Using Chicken Manure in the Garden

Chickens offer many benefits for the backyard garden- and using chicken manure in the garden is a no-brainer!! If you're already raising a flock, it's a FREE, all-natural, high nitrogen fertilizer, as well as a soil improver. Learn how to easily convert your flock's waste into garden gold in this second video in a series on utilizing chickens in the garden.

𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐎𝐦𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐄𝐠𝐥𝐮 𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐩 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞:

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00:00 Intro
00:37 Benefits of Chicken Manure
01:47 Step 1- Consider Your Bedding
02:14 Step 2- Decide on Your Composting Method
02:26 Hot Composting
05:49 Cold Composting
07:12 Tricks to Make the Process Easier!

[yooptrooper]

I do NOT compost my chicken manure/straw, and have never had any issues with disease or crop burn. But, it does have time to break down before I plant. As soon as my garden beds have thawed enough to work the soil, I will clean out the coop, spreading the manure in my garden bed rows, then shallow-till it into the top 3-4 inches of soil. This is usually around the last week in April. I generally do not plant seeds until late May, and put in starts (tomatoes, brocc, cauli, cabbage, peppers, etc. the second week in June, which is after the last frost. The 3-5 weeks is plenty of time for the manure to break down, de-concentrate, and compost prior to planting. The ground is so rich, I have grown 7 foot tall sweet corn in it. I am zone 3/4a, so my growing season is short at best, and have lost tomato plants in the 1st week of June several times. If one has the time, resources, and set-up, composting is the way to go; but don't be afraid to just till it in if you have time to let it break down a bit in the soil.

[musaadfelton]

"You're never too old to play in the dirt" 🙃 lovely words. Being in the garden and working outside always makes a person feel younger and relieves so much stress. Don't you just love standing back and just taking a deep breath out in the early morning sun or late afternoon in summer when the sun is setting. So refreshing. What a beautiful lady.

[mattcook]

Love love love! Thank you for posting all that you do! I am pataskala and hope to have such a beautiful garden as you do. I grew up working at Slater Run Historical farm and at 45 years old have finally purchased an 8-1/2 acer property to love out this dream of growing my own food with abundance. The sky is the limit! With the content you produce here it will make it easier and give me confidence to move forward. As of the first year we have 26 chickens and a small 10 x 20 garden. Next year the moon. I am planning a 40 x 60 garden and have fenced in a 2 acer plot for sheep. Love what you are doing!! Maybe I should record my journey and Inspire as you are doing, that is a ton of extra work, I appreciate what you are doing.
Matt

[Fireinthesky]

Hi Jenna ! 😀When I began gardening, I used to make hot composting in a very conscientious manner. But quickly I realized that very well aged compost disappears relatively fast during spring/summer when soil biological activity is at its maximum. This made me think I would prefer to make compost last longer for the nutrients to be available to microorganisms and plants progressively and during the whole growing season. Plus, during the composting process some elements/nutrients are necessarily lost (in gaseous form due to the produced heat during decomposition, by leaching with the rain, etc). Since then, I switched to a simpler and lazier method which is surface composting. I spread some compost during automn. Then, around April and again in July as mulch to protect the soil and prevent evaporation. I have to mention I use horse manure which is quite dry and contains lot of straw. I do the same with kitchen scraps and garden waste. Now I only use very well aged compost in smaller quantities when vegetables require soil with fine structure, carrots for instance. This saves a lot of time and energy. And I think it makes sense to make work microorganisms directly in the soil and develop biological activity where we grow our plants, rather than in the compost pile. Until now I never got nitrogen hunger.

[DavidBrown-iiwi]

Just subscribed a week or two ago as I saw ZONE 6. I too live in Ohio with clay soils. Thanks for the tips and knowhow. Chickens, some Comfrey, and grass clipping are my garden's source of fertilizer as well.

[doityourselflivinggardenin]

Firstly, there is nothing "wrong " with either of your methods. Obviously they work because you get good results. Thank you for sharing!

My method is the odd one, in which I use a combination of techniques to get the job done. I always have a cold pile of chicken manure going. By springtime it is a nice large pile that has aged, albeit in a cold environment. Rain will have washed some of the nutrients away and some of it is already breaking down. In this pile of manure I have layers of brown cardboard from shipping boxes. Where I differ the most is that I will mix 50/50 the cold composted manure with fresh manure for spring planting. This mixture is chopped up to be fairly light and is laid down lightly over the row after the seeds are planted. It is then sprayed down into the soil with a garden hose so only the wood shavings remain on top. I do not use this mixture in the walkways. Once the seeds sprout and are about 4 to 5 inches tall, I mulch around the plants with grass clippings. This mulch keeps the manure down where the microbes can easily get to it and brings nutrients down around the roots. Over time, the mulch also breaks down. I do not get bad pathogens. The plants are not harvested for months. If I plant starts, I spread a light layer of this manure mixture around the plant and immediately spray it down into the soil well. I follow this with a thick layer of grass clippings to keep the manure down below. The plants are not harvested for a long time, and if they are greens, the bottom half is not harvested at all. Yes, I grow my greens tall. No micro-greens with this method.

The plants do NOT burn from this manure mixture. There is too much on the internet about fresh manure burning plants. Yeah, if you put down two solid inches of manure, a lot of bad things can happen. The same thing will happen if you put down two inches of commercial fertilizer. Use common sense. Break up the manure so there are no big clods and then spread it lightly and evenly. Now water it in well. It works like magic! And for corn, you can spread it on either side of the stalks (when they are 2 to 3 feet tall) and then water it in well, without any additional mulch. Watch the corn stalks leap toward the sky! One stalk ripened 4 ears of corn this year.

I do a cereal rye grain cover crop in the fall. In the spring when it is waist high it is mowed and immediately tilled-in to protect the nutrients from evaporating. The garden is planted 10 days afterward.

This method is safe if you do the steps correctly and don't skip any part of it. Watering the manure into the soil is very important. Mulching on top of the manure is important. What is great about this method is that most of the nutrients are not lost to composting. The nutrients go directly into the soil biome where the good bacteria and fungus overpower the bad pathogens. Your soil health will improve and your vegetables will grow like they are on steroids. No commercial fertilizers will be needed and no other soil amendments will be required. There will be no bad smell in the garden.

If you are afraid of this method, then do not do it. You could also try it first in a flower bed to gain some experience with it. If you sell veggies, then you may not want to use this method if you have not gained experience from using it for a couple years. It does work, but requires that you pay attention to what you are doing. It isn't any different than using over the counter medications. If you don't follow the directions, bad things can happen. And again, this method should not be used for micro-greens because the leaves are too close to the ground and are harvested too soon.

With the war in Ukraine, there is going to be less commercial fertilizer available. It is in your best interest to begin to find new ways to safely provide nutrients to your garden. This YouTuber gave you two ways and I gave you another. They all work, but all require some amount of work that is not required with commercial fertilizers. However, the soil health will be much better, your veggies will be more nutritious, and it is more sustainable.

Happy gardening!

[amjadiqbal]

I watched your video carefully regarding using chicken manure in the garden . I appreciate your work very much in the interest small poultry farmer who are also orchard or garden. they can use this idea for better purpose of manure. Good luck for you.

[heatherannekennedy]

Great information! Thank you! I miss having backyard chickens - they were so much fun! Time to build another coop I think!

[TheTrock]

We have a different system that works for our situation. We spread about 4" of wood chips in the slightly sloped chicken run in the Spring and throw a lot of weeds and kitchen scraps for the chickens to eat during the Year. They mix everything up and by the Fall, the half composted wood chip mixture is ready to be mixed w/ more greens to finish composting in the compost bins. This produces about 2 yards of compost/year in addtion to an additional yard of manure compost that we make separately.

[michaeljones]

I found the deep litter method and the cold composting are the easiest combination to use and I also make what I call " fresh pootie" to pour directly around whatever need a little extra love🤣

[theseeker]

Yarrow leaves are good compost activators as well. 1 yarrow leaf can spead up decomposition of an entire compost pile by half time (source The Complete Herb Book).

[doyourbest.]

In September i put manuer in the garden rows in trenches and let stand till Dec. Apply a topping of dry straw (after a good rain) and burn the straw, then plow and wait until time to plant.


At this same time the chickens are prepared for winter. Their coop is cleaned and sprayed with soap and spray bleech and let dry on a good sunshine low humidity day...top with deep straw...I check all my heat lamps ands prep for cold winter temps.

Also in March I repeat cleaning the chicken coop.

[johac]

I use rice hulls, peat moss as coop litter, it's economical, and easy to clean, I get a huge trailer load of cow manure, alfalfa pellet plant waste, tree service wood chips, and no special layering, want to source a truck load of chicken manure from a egg producer,
You have soil there in the midwest, here in AZ we have less than .5 % organic matter, so it takes a huge amount, but it's working here, my pile is like a large gravel truck load, composts over a year,

[ironleatherwood]

I do the deep little method also. I don't add extra but after 6 months I have amazing dirt. Then I put it aside for 4 to six months before putting it on a garden bed that I am growing food in.

[naturegirlmia]

Couldn't AGREE manure, AH, I mean MORE!! Our hens get moved bed to bed in the Fall and WOW you sure can tell what bed they worked in by the Veggies!!! Great Video, Gal!!!

[johnjude]

Grandpa Jude taught
Get a lard can fill first quarter of sand
fill second quarter with old chicken poop
Fill third quarter with sand..
Put 3 holes equal space near bottom on the sides about 12 penny nail diameter.
Place containers one a hill for melons plant 1 seed 2 inches from each hole .
Add water in can letting it directly water each seed daily until melons starts to ripen .
Thanks Lady

[XHollisWood]

Great compost recipe, Thank You Jenna for the expert touch. 👏

[franksinatra]

Wow Jenn you have a lot of chickens :)

[craigdreisbach]

Great video Jenna. I use my chicken manure and employ the cold method. I have 2 piles started 1 year apart. After one year I use the compost while starting the second. What's amazing to me is that the chickens can even eat animal bones...feed your chickens a leftover chicken or turkey drumstick. It will be gone within 48 hours. This amazes me but it keeps these leftovers out of the trash or unnecessary handling of them. Kind Regards. Craig

[robertbecton]

Love the shirt! I keep our chickens in a large run, , deep litter, I get to harvest their coop and also run litter, they cycle and process 2 Arborist truck loads of wood chips a year. I get about 10 wheelbarrow loads of material to compost each month. I wait for them to go to bed and clean in out at night. My compost is in the garden area and thanks for pointing out the pathogen possibility, hadn't considered it. Doubtful, but it is close so will move it out. Thanks, enjoy your videos.