Chicken Manure Recycling Scheme

Cartoon with a girl and smelly chicken manure

We have lots of chicken manure

In fact we have more chicken manure than we can handle. This is the reason we are running a FREE chicken manure recycling scheme. Chicken manure is perfect for garden composting or allotment composting. In exchange for an undamaged heavy-duty stout bag you can take some away for FREE. Check details below for full information

What is chicken manure good for?

Chicken manure is like black gold. It is literally hot stuff. Whilst It is too hot to go onto plants while it is fresh, it will start to heat up a well-turned garden composting heap and turn it into usable compost that is great for the garden or allotment in weeks. It produces very rich compost that will turn any growing area into an oasis.

How the scheme works

Once you have decided to join, all you need to do is to exchange your bags for some of ours. We can fill your containers also if you drop them off here at Hedgerow Henporium. Make sure each container is well marked with your name and contact number. If we are not in you can simply leave them by the bins. We will fill them for you and let you know when you can collect again. Prompt collection is appreciated as the longer they remain outside the more soggy they become when it rains. Both you, and our neighbours will benefit from the swift collection enormously.

Sometimes we have loads of bags in our stash and we don’t always need spares. We do appreciate you returning them for re-use though so we can continue to refill them. In this scenario just return your empty bags and then put them behind our bins. Undamaged bags are re-used repeatedly until they give up the ghost.

As you will probably be transporting in your car, make sure that you bring bags that are not going to leak. Each bag of manure weighs about 15kg, so the bags need to be able to take that weight without tearing when they are lifted. Make sure that you line your car with a waterproof cover in case of seepage due to condensation within the bags.

Trailer access is good if you would rather fill a trailer instead of taking bags. You can just empty the bag contents straight into your trailer.

The manure comes from our coops when we clean out. It is fresh and is mixed with their bedding of chopped rape straw. You can have as much or as little as you want. When you want more, just drop your bags off near the bins and we will sort it out for you.

We can accommodate occasional collectors, or preferred regular collectors. Either way, whether you want a little, or a lot, we can do it.

How to do Garden Composting with chicken manure

Good composting is all about making your microbes happy. They require air and a little moisture. Keep the balance right and your compost heap will heat up quickly. Ours gets to 60 degrees in days. While it is in the heating up phase you will get enough ammonia off it to clear your nostrils and wake the dead if you get too close, but this passes in a day or so. Make sure you stir it regularly while composting to show those microbes where the next tasty morsels are and you are good to go. Once the heat dies down the worms will move in and the rest will just reduce to black gold in a few weeks. If you leave it composting for longer it will get even better. We don’t add anything else to our heap although you could add cardboard or shredded paper or veggie peelings or grass. Just mix it in and the manure will work its magic. Don’t let your heap get claggy, soggy or compacted is all we recommend.

One of our manure collectors delivered a pumpkin to me (he doesn’t eat pumpkin) which is about 80kg. Yes that is right!! an 80kg monster all courtesy of the girls efforts. He has donated it to the hens and they enjoyed it enormously.

The Royal Horticultural Society have a good article on how to compost if you are in need of further information on this wonderful process. There is another article on the Well Gardening site on the science behind composting.

Please don’t join our scheme if you cannot collect promptly, so we don’t annoy our lovely neighbours.