Deep litter system with chooks

I am after some info or advice if anyone can help me. I currently am using my chook run as a deep litter system. They are also free range and they spend at least half the day out in the garden. I put straw in the litter system along with any green waste and kitchen waste. I also put some lime in too to help the chooks with lice control. So I have a few questions:
1. I am wondering how long I should leave it before I rake it out
2. Once I have racked it out, I am going to put it in a pile to rot down. Any ideas about how long I should do this before I put it on the garden?
Thanks.

 

we did similar, we raked it out every 2 to 4 weeks and put it straight on the garden with no worries. it's called value adding.

len

 

So it doesn't matter about the chook manure not rotting down then before going on the garden?

 

bump I want to comment later

 

It wont matter if you put it straight on the garden,
it just depends on what you want it to do ,
and what type of garden you want to put it on.

Without wanting to make a bigdeal out of it,
if it was to go to a vege patch,
I'd use it as a composting ingredient with heaps of weeds and stuff
In this case it would be fine to dig it into the soil once it's cooled and matured.

If you dont have tim, patience or energy for composting,
just throw it down as mulch under some orchard trees you'd like to feed.
It all depends on how you want to manage your garden .

I reckon an wheelbarrow load of carefully made compost is more
valuable than an trailer load of raw ,uncomposted OM.
...from the biological and nutrient release point of view anyway. ;-)

 

I used to run a deep litter system and found that with the addition of lime and also the addition of some scratch grain to get the cjhooks to turn the litter over it will be in good condition in 3 to 6 months. You need only to watch for wet spots as a place for lice to breed and of course the build up of broken down manure. If it smells wrong (bad) it is time to clean it out and to add it to a compost heap is a great use for the combination of carbon and nitrogen. If you use the scratch grain then the chooks will tend the decompisition and you may be able to leave the top part of the litter while taking the lower decomposed material for use in the garden but be careful as it could be a bit rich for some plants. Be sure to keep perches clean and dusted with lime and/or sulphur.

 

I run all my deep litter through the compost pile before putting in the garden, usually 2 times a year. Basically I pitch-fork it out in layers with green plants and horse/cow manure. This might not be necessary but I like to hot compost the chicken manure to make sure all "bad-guys" are dead. Otherwise I sometimes, put a layer out under the fruit trees without composting, especially good around fruiting time for the extra nitrogen boost.