Solar Dehydrating Chicken Manure

Here is my “proof of concept” solar chicken poop dehydrator, slapped together from stuff on hand so I can test the idea before building anything better. Why? Because I tried composting and it was way too much work for me! Gathering, layering, moistening, turning, moving. No thank you, I tried too many versions of that and they were all too much effort. How? Sunlight enters the glass pane, hits the manure on a screen and the black textured backing behind it. Air heats and rises out of the top gap, flowing around the manure and drying it.  

I have an 11 bird flock currently and this method is working. They sleep in a stationary coop at night and range a fenced pasture during the day, so the deep litter method is not an option for me. Every 3 weeks or so, I scrape the poop tray into a bucket, pour it onto the dehydrator tray, and wait till the next round to collect the dried material and repeat. Then take the nice light-weight , non-smelly, buckets to the garden where I use them directly or save until needed without making a stink.

Permaculculture methods are not a one-fits-all approach since everyone has a slightly different setup, so I am not promoting this as the next great idea so much as just sharing what works for me. I’m achieving some of the goals of composting (cooking pathogens and getting rid of the ammonia) and even though I’m not diluting the salts, I’m not really concerned about it since I side-dress and usually add at the same time as other organic materials.

Could you improve it by not having to scrape the pen clean?
Could a removable plate, membrane or sheet be slid out, rolled up or lifted and another put inits place?
Will your dehydrated chook poo still 'burn' plants?

John C Daley wrote:Could you improve it by not having to scrape the pen clean?
Could a removable plate, membrane or sheet be slid out, rolled up or lifted and another put inits place?
Will your dehydrated chook poo still 'burn' plants?

I see what you're getting with improvements, but as it stands now it's pretty ergonomic to scrape the "poo board" off into a bucket. I use a hoe with a short handle.

My chemistry on this is not the best, but it's my understanding that the ammonia in fresh manure is what delivers the overly-potent nitrogen which burns plants. And that ammonia is converted to more mellow forms of nitrogen by composting, or dissipated by exposure to heat/air/time like I am doing. So I accept that I may not be getting the full fertilizer benefits that I would from composted manure, but I feel I have a fair trade off.

Dehydrated chook manure is commercially available now as a fertilizer and claims to not burn plants, so in part, I'm taking their word for it :)

Have you been able to test its ability to grow great plants?

I saw a guy that has a youtube channel that dehydrates his food waste to be used to feed his soil.  

I wish I could ask him if this is not taking the value of the good stuff that is in compost away from the equation.  

The bacteria and fungi.

I feel this guy is just making dehydrated food.

I guess once he adds the dehydrated food to his soil then it will compost?  So how long will it take the dehydrated food to build the soil?

Maybe making compost tea would work better for him?

This is an interesting idea. I would be a little concerned by making chicken poop so dry that it could get airborne, as I can't imagine that would be good to breath, but its an interesting method to get it into a form that can be used on the garden.

I am there with you that compost can get complicated. I've tried and I don't do a very good job with it, though I am still trying :)

Another suggestion that might be even easier is patience. There are microbes in the dirt that help break down manure. This step is delayed by dehydrating the manure. If you don't want to do full on composting, you could try simply putting it on the ground and covering it over with a thin layer of dirt. Give it a month. By then, I imagine the manure would be broken down far enough to use it safely on the garden. I actually did even less. I put my chickens on my garden plot for a few weeks. they cleared it and fertilized it. I just let it sit for a month, without doing anything to it whatsoever. I just let the sun/air/rain/microbes do their thing. Then I loosened the soil and planted. My beans and weeds did great. My zucchini did not, but I don't think that was the chicken manure. I had gotten a really late start.

I don't want to cause massive thread drift, but maybe look at the deep litter method.  Then you never have to do anything at all with chicken poop.  I switched to it and I won't be switching back to anything else as far as I can predict right now.

Trace Oswald wrote:I don't want to cause massive thread drift, but maybe look at the deep litter method.  Then you never have to do anything at all with chicken poop.  I switched to it and I won't be switching back to anything else as far as I can predict right now.

Doesn't work for me. Coop is small and not earth floor, birds free range a pasture, and I want to use my chicken poop for fertilizer elsewhere on the property. Those birds have to still pay me in something during the winter months when they're just freeloading and not laying many eggs :)

Matt Todd wrote:

Trace Oswald wrote:I don't want to cause massive thread drift, but maybe look at the deep litter method.  Then you never have to do anything at all with chicken poop.  I switched to it and I won't be switching back to anything else as far as I can predict right now.

Doesn't work for me. Coop is small and not earth floor, birds free range a pasture, and I want to use my chicken poop for fertilizer elsewhere on the property. Those birds have to still pay me in something during the winter months when they're just freeloading and not laying many eggs :)

I understand.  Different strokes for different folks.  I would tell you that a dirt floor isn't necessary (I don't have a dirt floor either).  If your birds are free range, that poop is already "lost" as an addition elsewhere.  I started the deep litter method because of the winter months.  Those are the months my birds spend the most time in the coop and so I can make the most of the deep litter.  By spring, it's perfect material for moving to the gardens.  I'm a firm believer that people should find what works for them and use what they are comfortable with, so if your method works for you, it is the perfect system in your case.  That's the great thing about all of this.  There are lots of great ways to get where we are all going :)