chicken poo

[hawthorns]

i keep reading about chicken pellets as a good fertiliser for potatoes etc. i have chickens and currently i add the manure to my compost bin which is half full with horse poo. if i started a another small bin just for chicken manure how long until i could use the poo on the veg

[MaureenHall]

Think it's supposed to be a year, but I dug some into a deep trench this summer and planted my peas there. They were lovely

[Flummery]

I'd add it to the 'normal' compost you make - it will act as an activator and the compost will 'cook' faster. You could have a heap that was just chicken poo - not sure if that's what you meant?

[Snadger]

I started adding my chicken poo (off 14 chooks) to the compost bin but now I add it to a small rain barrel........just by itself. Being an experimentalist as usual I figure that once the barrel is full (which will only takes about a month) and the lid is added, it should produce heat.
If all goes to plan, I'll then drag the barrel down to my greenhouse and use it as a night storage heater!

[Flummery]

You could make a hot bed and grow pineapples Snadger!

[Sue]

Hi
My chicken poo is mixed with straw and shavings and I have mountains of it. I'm mostly using it to reclaim the rest of my hens plot. I put down cardboard on the cut down waste land and laid really thick layers of the poo mixture on top. It takes about a year to rot down. On my first experimental patch, from a year ago you can't see any straw at all and the ground is much improved (heavy clay) and I've just planted a new strawberry bed.

It's a good weed suppressant - except for bindweed..... So if you've got pooh mixed in with other material this would be a good way to go. Otherwise I poo pick and add in small quantities to the compost heap to get that going as well.
Sue

[Two_Sheds]

i keep reading about chicken pellets as a good fertiliser

Do you mean chicken poo (straight out the cloaca*) or chicken manure pellets (bought in a tub from the garden centre) ? Gem Gardening:Chicken Manure Pellets


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