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Chicken Bedding
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Posted by
Andredep none (
My Page) on
Tue, Jun 12, 12 at 0:30
| I have a lot of hot chicken bedding and am wondering if there are any ways to speed up the time it takes to compost it. I would like to use it this summer in my gardens. Thanks |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Chicken Bedding
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| Add enough high carbon material so you have about 3 parts high carbon to 1 part manure and mix that material well. Monitor that material and each time the temperature starts to drop turn it and remix the stuff to promote digestion. Monitor the moisture level and add more water when neccessary, but do not wet (soak) that material. The link below tells how to make compost in 14 days. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Compost in 14 days
RE: Chicken Bedding
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| I clean out my chicken houses once a year. They're pretty well composted by then. It's called Deep Litter poultry management. |
RE: Chicken Bedding
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| Oh, perhaps the manure isn't from your own chickens? |
Here is a link that might be useful: If it is, consider this method of management:
RE: Chicken Bedding
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| Annpat, is the deep litter method in just the run or the house too? We just started our chicken adventure with 4 girls this year. Thanks. |
RE: Chicken Bedding
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Back when we had chickens we used the deep litter method using tree leaves. When we cleaned the coop out in the spring it was not all composted, even the year we used straw, so the litter went into the compost bins.
Simply because of the potential of disease from manures I would always compost them before they went on the soil my food grew in. |
RE: Chicken Bedding
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- Posted by corrine1 7b Pacific Northwest (My Page) on
Mon, Jun 18, 12 at 17:13
tishtoshnm,
To answer your question: the deep litter method is inside the coop(dry house) not the outside run (playground). Andredep,
It's possible to get it decomposed enough to be used as mulch this summer on your garden. If ratio of bedding to manure is high enough and you have the volume to build about a 4 foot square mound moistening layers, cover, & then turn it often keeping it moist ... then when it is dark & crumbly, no longer smells or heats up you could use it. Best to use a thin layer as mulch & not dig it into the soil. Chicken manure is strong fertilizer & at the end of the season not the best idea for gardens. Another method we've done is dig a pit & put the moist bedding in it, then spread on the garden after fall harvesting. Works great as sheet mulch & the pit keeps the flies off it in summer. |
RE: Chicken Bedding
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| It was my understanding (and is how I've been doing it for 2 years) that you can do deep litter on any dirt floor--which is how my run is. Works great! |
RE: Chicken Bedding
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| The deep litter method can be done on a wooden floor, too. After I empty my (mostly) composted litter every spring, I put a new bag or two of shavings in my houses and start over. Anytime the house starts to have an unpleasant odor, I add new bedding of leaves, straw or shavings. I toss lots of lobster shells (with meat particles attached), whole pumpkins, weeds, seaweed, etc. into the house for treats, which also aid in the composting process. I use most of the spring litter directly on my garden, but I put a lot of it in the compost piles, and, because I love my brother, I give him a big pile of manure every spring. |
RE: Chicken Bedding
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| Annpat, you're a good sister. There's no way I'd share my manure with my sister! Good to know that deep litter method can also be used in the coop. tishtoshnm, deep litter works great in a covered run too. |
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