The value of poo.

chrismahon

chrismahon

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According to Lewis Wright in his 1867 Poultry book "The value of manure equates to to one fifth or perhaps more one quarter of the total profit from keeping fowls." He then says that the true value is 7 shillings per cwt but prices can be as low as 3 shillings. Also that it is too strong to use neat and must be mixed with soil. We know that as I killed half my courgettes one year.

Our manure is mainly poo, picked out every morning by hand (literally) from the runs and coops. Soiled old bedding goes into the composting Council bin as it is of little or no value as manure.

Does anyone sell their manure? We have well over a ton of 2 -3 year matured manure every year. Our garden can't really handle that much so we could sell it if we could find a market. Any ideas?
 
We see loads of signs in newsagents for "£1 a bag, pick it yourself" horse manure, we also have a small local shop that buys veg and fruit from the allotments to sell outside is summer. You could try either of these, or your local allotments might be happy to have it, or maybe even a car boot sale?
 
leave it outside in bags and let people take it , i had to much chicken poo once until i had a bit of a moan on the site about people not wanting fresh good manure and now i dont see any of it :lol: :lol: but some still prefer to buy the pellets and hek knows whats been put in them .
 
I do know that horse manure is of little value to the soil. We put 5 tons on the veggy plot when we first moved here and was then told that by a qualified and very experienced horticulturist that it just assists in water retention. Value of chicken poo is the amount of Nitrogen it adds. A study has been done by the Indian Government with a view to sustainable crop production using chicken poo. So I know chicken poo manure is extremely underrated at the moment. Certainly wouldn't give it away Karminski.

Might try selling some at the door. Need a slogan, how about "you've tasted the eggs now smell the poo" -properly matured chicken manure has no smell, no worms and breaks up in your hand! It's bit too heavy for a boot sale I think BB. Could put an ad in the Post Office and having a van could deliver it whilst doing my plumbing rounds?
 
A local farmer has muck from a poultry farm and when he spreads it it stinks us out for about three days and I mean putrid :-)03 , so you might want to put a stink warning on your bags :lol:
 
We put our fresh poo on the canalside CCM behind a wall. The prevailing wind carries the stink to the haulage yard which smells of diesel and oil, so they probably can't smell the poo at all -no complaints yet anyway.
 
I can't believe we are discussing the value of chicken poo on a Sunday night! :shock: :D :D

Anyway......ours is composted and used in veggie beds and borders.... :D :D
 
could think of other things like popping red mite :lol: :lol: :lol: my fav pastime at the mo
 
Chicken droopings can be bought, processed in a lot of outlets in plastic bags. It's very high in nitrogen and has a burning effect and will kill grass and other plants if applied directly. See the area around a free range chicken house on a couple of acres and there is a huge area which has been manured the most where grass wil not grow again for years. Composted, dug in and used where nitrogen is needed and it's very useful.
 
kinda glad i read that as yesterday one of the old italian guys said to me that someone told him chicken manure was very bad for the ground and i said well no not if its composted down , will warn him later again to leave what i give him to rot down over the summer as they have put fresh bags { with bedding onto thier soil over the past few months }
 
Apart from it being too rich for most plants it is also acidic. Grass won't grow if the PH is above 6.5 acidity, which is one reason for adding lime and testing the soil. But once sufficiently diluted with soil and the PH is addressed it is fantastic for the garden.
 
I do wonder now if this was why I had such a poor strawberry crop last year...I did dig a lot of chicken manure into the bed, might have been a little too hot for them in retrospect
 
Put it in a hessin sack (or similar) and leave it soaking in a spare water butt or a bucket of water for a few days, use this water to make a great liquid feed for you tomatoes. The manure in the sack can then go on the garden as its been leached of most of its strength.
 
Barnbabe said:
Put it in a hessin sack (or similar) and leave it soaking in a spare water butt or a bucket of water for a few days, use this water to make a great liquid feed for you tomatoes. The manure in the sack can then go on the garden as its been leached of most of its strength.
Click to expand...

Cracking tip! :-)17 :D Will try that....hubby loves growing his toms...
 
We did that with sheep poo and then fed the liquid to all manner of things, including peppers and tomatoes, instead of Tomorite -worked a treat.
 
foxy said:
I do wonder now if this was why I had such a poor strawberry crop last year...I did dig a lot of chicken manure into the bed, might have been a little too hot for them in retrospect
Click to expand...

Yes, too much nitrogen makes strawberries grow big green leaves at the expense of fruit. Best to treat 'em mean, give well-drained compost, plenty of water when the berries are forming, and feed the plants with fertiliser which is high in potash rather than nitrogen, eg tomato food. Healthy productive strawberries should have pale green leaves, if they are dark green they're being overfed nitrogen.
Proper stable manure will add a lot of fertility to the soil because it incorporates straw soaked in urine, along with the horse droppings. However you have to be careful about what sort of straw has been used in the stable. I once dug in a huge amount of beautiful mature stable manure to my allotment and all sorts of things came up twisted and strange-looking. Apparently this is common where the straw comes from wheat which has been sprayed with whatever nasties farmers use on it, and so the best stable manure needs to include organic straw, if you can get it. I just had to wait for the effects to wear off on my plot - it took a year or so, and after all that hard work carting it and digging it in! Also the straw contains lots of wheat seeds which come up as weeds of course.
I agree with Chris that manure which is just picked up off the field is much less nutritious but is a good soil conditioner, and when soaked in a bag you get excellent liquid fertiliser - though I make this all year when I hose through the dirtied rubber chippings from the chicken run. However, any nitrogen-rich fertiliser is best used on plants which need to produce green leaves, like salads and cabbages, or plants at a stage of growth where they are producing their first leaves before fruiting, such as tomatoes in the stages before they set fruit. After that, tomatoes and any kind of berry or fruit-producing plant, tubers such as potatoes, and bulbs such as onions, and most flowering plants in bud, need less nitrogen and more potash, hence the balance in commercial tomato feed, which is useful for lots of things besides tomatoes. You can make your own high-potash fertiliser by soaking comfrey leaves in water - what a pong, but it's excellent. Or just add it to the compost heap, or the bottom of your potato or runner bean trenches.
 
wow i am learning something here :lol: but i didnt know that about the wheat straw manure and i have been with horses for 30 yrs now and always pretty much used straw but when it came to manure it was only the real black stuff we would use anyway .
 
That is really informative Marigold! Explains a lot too,I couldn't understand why my healthy strawberries plant were producing teeny weeny strawberries, and sparsely at that when they were these huge, big leaved plants! :-)19 :D
 
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