Wow chicken poop stinks!!!

scmelik 4/11/2011, 7:59 pm

With the warm weather the past few I finally got my box built and filled, and wow does chicken poop stink!!!! I really hope the smell goes away after a while. Of course now that I have it all filled and am ready to transplant, the weather is going to south again. They are calling for snow at the end of the week WTH!!! I am going to end up with 50 pots around my house waiting for warm weather if my plants keep growing like they are.

myhouseofBOYS 4/11/2011, 8:27 pm

scmelik wrote:With the warm weather the past few I finally got my box built and filled, and wow does chicken poop stink!!!! I really hope the smell goes away after a while. Of course now that I have it all filled and am ready to transplant, the weather is going to south again. They are calling for snow at the end of the week WTH!!! I am going to end up with 50 pots around my house waiting for warm weather if my plants keep growing like they are.

Um I have been reading here that properly composted manures should not "stink". I wonder if yours is not composted enough to use just yet. The wait might be a good thing.

Chopped Liver MM 4/11/2011, 8:44 pm

Chicken litter will smell Earthy when properly composted. If you're smells any other way, do not, I repeat, do not transplant into it. We lost a good portion of our sprouts because we failed to wet the litter before transplanting into pots. Once wet, it started decomposing and burnt the sprouts. The good news here is that two weeks later most of the litter is smell free. Just treat the entire mix like it was compost. Keep it damp, turn it often, and wait for the smell to subside!

Now if you want the real chicken litter experience, they put 5 truck loads of fresh, raw, un-composted chicken litter on our pastures a few weeks ago. The next day it was 82. You get used to it after a while, but every year you have to acclimate to it. The hen houses also smell really "pleasant" once the temperature reaches the mid 80s for a few days.

Old Hippie 4/11/2011, 8:51 pm

Chicken poop has a lot of ammonia in it so it is very strong and can burn plants if it is too fresh. If it smells strong, Chopped Liver is right. Don't put it on your plants. Put it in your compost bin along with kitchen scraps etc. and in a few weeks you will have great usable compost.

You have obviously never had to clean out a chicken coop! LOL!

Gwynn

Chopped Liver MM 4/11/2011, 8:55 pm

Old Hippie wrote:You have obviously never had to clean out a chicken coop! LOL!

I would never wish that on my worst enemy!

scmelik 4/11/2011, 9:03 pm

ummm its already mixed in with all my other MM ingredients. I am not going to get to plant until next weekend at the earliest so hopefully it will have some time to breakdown by then, but the weather isn't exactly going to be the nicest after tomorrow.

I guess I will have to turn the mix a few more times in the next week or two. It was not composted just bagged chicken manure from the store.

Chopped Liver MM 4/11/2011, 9:07 pm

I had the same problem. We mixed everything only to find the chicken litter was raw. I got the mix wet and turned it for 2 weeks and aside for a little stuck in the corners of my container, it is safe now. Did you by chance get Black Hen brand?

middlemamma 4/12/2011, 12:13 am

Last year i also used chicken manure...and it was bagged as compost. I also posted as to how it smelled worse than any of my other composts.

I mixed in in as a 1/5th of my compost blend for MM and THANK GOODNESS I had no issues.

Did I just get lucky...cause no doubt it stunk way worse than my other composts. The steer manure was not wonderful smelling, but by far that chicken manure was terrible....I held my breath while I scooped it. LOL

**walshevak** 4/12/2011, 9:35 am

I guess I got lucky. I used Black Hen as 1/5 of my blend and have not had a bit of trouble with any of the cool weather crops I planted. But woo hoo it was the only compost that had a strong smell. Even the pig compost didn't smell bad.

Kay

**camprn** 4/12/2011, 1:14 pm

Old Hippie wrote:Chicken poop has a lot of ammonia in it so it is very strong and can burn plants if it is too fresh. If it smells strong, Chopped Liver is right. Don't put it on your plants. Put it in your compost bin along with kitchen scraps etc. and in a few weeks you will have great usable compost.

You have obviously never had to clean out a chicken coop! LOL!

Gwynn

I have

Wow chicken poop stinks!!! Smiley_confused_bigger

GASP!!!

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