Raising Back Yard Chickens to live more Green!

In our efforts to live more eco-friendly and sustainable we dove into raising back yard chickens this year. It has been a great adventure. While our chickens have been giving us beautiful eggs, they have also been giving us a lot of poo! Keeping poo in their area isn’t good for them as there can be a build up of things like ammonia.  While we tried the deep litter method of adding yard clippings to their coop and then run area we ended up with flies. It wasn’t working right for us or we simply don’t have the right set up. I am willing to admit maybe we even some how managed to not do a simple method correctly but I don’t think that was the case. So we came up with another method that lets us clean up every day. We put a shelf with sand under their night roosting bars and it catches the majority of the waist they produce each night. With chicken poo in the yard is great as it is spread out and rain helps it nourish the grass, it building up in the coop wasn’t good!

Did you know each hen produces 2 cubing feet of poo every year? 

Make chicken poop into garden gold!

Chicken manure gives Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium to plants. It is better in these way than even horse and cow manure! This is specially great for vegetables! It can burn and kill plants though it is not composted first. Composting can take 6 – 9 months. It is also helpful to compost for this amount of time because some manure can carry diseases. Remember all those broccoli and lettuce recalls? It is in my opinion always best to compost well, even if you know your chickens are healthy! 

1 Part Chicken Waste to 1 part greens!

There is no one perfect way to compost. Relax! Remember that composting is decomposing, something that happens naturally! When helping nature out with this task though there are a few things to remember.

Keep things chemical free!

Mix Greens and Browns!

Chicken Manure is a Green so balance with some of these Browns: Chicken bedding like hay or straw, shavings. Hedge trimmings, dried garden plants, leaves, pine needles. 

Other greens you can add are: Weeds, Kitchen Scraps, grass clippings, Fresh Water Aquarium water and more!

Don’t put in compost:

Dog, cat, pig, and reptile manures. Meats, dairy products, bones, and fish decompose slowly, smell, and attract animals.

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Wish us luck in our composting adventures! We look forward to chemical free (I know everything is a chemical but you understand the label!) garden fertilizer come spring!