Use Chickens to Fertilize Your Garden – Chickens are an excellent source of both food and fertilizer. Their prolific pooping means that you will have an ample supply of manure to spread on your garden.
However, it absolutely must be composted in order to be usable. Many inexperienced chicken keepers have mistakenly spread fresh droppings and killed their plants as a result. The nitrogen content is simply too high.
Despite this, having a chicken poo in your garden occasionally is
unavoidable if it’s free-range. With such a small amount, no
damage should result. It will likely be quickly broken down by
worms, carrion bugs and microorganisms. Rain or hose water will
also help to dilute the manure and distribute it over the soil.
You could consider it as a sort of time-release fertilizer. These animals are also a valuable asset for the home composter. Anyone who has tried maintaining a compost heap will tell you that it’s often tedious and back-breaking work.
That pile has to be turned regularly in order for it to decompose
properly. However, your involvement in this step can be eliminated with the help of a small flock of chickens.
If you have a small yard set up for your birds, then you already have the ideal beginnings of a chicken-assisted compost heap. It’s recommended to cover part of the bottom with a layer of leaves, straw or wood shavings several inches thick. If you want you can use your flock’s spent bedding. You can also toss your existing compost heap into the chicken yard and use that as your base layer.
Toss all of your regular compostable materials here and let the chickens be chickens. They’ll gladly forage on any seeds, insects and kitchen scraps that are in the pile adding a steady supply of manure in the process.
This saves you money on feed and produces superior-quality eggs. Best of all the birds’ scratching habits will keep everything properly mixed without you having to lift a finger. After a month or two, you’ll have a pile of rich, dark compost that can be used on your garden. Just sprinkle it on as you would any other compost and till it into the soil, which is another step that can be left to the birds.
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Farming South Africa – Use Chickens to Fertilize Your Garden
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