Applying Chicken Manure

• Determining when to apply chicken manure to your garden depends on what you want to plant and when. Because chicken manure is often mixed with its bedding (it is nearly impossible to separate the two) you will have a great source of "green" composting material to go with it--like hay, straw, sawdust or wood shavings. However, you will need to take the type of bedding into account before you apply it to your garden. Pine shavings, for example, have a high acidity level and will need to age longer than straw. Straw bedding takes awhile to break down so is best applied in the fall. That way the straw and manure will provide you with a great ground cover throughout the winter, allowing the nutrients to seep into the soil and break down. Whatever remains of the straw can be raked off in the spring before planting. This is a particularly good use of chicken manure that is not yet aged. If you have aged (six months or more) chicken manure and the bedding is already largely broken down (this means most of the ammonia will be gone), then you can spread this manure anytime you feel you need to in your garden. In the spring before planting, you can turn this mixture into your soil or spread it around individual plants for a fertilizer boost.
  
  

Precautions and Warnings

• Before you spread chicken manure on your garden, particularly on your vegetable plants, be sure that the manure has been well composted aerobically and with heat. By placing this manure in a compost pile and contributing other materials to it like kitchen scraps, leaves and grass clippings, the core of the compost pile should hit about 150 degrees and maintain that temperature for about three days. If you have chickens of your own, you can start this process in the spring or summer and have composted manure ready for the fall. If you are purchasing manure, be sure to ask your supplier how long it has aged. If it is prebagged manure, you shouldn't have to worry about it. Manure that is placed on plants without being aged and "preheated" can contain bacteria like e. Coli and can contaminate your vegetables.