Liquid Chicken Fertilizer

Ok, so I must admit, I only started writing this post because it's the only thing I could think of to stop me from reading more baby blogs. I've been reading dearbabyblog.com for over a week now. While this woman's life is about as far from mine as I can imagine, I can't help but fall in love with her little family that is filled with all the happiness I hope to one day grow in my own home. She is also a proponent of many ideas I favor, cloth diapering, natural child birth, etc. so I have found her experiences most educational. If you find yourself suffering from a deficiency in cuteness, I recommend taking a little stroll through the pages of her blog.

Now, on to non-baby related topics, POOP. Yes you heard me right, P-O-O-P. It comes out of my chickens and sits there until Jeff or I clean it up. We honestly don't clean the coop out all that often. I had read from another blog/magazine/book (I can't really remember) where one woman says she just throws down a new layer of wood chips every now and again and then does seasonal cleanings of the coop. The new pine chips seal in the old ones and when you clean it out to throw in the composter, the bottom layers have already started breaking down. We have used this same method and found it to be easy on us and the chickens don't seem any worse for wear.

So right about now, as spring starts to take full bloom, it is time for another cleaning. I recently read an article in Mother Earth News which gives instructions for making homemade liquid fertilizers out of the wood chip/poo combination from chicken coops. It also had a fertilizer recipe involving urine (dilute it 1:20 with water and go to town if you're interested), but when Jeff asked, "where do you get the urine?" I figured we weren't ready to take that plunge yet.

So on to chicken poop. You fill a five gallon bucket 1/5 of the way with the chicken poo/wood chip combo and then fill with water. Let the mixture steep for three days (giving them an occasional swish) and then dilute your "tea" 1:1 with water and use as you would any other liquid fertilizer. I'm looking forward to not spending so much on my seaweed liquid fertilizer this year!

Oh and in case you're wondering, "where are the pictures?!" Well, many of you already know what chicken poop in a bucket looks like and would probably rather not be reminded, and for those who haven't you'd probably honestly rather not see it (which I'm happy about since I'd also rather not take my camera near that much poop). Of course there is at least one of you coughHelencoughcough that probably does have a morbid curiosity for pictures. If that turns out to be the case, you are more than welcome to come over next time we need to clean the coop!