Composting chicken poo and newspaper?

Hello.

I recently got some chickens and yesterday cleaned them out.

I had thought of making a compost out of the poo, newspaper and straw and had bought a plastic dustbin.

I put it all into the bin and it just looks very... dry.

I can't imagine it turning into fertiliser anytime soon.

Is there anything i need to do?

Thanks

 

Years ago, my dad had chickens on our small farm. He would clean out the chicken coop and put the poo in heaps over on the side. This was before the fancy bins and tubs to keep it in. So the heap would grow as the cleaning went. The heap would go through all the seasons etc. And in the spring he would just incorporate it into the soil and plant the veggies. And that was it.

 

do you mean the poo looks dry? i dont know what chicken poo is like, but mix it up with the dry newspaper and straw.

 

Because the paper is dry and the straw fibrous it really needs mixing with some green waste; a mixture of peelings from the kitchen and grass and soft cuttings from the garden, to help break it down.

You don't say how many chickens you have Louise, but currently we only have three that free range around the garden and they produce an awful lot of waste. We have quite a large compost heap and a biggish garden but still get more straw etc than we need so I don't think your dustbin is going to cope.

Perhaps you could find a corner of your garden where you could start a proper compost heap in either a ready made compost bin or one made out of pallets and then I think you should be able to keep on top of the waste that the chickens produce.

Good luck:thmb: Chris

 

Best thing I've found to break down straw is urine! Only male urine. Female is too acidic. I also have chickens and I get the men in the house to fill an empty 5l water bottle and then tip it into the compost bins.

I got the tip off the local news who featured the gardens of some big house in the area (who let the public in to see the gardens). They had a "pee bale" which they encouraged the male gardening staff to use, which they later mixed into their compost

 

Thanks for the replies. We have three chcickens too. I'll start throwing in green waste too

The bin is only supposed to be temporary until we decide where to stick the proper compost pile. We only just managed to finish digging up the one the last home owners left us.

 

make some holes in the bottom so worms can get in and if its to dry sprinkle some water in and turn it

 

Hi Louise. As wurzel says, add water. As I recall, chicken poop is pretty strong stuff, so I would say it needs using sparingly. Of course, if you add plenty of other 'stuff' to the heap, then this will dilute it somewhat, and therefore you can use more of it to the square yard, if you see what I mean

Cheers...freddy.

 

I make a liquid fertilizer from our chicken's poo.
Put one bucket of poo in a mesh bag (net curtain) and steep in about ten times the amount of water. It should look like weak tea.( It sometimes needs diluting again before using.)