taking the plunge. My 15 (5-9 month old) young hens are producing 9-13 eggs/day. Watch the Cornish X. You MUST remove their food for 1/2 of every day, or they will overeat and can break their legs. I replace my layers every year, now, and I butcher all hatched roosters and my old hens. They meat is outstanding, large roosters produce a LOT of meat, even though they are meat birds, and I can always fill their food and water, and leave it "free choice." Just some thoughts. Some folks cannot get enough of their Cornish X's, but they aren't always the easiest to care for.
I currently have 6 butchered/dressed/frozen birds, waiting for my next chicken dinner. YUMM!!
Click to expand...
X2. Go join backyardchickens.com it's a wealth of info. Your run plan looks good and large enough that you won't have to free-range, but it depends on your numbers. Is there a particular reason you are wanting to seperate your Barreds and your Cornish? How many are you getting again? Just remember that each chicken needs her own foot of space on the roosts and since you aren't free-ranging they will need enough space to get away from each other in the run. For nest boxes, go one nest per about 3 hens. I have 2 nests between my 5 and 4 of them have a favorite box and will stubbornly wait until the lady that is currently in it finishes her business...even if the egg is knocking at the door lol :gig Confined hens can get bored, so make sure you have some treats and things in mind to keep them happy. I personally preffer straw over pine shavings for deep littering which is what I do in the duck house and my chicken coop has a poop drawer that I actually use wood pellets in. The pellets are super-absorbent and smell nice. They last longer than shavings will. And yes, the compost is great I am excited to make my very own hen poo garden this spring. Good luck, if you join BYC, I am also on there under the same screen name.
 
I want to keep the barred and cornish seperated simply because of the mess the cornish will make. If I keep them confined to their own area it will cut down on the cleaning time. They will probably be butchered before the rocks need the space anyway. I'm getting 12 barred rocks and 25 cornish X. I'm planning to butcher in three phases, some at game bird size (about 1 pound), some at fryer size and some at roaster size. So maybe 2 weeks, 6 weeks and 8-10 weeks. The coop is 10' long and 8' wide so an L shaped roosting system should provide plenty of roosting space. The run is 15' x 28' with a section of it covered for shade/rain/snow protection.
I am already a member at BYC. My name there is dadandjb (obviously I am dad and JB is my youngest daughter). I go there and read, but I don't really post much. There's a lot of pet chickens on that site. I don't want pets. I just want chickens that do their job. Personally, this chicken thing was my DW and DD's idea. But, as things normally go, they come up with the idea and it's dad's job to make it happen. I don't mind though. Hey, if I can get some manure to help offset the loss of my suppliers, I'm all for it!
 
I have to agree, Monty. I came here through BYC, and there are still a couple threads there I follow and post to, but our chickens aren't pets...we have them for eggs. We'd have meaties too if we were zoned for it. I think they're interesting and all that, but I've no desire at all to have them in the house or cuddle with 'em or all that. To each his/her own, but...that part isn't for me.

Our 6 girls have done a great job on our garden area over the winter. They've fertilized and scratched and dug it all up for us. Chicken poo is very high in nitrogen, which is (I believe) the stuff that can burn plants. Since the garden's resting now, we let them roam on it. We'll pull them off about 6 weeks or so before planting. During the summer, we collect it and put it in the composter to let it cook. We've recently added a trio of rabbits to our wee urban homestead, and are just loving all the poo they produce...they're pretty prolific and it doesn't need composting or aging. We'll use it through the season as a side dressing for some plants and the rest will be composted as well. I'm envisioning mounds of "black gold" next year, LOL
 
I read on a rabbit forum that the average rabbit will put out 5lbs of manure a year. Mounds of black gold is right!! :D
 
Rabbit poo is in easy to use pellet form like deer poo.

How do i get the deer and elk to leave it in a nice easy common heap like bunnies?
 
LOL, Marshall...ain't that the truth! Moose do the same thing; Grandpa used to hook up the wagon to his 4 wheeler and go out on the trails and scoop it up for his garden. He was right on a large lake too and had access to lots of "trash" fish...he'd net them up when running and use them as well. Unfortunately, he either didn't know about composting or just chose not to do it. He just buried all that stuff right in his garden. It decomposed eventually, but in looking back, I think he could have done much, much better if he'd composted all the stuff he had access to rather than just burying it.
 
Burying it works too, just not as efficiently. The stuff in process of degrading actually takes nutrients from the plants. I don't think it completely does that though, and some things seem to decompose rapidly. Burying under the garden is very old school, but it still works. You're right though, not as good as separately composting it.

Humans are still new to this world, and there is still more for us to learn.
 
The bugs that digest the carbon use nitrogen (green) as fuel. They temporarily tie some of that nitrogen up in the composting process but when they are finished that nitrogen is again ready to use and if I remember right, in a form that does not leach out as fast. How much nitrogen it ties up will depend on how wet the ground is and how much carbon (brown) material is there to start with. I bury stuff in the fall and it is in good shape for spring planting, but during growing season I dont bury carbon stuff. I use it in top of the ground as mulch.

I dont know for sure but Id think fish and other animal flesh and such would be fairly high on the nitrogen side so it would probably decompose pretty fast compared to say, wood shavings.

When I process my chickens I bury the feathers and innards that I dont use in my wood lot so the trees will eventually get use of it. I would do that in my orchard but the ground the orchard is in is full of rocks. I dont dig in there unless I have to.
 
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