Chicken Litter

[cowgirl8]

My dad was a volunteer firefighter back in the day. He had a large hen house burn down that they had to fight. The litter smell with the water was unbearable he said, worse than burned flesh.

Apparently the chickens are very combustible and explode in a fire.

 

[Texasmark]

While we are on the subject, anybody worry about salmonella handling chickens, eggs, cleaning out pens, putting out poop, especially if it's broadcast dry with wood shavings with the wind blowing and you are running an open station? Never heard of it with them, never looked it up either, but it shows up on www nowadays like it's something "else" to keep you distracted from current events. Kids raised chickens for FFA projects in school....nobody ever got sick...course didn't put on fields at the time but did everything else.

Comments appreciated.

Thanks

 

[5S Cattle]

We put out some litter on our hayfields earlier this spring.. Sometimes chickens come with it. Best chickens ever....

What?

From what i gather, the litter is taken out of the houses on conveyor belts and sometimes chickens get through and are dumped with the litter. I have 10 RI Reds from this place. They are the sweetest chickens and are good layers. This year though, we only got one and it was a leghorn and she's the dumbest chicken ever. She was hard to catch too, the RIRs are very easy to catch...Anywho, if you're wanting chickens and you're also wanting to fertilize, you're in luck....

Haha I would have never thought that

 

[cowgirl8]

While we are on the subject, anybody worry about salmonella handling chickens, eggs, cleaning out pens, putting out poop, especially if it's broadcast dry with wood shavings with the wind blowing and you are running an open station? Never heard of it with them, never looked it up either, but it shows up on www nowadays like it's something "else" to keep you distracted from current events. Kids raised chickens for FFA projects in school....nobody ever got sick...course didn't put on fields at the time but did everything else.

Comments appreciated.

Thanks

I think it can happen...

 

[True Grit Farms]

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=113711&p=1480828&hilit=Salmonella#p1480828
Jogeephus had some problems with salmonella.

 

[BRYANT]

Maybe a little off topic but anyone ever feed it to their cows? I know a couple guys that do and they say a cow will do very good on it???? I am sure there is others that do but wont admit to it

 

[Lucky]

I know several that have tried feeding it but don't know any that continue to feed litter.

 

[TexasBred]

Chicken litter is the ticket. Fertilizer value plus the benefit of organic matter. After about 4-5 years of using it here I had to back off and go back to commercial fertilizer bc the P was getting to high. Better use chicken litter while you can bc I'm afraid they are going to put a stop to it. I'm hearing that some biologists are saying that it's spreading diseases into the wild turkey population. I can't berify this is correct but I have seen a decline in the number of wild turkeys I see. If this is proven to be correct then you can hang the chicken litter up. We all know who will win this fight should it ever arrive.

hmmmm guess we're ok around here as all we have are turkey houses and turkey litter. :nod: :lol2: (And worlds of turkeys)

 

[cowgirl8]

Maybe a little off topic but anyone ever feed it to their cows? I know a couple guys that do and they say a cow will do very good on it???? I am sure there is others that do but wont admit to it

Yeah, I guess you weren't here when I went through how we stayed in business in 2011. We fed chicken litter mixed with switch grass hay we ran through a hammer mill. Cows do very good on it and a lot of people feed it regularly. We just fed it during the drought. Cows love it. It has to be cured and its better to get the litter that's in a certain part of the chicken barn. You want fat cows, feed them chicken litter. During the drought we had the fattest cows around. It allowed us to keep most of our cows and saved our way of making a living..

 

[Ebenezer]

While we are on the subject, anybody worry about salmonella handling chickens, eggs, cleaning out pens, putting out poop, especially if it's broadcast dry with wood shavings with the wind blowing and you are running an open station? Never heard of it with them, never looked it up either, but it shows up on www nowadays like it's something "else" to keep you distracted from current events. Kids raised chickens for FFA projects in school....nobody ever got sick...course didn't put on fields at the time but did everything else.

Comments appreciated.

Thanks

Stack it and let it go through a heat and a lot of the bad stuff is gone due to temperatures. Same for feeding to cows but stack and tarp or stack in a shed and let it work longer. After going through a stacked heat it is supposed to smell more like chocolate. But my brother said he never found a snickers bar in helping me! Cattle do well on a blend with cracked corn. Some health regulations probably prevent feeding it now in particular staes. But they did recommend a 180 period and then stop. We had some milk fever when we fed it due to calcium imbalance but it got us through a drought.

 

[Texasmark]

While we are on the subject, anybody worry about salmonella handling chickens, eggs, cleaning out pens, putting out poop, especially if it's broadcast dry with wood shavings with the wind blowing and you are running an open station? Never heard of it with them, never looked it up either, but it shows up on www nowadays like it's something "else" to keep you distracted from current events. Kids raised chickens for FFA projects in school....nobody ever got sick...course didn't put on fields at the time but did everything else.

Comments appreciated.

Thanks

Stack it and let it go through a heat and a lot of the bad stuff is gone due to temperatures. Same for feeding to cows but stack and tarp or stack in a shed and let it work longer. After going through a stacked heat it is supposed to smell more like chocolate. But my brother said he never found a snickers bar in helping me! Cattle do well on a blend with cracked corn. Some health regulations probably prevent feeding it now in particular staes. But they did recommend a 180 period and then stop. We had some milk fever when we fed it due to calcium imbalance but it got us through a drought.

Thanks for the tip. I was thinking about how I was going to broadcast the stuff and figure my JD Model N "Poop Slinger" ought to do the job. With that being long and slinging to the rear, if I work the wind right, I don't see me having to worry about getting it all over me....will wear a mask. It's about 50-50 wood shavings which should help the humus (I guess).....help the clay to percolate. Will work in with a rototiller.