Using Chicken Manure Fertilizer In Your Garden

When it comes to manures, there is none more desired for the vegetable garden than chicken manure. Chicken manure for vegetable garden fertilizing is excellent, but there are some things you need to know about it in order to use it correctly. Keep reading to learn more about chicken manure compost and how to use it in the garden.

Using Chicken Manure as Garden Fertilizer

Nadia Hassani is a a Penn State Master Gardener with nearly 20 years of experience in landscaping, garden design, and vegetable and fruit gardening.

Kathleen Miller is a highly-regarded Master Gardener and horticulturist with over 30 years of experience in organic gardening, farming, and landscape design. She founded Gaia’s Farm and Gardens, a working sustainable permaculture farm, and writes for Gaia Grows, a local newspaper column.

Chicken manure is one of the best nutrient boosts you can give your soil. But not all chicken manure is created equal. You can buy bags of organic chicken manure at a garden center. Or, if you have neighbors who raise chickens organically, ask them for some of the manure.

Here’s the scoop on what’s also known as “black gold” from the coop:

What Is Chicken Manure?

Also referred to as poultry manure, chicken manure is an excellent source of nutrients. Its nitrogen and phosphorus content is at least twice as high as that of other farm manures such as cow manure.

In addition to chicken droppings, chicken manure contains everything else that gets swiped up when a chicken coop is cleaned out: urine, feathers, leftover feed, and coop bedding material such as straw and hay, pine or cedar shavings, grass clippings, shredded leaves, and recycled paper. That’s why the NPK ratio in chicken manure varies greatly.

The percentage of chicken feces and other materials is not the only variable in the nutrient content. The age of the chickens and the way the chickens are raised also plays a role.

The Benefits of Chicken Manure

As a non-synthetic organic fertilizer, chicken manure has numerous benefits. It is a complete fertilizer that contains the macronutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, as well as important micronutrients such as calcium needed for healthy plant growth.

Chicken manure is more than a fertilizer though. It is also a good soil amendment; it adds organic matter to the soil, which improves soil structure, moisture-holding, drainage capability, and aeration. Also, soil high in organic matter is less prone to erosion and retains fertilizer better.

The organic matter in chicken manure has another benefit: it feeds soil microbes allowing organic nutrients to break down faster, which in turn makes them available to plants more quickly.

The Difference Between Bagged and Fresh Manure

Chicken manure comes in two types: commercially processed or fresh. The bags you can buy at your local garden center are dried and pulverized or pelletized chicken manure. On a weight-for-weight basis, dried manure is more concentrated than fresh manure, which contains up to 76% water. Dried manure has usually been sterilized and it’s odor-free.

Fresh manure from a backyard chicken coop or a farm on the other hand, has a strong smell and may contain harmful pathogens such as E. coli or Salmonella. Unlike dried manure, it cannot be used as such but must be composted or aged before it is applied, or else the high ammonia content will burn the plants.

Tip

Chicken manure from conventionally raised chickens could be contaminated with antibiotics. There is little research available about the amount of residue from antibiotics in aged chicken manure. Using only organic chicken manure is the safer option.

How to Age Chicken Manure

The goal of aging fresh manure is to destroy harmful pathogens and reduce its ammonia content. The pathogens in the manure stop reproducing at temperatures of 140 to 160 degrees F, a temperature that can be reached in a compost pile.

A common method of aging manure is to compost it. This requires the compost pile to be turned weekly to introduce oxygen and shield it from the elements, as rain or snow will reintroduce more moisture. A compost pile with manure should be far away from your garden and other areas of your yard with human traffic, such as children’s play areas, to prevent contamination from the runoff.

After five to six weeks, the resulting aged manure is more compact, drier, and lighter. The nutrients in it have been stabilized so they will be slowly released once you add the aged manure to your garden soil.

How and When to Apply Chicken Manure

Here again, processed manure in bags is different from composted aged manure.

Bagged chicken manure can be applied any time. Trees and shrubs are usually fertilized in spring. Flower beds and vegetables are fertilized in the spring and repeatedly throughout the growing season. For specific amounts, follow the instructions on the label.

If using composted aged manure, the timing is much more restricted. For trellised or staked crops where the fruit has no contact with the soil, such as tomatoes or beans, the manure needs to be applied at least 90 days before harvest. For crops that have contact with the soil—all root vegetables, strawberries, and leafy vegetables—the manure must be applied at least 120 days before harvest. Counting back from the expected harvest date, this translates into a late winter or early spring application for most locations. Apply 45 pounds of aged manure per 100 square feet.

No matter what type of chicken manure you are using, make sure to work it evenly into the soil. And remember to always wear gloves when handling manure.

Using Chicken Manure Fertilizer In Your Garden

When it comes to manures, there is none more desired for the vegetable garden than chicken manure. Chicken manure for vegetable garden fertilizing is excellent, but there are some things you need to know about it in order to use it correctly. Keep reading to learn more about chicken manure compost and how to use it in the garden.

Using Chicken Manure for Vegetable Garden Fertilizer

Natural fertilizers are an excellent way to protect the environment and still deliver the nutrients plants require. Chicken manure fertilizer is one of the bigger byproducts of raising hens. The average hen produces 1 cubic foot (0.03 cubic meters) of manure every 6 months. Even if you don’t keep chickens yourself, manure may be purchased at a reasonable cost from someone who does.

While it is possible for chicken manure to contain pathogens, in most cases it is an effective way to fertilize plants.

Is Chicken Poop Good Fertilizer?

Composted chicken manure delivers loads of nutrients and minerals to plants. But as with everything, it should be used in the manner least likely to cause any problems.

Poultry manure contains slow release macro and micronutrients, as well as high amounts of calcium, zinc, sulfur, and magnesium. Using chicken manure compost returns organic matter back to the land and prevents waste.

Chicken manure fertilizer is very high in nitrogen and also contains a good amount of potassium and phosphorus. The high nitrogen and balanced nutrients are the reason that chicken manure compost is the best kind of manure to use.

But the high nitrogen in the chicken manure is dangerous to plants if the manure has not been properly composted. Fresh manure can burn, and even kill plants. Composting chicken manure mellows the nitrogen and makes the manure suitable for the garden.

Un-composted poultry litter should be worked into the soil where the ammonium released is quickly converted to NO3-N, an important plant nutrient. Potassium and phosphorus levels vary but are estimated to be 80 percent of that available in a commercial fertilizer.

Other Benefits of Chicken Manure Fertilizer

Outside of the nutritional benefits, chicken manure is a great soil amendment. It can improve soil structure, thereby enhancing water retention. It also increases the soil’s ability to hold nutrients. Chicken manure incorporated into soil will enhance aeration and drainage. The further breakdown of the product will fuel microbe activity and soil diversity. This in turn hastens the breakdown of other organic material.

Chicken fertilizer will also lighten clay soils by preventing the particles from binding together. Using fresh, un-composted litter that is less than 6 weeks old will return 40-70 percent of the nitrogen back into the soil. This is an excellent way to prepare vegetable beds several weeks prior to planting.

As a side dress, composted manure provides a gentle, slow release of necessary nutrients. In gardens where chickens are allowed to free range, their waste is a bonus for plants, provided it isn’t allowed to accumulate to excess.

Composting Chicken Manure

Gardeners who have their own flock will have a ready supply of fresh chicken manure, but it still needs to be composted before adding it to garden beds. Composting manure is similar to kitchen scraps or garden waste. The balance of 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen, combined with air, water, and temperature will break down the waste.

If your chicken coop has soiled bedding made of straw or sawdust, it can be added straight to the compost, where it will much of the necessary carbon. Because the carbon content of different beddings differs, a 2:1 ratio is a safe bet when composting chicken waste.

The compost pile mixture needs to be kept moderately moist and the temperature should be maintained at the optimum of 130-150 F ( 54-66 C). Shift the interior contents to the outside and vice versa to help maintain the temperature. Keeping the pile at this temperature is sufficient to inhibit any pathogens, and will also hasten composting.

How Long Should Chicken Manure Age Before Using?

On average, the composting process for chicken manure takes about 3-4 months. The exact amount of time it takes depends on the conditions under which it is composted. If you are uncertain how well your chicken manure has been composted, it’s always safer to leave it a little longer. You can wait up to 12 months to use your chicken manure compost.

Compost may be applied directly around plants, mixed into the soil, or made into a tea to foliar and root feed plants.

Chicken manure for vegetable garden fertilizing will produce excellent soil for your vegetables to grow in. You will find that your vegetables will grow bigger and healthier as a result of using chicken manure fertilizer.

Can Chicken Manure Make You Sick?

Even after the composting process, there will still be some pathogens in your chicken manure. Wear gloves when applying, and keep children and pets away.

Always leave at least 90 days between manure application and harvest of vegetables that grow above the soil, like peppers, eggplants, and trellised cucumbers and tomatoes. For vegetables that are harvested from the soil, like lettuce and carrots, leave at least 120 days.

Don’t eat raw vegetables straight from the garden without washing them first. If you are prone to food-borne illnesses, refrain from eating any uncooked vegetables from a garden that’s been treated with chicken manure.