[Bobbie]

Can anyone advise best way of  making chicken manure. We use wood shavings on the floor and in nest boxes. Chickens have most of the veg and fruit peelings, and most of lthe weeds from around the garden, dogs have food left over, and dont have too  much lawn to cut so not a lot of grass clippings. Is it possible to bag up in strong plastic bags each time we clean, or would it take too long to break down, would like to use on fruit and veg area. Am I better of with a closed  compost bin, or make up an open compost bin.
Advise apreciated
Bobbie

[peapod]

Id bag it up as you said, but punch small holes in the bags to allow the air to circulate

[barbarella]

We have open compost bins and let our chickens dig around on them, where they poo naturally.  Other things you can put in your compost - shredded paper, potato peelings, cardboard (well soaked),nettles,  tea leaves, coffee grounds.  Do you also have end of season  bedding plants, old hanging basket plants, spent compost?  Do you live near the sea?  How about seaweed?  We also use straw, hay or shredded paper in the nesting boxes which we tip onto the compost heap.  And we bag up leaves, rot them down separately, but sometimes add them to the compost.  All these will make a fantastic compost when mixed with chicken droppings.  If you have room, have two open compost bins (pieces of wood which slot together which you can often buy from timber merchants).  Then when one bin is full, fork in into the empty one, cover with an old bit of carpet, and then start filling the new one.  By the time the new one is full, the old one will have rotted down and be nice and crumbly - just like on Gardeners' World 

[Kate and her Ducks]

Would recommend changing to something like Hemcore /aubiose or the flax based beddings as they compost down much quicker than wood shavings. I found that the wood shavings took for ever. I use Hemcore now and would never go back. I just put it in the compost darlek with everything else.

[Moco]

Aha.  I shall look at Hemcore when I next go to Wynnstay farmers - and compare prices!

[devondave]

get a large tub put the chicken poo in it and fill with water, then use as liquid feed

[viettaclark]

I thought chook poo was really acidic and needs to break down thoroughly before using on plants or it burns the roots? I bung mine in a dalek along with straw, shredded paper,plant matter and food waste and it's a brilliant activator but I notice the worms and insects are in the bin WITHOUT poo. Worms wriggle manically when they come into contact with it. They don't like it! Or maybe it's because the compost gets so HOT!
Someone mentioned a dressing of lime on the grass to neutralise the acid. Maybe you can mix it into the compost? Or maybe the heat neutralises it in the compost?
Any compost gurus out there? Love to know.....

[Trillium]

Ideally, compost should get very hot to break down quickly (and discourage vermin). Fresh poo and men's urine are good accelerators to do this. Worms should not and cannot live in an active compost pile - as said, it's simply too hot and fairly acidic. A handful of hort. lime thrown in with each layer of poo will neutralize it to some extent without diminishing the poos potency. Mostly, chicken poo is the highest in nitrogen.
Other folk choose  to simply let nature take its course with compost and simply throw in what they have and let nature plug along with worms doing the hard work.
Both systems work, but the top one will yield compost faster, particularly if you've a lot of green matter you need to get rid of quickly. And if you want worms, set up a separate, in ground wormery. Others want the high worm population for whatever reason.  Its strictly personal choice.

[barbarella]

Worms should not and cannot live in an active compost pile - as said, it's simply too hot and fairly acidic.

I'd never actually thought about, but it's absolutely true.  We have two compost heaps - one is the active one and has no worms in it, and when it is full we turn it into the second bin and cover it with a piece of old carpet.  After a few months, depending on the season, we decant it into bags for spreading on the garden and allotment.  By that time it is full of compost worms, and all dark and crumbly.  Don't know where the little red wriggly things come from, but they are worth their weight in gold