When I was a kid, I used very fresh chicken manure which I tilled into my gardens in the spring, because I didn't know any better. It contained far more manure (and dead chickens yuk) than shavings. I got it from a friend's father whom I now realize must have been running a horrible chicken mill.

I never like to discuss chicken manure, because my results using fresh manure run counter to conventional wisdom. I had fabulous gardens. I never saw plants burnt except one time and I never sacrificed flowering for lush growth. I took an organic gardening class in 1973 and that instructor told us that we could use fresh manure without fear of "burn" if we waited three weeks before planting. So I did that and it always worked swell for me. Of course I was hauling the manure in a Volkswagon so it wasn't as much as ten years later when I married a man with a dump truck, a man who never did anything, as a neighbor once said, in half-measures. That first year of our marriage, our 50x100' garden got about four or five one-ton dumptruck loads of relatively fresh chicken manure. My new husband knew I liked chicken manure and he aimed to please. It took me forever to spread that manure around and one pile in my husband's half of the garden sat there until June before I got it dispersed. He planted his tomatoes. Within a week, they keeled over. He bought and planted more. Four days later, dead. He planted peppers. Two weeks later they were frazzled little plants and had to be pulled. Everything he planted in that circle died. My half was fine, my half was gorgeous, the neighbors praised mine and looked askance at Francis's, my half being where the manure got barrowed to, instead of dumped on.

That was the last year my ex-husband allowed chicken manure on our property. We used cow from that year on. I think chicken manure is the cat's meow, and every time I find myself sitting in the vet's office, red-faced, with a chicken on my lap, I think how much I'd have to pay for manure if I had to buy it. What I do not think about---ever---is the $56 dollars a dozen our eggs average us now that I own chickens.

* the deep litter method

He dumped about 200 pounds into my school bin of fall leaves. I was right there, so we were able to layer the leaves and the manure and 6 weeks later we have finished compost! However, at my house, he dumped about 600 pounds of wet, caked, chicken manure mixed with spilt grain right on top of my little pile of leaves. It was ripe.
I fought the pile for about a week trying to calm it down and searched out sources of brown to cool it off and dampen the smell. I finally found two small straw bales and was able to layer it out and get the manure cooled off. I lost a lot of nitrogen via ammonia in the first two weeks, but now, I am nearing almost finished compost.
It did get hot enough to turn orange peels into what looked like ash in less than 5 days!

So, mix in the browns and enjoy!