"Cerumen" wrote in message
...

"Tim Challenger" "timothy(dot)challenger(at)apk(dot)at" wrote in message
s.com...
I've got a small free-range egg/chicken farmer round the corner.
If I can get him to give me some of his animal's muck, say from the
stalls
or whatever, can I use it on the garden? In the compost? Or am I wasting
my
time? Does it have to be rotted like horse manure? What about diseases,
are there likely to be any problems?

I used to keep a large number of free range birds and always composted
their litter from the nesting roosting houses, it was very good stuff

snip

It is indeed. But if you have free ranging hens (as I have although only
two) you simply can't keep them from depositing wherever they happen to be.
They don't just wait until they're indoors.

They also scratch about and everything gets mixed in and turned over.

Of course you wouldn't put any fresh, neat manure on plants but what comes
naturally on the ground is dealt with naturally on the ground. I began
growing vegetables after we started keeping hens and I realised how much the
fertility of the soil had been raised.

My 'management' system is that the hens go where they like until I plant out
my greenhouse-grown outdoor vegetables. Some are irresistible to the hens -
cabbage family, green salads and chard especially - so they are grown in
small plots with moveable purpose made chicken wire hurdles round them. I
have a modular system so that everything is interchangeable. All small
vegetables are thus protected against scratching up but they're not
interested in some plants so when they're half grown the hurdles are removed
and the hens once more have the run of that plot. Those plants include
courgettes, runner beans and tomatoes - but I know from experience that hens
have different palates, we had one who couldn't be trusted with tomatoes at
any stage. We suck it and see.

Because we rotate our crops and they're sometimes free to the hens and
sometimes not the ground gets regular and pretty even manuring from them.
Naturally everything gets a regular spread of compost too.

We also shred all tree and shrub cuttings and clippings - leylandi, holly,
pyracantha, laurel and other unlikely things. The shreddings are left in
plastic bags for a few weeks, until they turn brown. There isn't enough room
in the compost bins for them. When they are brown they're spread on fallow
plots. The hens have a wonderful time, scratching, turning, manuring - the
shreddings very quickly turn to good earth without composting.

We have no lawns for clippings by the way, I have to sow grass on the paths
between the no-dig plots to give the hens a variety of greens.

Our system works very well for us and I recommend it but of course everyone
has to cut his coat according to his cloth.

Mary


--

Chris Thomas
West Cork
Ireland