Hi all, I have very luckily received some chicken manure liquid/solid (the best way to describe it is sludge, but that's not a very nice word) which came from a mates chooks after the recent non-stop rain in Northern NSW. I have approx 2 x 20l buckets. I would like to use it effectively on my 1/4 acre block. Have started by watering down and using at liquid tonic on vegies and herbs, but I need to use it a bit quicker because i want my buckets back and I don't want to store it in semi-liquid form My idea is to mix with sawdust from non-treated timber, to make it more solid and then age it in a spare 200L compost bin I have setup. The high nitrogen from the chook manure should counteract well with the high carbon of the sawdust. Have i got things pretty right here? Brad
Brad I have no idea but you could wet it down more and add an aquarium air pump line into the mix to help keep all the good bacteria alive and maybe stop the smell.
Track down a compost calculator (they are on the internet like everything else) and it'll tell you the right ratio of sawdust to chook poo to get your compost in the sweet spot. Personally I like to chuck in a lot of different ingredients to get some diversity happening, but if that is all that you have then you can certainly make compost from it.
You're on the right track - better to compost it than to apply it directly to your plants. Keep in mind that if you only mix it with saw dust to make it more solid, the resulting pasty semi-solid form may not compost very well because it may be difficult to get oxygen into the interior of the mix. Add leaves, sticks, kitchen waste, etc to the mix and that should open it up enough to allow air in. I would expect it to really cook once you get the air and moisture right, and you should have black gold before you know it.