Kitchen Garden Forum

We have a bin of chicken poo mixed with straw which we pee on as often as possible (difficult peeing that height!!).

We also have some wood ash which needs using up. Will it be good in the compo bin? My chemistry lessons are too long ago (and I never paid attention) to remember what contains what, if you see what I mean.

Pongeroon

SS and P - just what you need as a good compost activator, spread between layers of green waste, with a bit of "brown" waste (cardboard and paper) mixed in.
The wood ash would be best used around fruit bushes at this time of the year.

SS & P

pongeroon wrote::?: SS & P

I knew you'd ask that

Shit, straw and piss/pee

wood ash contains a lot of potasium (the k in npk).. highly water soluble so it will wash away easily, the chicken poo and wee both have good nitrogen content. the straw will degrade into humus which retains water... cant rememember where p (phosphorous) comes from though.

by the way dairy farmers use a lot of slurry which i once heard described as S,H, one , T and water

Hi Pongaroon,
A slight word of warning. Crushed charcoal and ash can be very alkaline so whatever you do with it do it sparingly.
JB.

Shit, straw and piss/pee

Ah. Thought it might be.

Thank you all for your input.

JB, I am probably wrong, but I thought maybe the chickenshit was very acid, and that the ash might help balance things out a bit.

Hi Pongeroon,
Its possible that ash may reduce acidity but it would be an unknown quantity. If your chicken muck is mixed with straw and allowed to go down well, then the acid level drops. Even then it will be very rich and should be used only as a fertilizer onto the soil. Have no thoughts of adding it to a seeding or potting on compost. Used too soon it can really scorch plants.
JB.

Hi JB,

I had heard that chickenshit can be rather 'hot'!

As our chickens are crapping freely we are putting the coop cleanings (which contain quit a high proportion of straw and dry leaves) into compost bins on the allotment. We plan to spread it next spring and rotovate it in.

I'm not sure how much we will have by then, but I think it may be enough to give the whole plot (which is quite big) a thin covering. Good plan?

When the lid comes off the bin, it smells pretty potent!!!