Chicken manure is one of the best nitrogen laden and phosphorus heavy fertilizers you can obtain from domestic livestock. I'm attempting to put together a bunch of information on chicken manure to spread better understanding of it! Feel free to reply with your own observations.
If you keep chickens, then you know that chickens poop often. It is reported that chickens may poop every twenty to thirty minutes. For every pound of feed, you can expect roughly half a pound of manure. Chicken poop contain two main distinguishable parts. One part is the brown manure material and the other part are white urates. The urates deteriorate into uric acid which offgasses nitrogen in the form of ammonia gas. Chickens also pass what is called 'cecal' poop three or four times a day which is notable for not having a urate portion but is especially smelly. According to Wikipedia, chickens produce between eight to eleven pounds of manure monthly. Fresh chicken manure contains about 76% water content when fresh from the chicken. Chicken manure contains high levels of mineral content, partially thankful to the grinding action of their gizzard and the rock contents inside.
Fresh chicken manure can be generally considered to have a 1.1-0.8-0.5 NPK ratio. The high level of nitrogen found in chicken manure can burn plants if applied to a garden space. Chicken manure utilizes 50%-75% of its nitrogen in the first year of application. Chicken manure is commonly advised to undergo a composting process before being utilized as a garden amendment. This not only allows the excess nitrogen to stabilize but also destroy any weed seeds that survived going through the bird's gizzard.
Composting Chicken Manure
Putting chicken manure through the composting process allows us to obtain a material that will help plants grow without damaging them. Chicken manure has a carbon/nitrogen (C/N) of around 10:1, which is considered a 'hot' material. Good compost utilizes a C/N ratio of 30:1 for reference. To compost chicken manure, more carbon needs to be introduced to allow the manure to mellow out. For some, this could be the litter that the manure is commonly mixed with that is cleaned from their living areas. I have another thread specifically on the different forms of Pine Bedding that can be encountered as a litter choice. I tend to supplement leaves myself for additional carbon when forming my compost piles. How fast you will have a usable product depends on how much effort you want to put in maintaining the piles. If you frequently flip the pile and ensure it retains moisture, you could have a usable product in a few months. Less frequent, you are looking at six months to a year.
Nutrient Breakdown
Nitrogen - 1.1%
Phosphorus- 0.8%
Potassium- 0.5%
Chicken manure contains all (13) essential plant nutrients required for growth (Source). The manure also contains secondary nutrients and micronutrients such as sulfur, iron, boron, chlorine, zinc, and a few others.
A wheelbarrow full of chicken litter.
Benefits
A nitrogen and phosphorus heavy ingredient for compost or 'tea' fertilizer.
Chicken manure acts as both a quick and slow release fertilizer
Increases organic matter in soil.
Can be utilized in mushroom cultivation.
Can increase a soils moisture retention ability.
Can increase a soil's cation exchange capacity (CEC).
Contains all thirteen necessary nutrients for plant growth.
Can act a liming agent (Raise PH from acidic soils)
Considerations
Can burn plants if applied fresh due to high nitrogen content.
Can contain unwanted viable seeds after digestion.
Ammonia off gassing can be smelly.
Improper handling can lead to nutrient runoff.
Fresh chicken manure can contain pathogens that can be harmful to human health. Safe handling practices are advised.
Chickens have an incredible ability to turn a diet of primarily forage into a valuable garden amendment. While out on pasture, their manure enriches the soil for the next burst of plant growth when the hens are eventually rotated to a new area. The coop collects their manure in a 'carbon diaper' of shavings to eventually be composted and put on productive spaces. It provides a great opportunity to get another bang-for-your-buck when it comes to extracting value from chicken ownership.
Chicken Manure compared to Composted Chicken Manure
When it comes to my own practice, I never am handling chicken manure alone as a resource. It is, usually, as a part of a litter combination. I tend to have chicken manure, pine shavings, feathers, lime/zeolite, and who knows what else all mixed together as a product. Chicken litter can vary widely in content and how broken down it is when it is pulled from my coop. I tend to follow a composting process before spreading it out to be used in productive spaces.
I have read about chicken litter that is spread, when appropriate, onto fields to improve them for crops. The nutrient content of the litter is severely effected by how it is stored. If the litter is not covered and exposed to moisture, it can lose up to 30% of its nitrogen just from off-gassing/runoff. Traditional poultry litter handling involves an emphasis on proper litter storage and dispersal. On my home scale, I make sure there is plenty of carbon in the mixture as it composts in hopes of tying up some of the free nitrogen. Where my chicken run is, I strategically plant comfrey with the idea of capturing even more runoff nutrients. This way 'lost' nutrient from manure in the immediate environment can still be utilized in a sense.
My chicken coop litter is used to top dress annual beds over winter or perennial plants anytime.
I wonder if there is a covering,like soil or still more carbon,that will prevent off gassing?
William Bronson wrote: I wonder if there is a covering,like soil or still more carbon,that will prevent off gassing?
One of my current research/backyard experiments involves utilizing biochar as a nutrient binder on and in my chicken litter. Biochar has shown the ability to absorb ammonia both in gas and liquid form. Microbes, as they colonize the biochar, can feed on nitrogen and help tie it up. I have been reading about chicken farms adding alum to litter in order to prevent volatilization of ammonia which led to the thought of using biochar instead! The following quote is from a study on the potential benefit of biochar added to chicken litter for composting.
The use of biochar as bulking agent for the composting of poultry manure allows to optimise the process by reducing odour emissions and the losses of N as well as producing mature composts with a balanced nutrient composition.Study Source
At a minimum, I would think a cap of carbon would at least help minimize what is leaking out. A potential better control would be limiting how much moisture can get into the pile. If you keep the moisture low, you are less likely to run into issues with runoff.
Traditionally I've used leaves as the litter in my coops,but I keep wood pellets around for use in the rabbits hutch.
I was out of leaves and switched to the pellets, with good results.
They are so adsorbent(absorbent?) it really keeps the odors in check.
Hopefully this dryness is also preventing off gassing.
The other reason I have pellets is for use in TLUDs, so switching to biochar or adding biochar to the mix should be easy.
I must say, I have never had the patience or the skill to compost. Also, I'm not strong enough to turn large piles [and I could have very large piles] of manure.
Knowing that, yes, it could burn plants, I've resolved to add a handful here, a handful there, never against the trunk or the stem of a plant. Adding it in the spring is more problematic because it is then quite "raw". Instead, I put some on top of the snow [Which is not recommended for farmers who have large fields and many cows. It is even absolutely "verboten!"
As I mentioned before, I use "poop boards" under each roost, which enables me to gather just the poop and keep the litter in good condition almost all winter[4-5 months]
I try to apply litter first and then straight poop. I have not burned any plants yet. But, yes, you have to be careful.
With 30 layer chickens, I get about 2 homer pails a week, When you know the price of fertilizer, that's a lot of good stuff, not to be squandered!
With this method, I can add a bit of poop to my plants all along the year.
In the Fall, I also go hunting for leaves in town: The municipalities demand that folks rake and bag their leaves. I just go and ask if I could, please, and I've never been turned down. [Well, once, yes: She was saving them for her daughter...]
Between the leaves [about 100 bags i a good year, my chicken manure and the wood chips litter, I'm set!
$10.00 is a donation. $1,000 is an investment, $1,000,000 is a purchase.
Here's a place I took a tip from permaculture ideas, and put the coop above the garden so i could drag the bedding out to the compost piles above the garden--not too far and downhill. What I normally do is a few "mini-cleanings, especially in summer when they spend more time outside, in between a full cleaning. A mini-cleaning is when I use a hoe to pull the poopy litter from below the roosts down onto the floor and replace it with fresh. About three times year I follow that up with raking and sweeping what's built up on the floor out to a tarp, which I then drag to a compost pile. I time thgis operation to coincide with turning the pile from one bin to the other, so i can dump the tarp onto a foot of compost, then add another layer of compost, then get the second tarp load to layer on, and end with the half-finished compost from the bottom of the bin. I hope this layering with compost helps with the leaching problem.
But I gotta note, from what I've read, manure from goats, sheep, alpacas and rabbits are higher in all the nutrient and yet you can use them right away. Whereas manure from cows, horses and pigs are lower than chicken manure and yet need the same six months' composting.
My preference is to let chicken manure fall as nature intended it. Having chickens in a movable pen or chicken tractor means you move the chickens not the manure. Much cleaner and healthier if they are on fresh ground each day.
Chickens are willing to work for their input so letting them cultivate or harvest also makes them healthier and happier with your input contributing to their output for the lands benefit. Eggs and meat being the permaculture excess to share.
Chicken (and other avian creatures) have two parts to their excrement that leave their body. The brown part of the manure (the feces) comes from the chicken's digestive system after foodstuffs travel from beak to tail. The second part of a chickens excrement are urates that look white and chalky which comes from the filtration action of the kidneys. Chickens do not pee like us, their body excretes a more solid mass with their feces instead. Urates are a crystalline substance that are composed mostly of uric acid. This uric acid is a high-nitrogen component of the manure. Fresh chicken manure has roughly 75% moisture content when first deposited. This rapidly drops with exposure to the environment. Dried chicken manure drops down to around 20%-40% moisture content.
86% of the nitrogen found in chicken manure exists in a non-bioavailable form. The rest exists as ammonium and nitrate which can be utilized immediately by plants. A note, ammonium can be lost to atmospheric conditions in a process known as volatilization if the conditions are right. Hot, dry, and windy conditions can encourage volatilization. Microbial activity will unlock the rest of the non-bioavailable nitrogen over time for plant use.
Chicken Digestive Diagram
Some more chicken biology for you, chicken's have two different forms of excreting their waste. The manure, mentioned above, is the normal form of their excrement. Chickens will also produce something called cecal droppings. At the junction of the large and small intestines, chickens have two pouches that are referred to as the cecum. My understanding of their role is that it is multifaceted. It helps with the absorption of salts and fluids, ferments foodstuffs, and provides a haven for digestive microbes. Roughly, every eight to twelve hours the contents of these pouches is released and expelled by the bird. This excrement has especially active microbiology contained in it as well as nutrients.
I finally have my chicken composting down. When I clean out the deep litter coop, usually only once a year, I scoop the litter right out into the run where the chickens go through it all again. It gets rained on. I spread feed out in it for them to dig around. I add lots of grass and weed clippings to it, every couple days when I can. After a few months of doing that, it is turned into amazing soil. It's rich, black, smells amazing, and no turning on my part. It gets sifted and goes straight to the gardens.
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