How to Compost Chicken Manure

Composting chicken manure is an excellent way to turn waste into a valuable soil amendment for your production. Proper composting helps to break down the manure, eliminate pathogens, and create nutrient-rich matters that enhances soil fertility. So here’s a simple guide on how to compost chicken manure.

Why So Many Fertilizer Suppliers Making Compost Chicken Manure for Their Business?

Chicken manure has the highest nutritional value among all conventional livestock manure. Similarly, it is currently the best raw material for manufacturing organic fertilizer.

Rich Nutrients of Chicken Manure

Chicken manure is rich in organic matter after composting process, up to 50%. It also contains high NPK content fermented and trace elements, such as nitrogen accounted for 3.2%, phosphorus pentoxide (P₂O₅) for 3.1%, potassium oxide (K₂ O) is 2.4%, calcium for 5.0%, etc. Because the chicken intestine is too short in comparison to other livestock, the nutrients in the feed can only be absorbed about a third of it, and the rest is evacuated.

Incomparable Superiority as Fertilizer

Composted chicken manure has around 28% crude protein and 13% pure protein. Chicken dung also contains 18 different types of amino acids, accounting for about 8% and various amino acids are relatively balanced. Chicken manure also contains more vitamins, especially vitamin B₁₂, which is incomparable to feed grains.

Therefore, chicken manure is a cheap low-energy protein feed. Replacing part of the protein feed with chicken manure and adding with some energy feed can greatly improve the economic benefits of livestock farming.

Good Economic Benefits

Similarly, chicken manure can be composted and fermented to produce high-quality organic or biological fertilizer. And it can reduce pollution, purify the environment, and form an ecological industrial chain, providing economic, ecological, and social benefits.

Why Do You Need to Compost Chicken Manure?

1

Chicken manure is a valuable resource after effective processing and utilization, otherwise it will become a serious source of environmental pollution.
2

Chicken manure contains a large number of germs, worm eggs and parasites, and uncomposted manure should not be applied directly to crops.
3

The process of composting chicken manure releases the majority of heat. If it is not composted and applied directly, it will burn the roots and seedlings of plants.
4

The nitrogen element in chicken dung begins as protein, which plants cannot absorb directly. Only after fermentation does the protein degrade into ammonia, which plants are likely to require.

Aerobic FermentationThe Best Technique for Composting Chicken Manure

The traditional method is to seal and compost chicken manure for anaerobic fermentation, which usually takes 3-4 months to complete. And this method has large occupation area, long fermentation cycle and a low degree of harmlessness.

Aerobic fermentation is an exothermic oxidation and decomposition process in the presence of good ventilation effect and well-oxygenated conditions. It usually occurs in biotechnology, and the decomposition speed is 10-20 times faster than the traditional way, with short fermentation cycle, high mechanization, big processing capacity, and a high degree of harmlessness.

Top 2 Compost Methods for Processing Chicken Manure

The main aerobic fermentation composting methods commonly used in industry are groove type and windrows composting systems.

If you want to standardize the composting of chicken manure to make organic fertilizer, we suggest that it is better to use the groove type aerobic fermentation technology. This is because it is easier to meet the requirements of harmlessness.

On the other hand, if you needn’t to treat chicken manure on a large scale, you can also use another method to do so.

Groove Type Composting System
Windrows Composting System

Groove Type Composting System

This is the most effective way to treat chicken manure. Additionally, it is also suitable for commercialization and standardization of organic fertilizer production from chicken manure.

It totally decomposes chicken manure and converts organic matter into organic matter, carbon dioxide, and water by natural fermentation or injecting microorganisms.

This method has a short fermentation time, realize easily large scale production in factories, is not affected by weather and seasons, and causes less environmental pollution. Due to different equipment, the width can reach 3-30 meters , the depth is normally 0.8-3 meters, and the length is in the range of 50-100 meters. We can also design according to the requirement of customers.

Windrows Composting System

Windrow composting fermentation spread the materials into rows and stack them in the open air or under a trellis.

Each row of materials is 2-3 meters wide and 1-2 meters high, while the length depends on the actual situation.

The mechanism can be equipped with or without instruments for controlling temperature and humidity.

This system has the advantage of allowing you to place materials closer to farmyard and no need for a dedicated plant.

However, the processing period is longer. When exposing in the open-air, it is more affected by the weather and seasons.

Conditions and Controlling Measures In Chicken Manure Compost Process You Should Know

Choose suitable raw materials for composting

It is generally believed that the suitable carbon to nitrogen ratio is in the range from 20:1 to 30:1.

Due to the ingredient ratio of chicken manure and auxiliary materials is normally 3:1, you need choose auxiliary materials with C/N ratio ranging from 20:1 to 80:1, such as straw, corn stalks, wheat, soybean stems, hulls, wheat bran, sawdust, etc.

Keep appropriate material moisture when compost chicken manure

The ideal fermentation moisture range for microbes when composting chicken manure is 50-60%. What’s more, the limit moisture is 60-65%, so you need adjust material moisture to around 55-60%.
If your material moisture reaches 65% or above, it is more likely to appear non-fermentation.
If the moisture exceeds 60%, you can add auxiliary materials like straw and microbial agent.
If the moisture is lower than 60%, you should consider whether this process has added enough microbial agents.

Mechanical mixing in composting as needed

We suggest that it is necessary to use artificial assisted aeration, and that you need to manually stir frequently. This is because chicken manure has high humidity, viscosity, and poor air permeability.

In actual compost production, the temperature and seasons will have a certain impact on fermentation. In summer, the workshop temperature rises beyond 30℃, and the fermentation temperature can reach 60-65℃. You can be stir once every hour, which is conducive to the oxygen consumption of microbes and the drying of materials.

In winter, when the workshop temperature is below 10℃, the fermentation temperature can only reach 45-55℃. You can only stir once every 4 hours, which is conducive to maintaining high temperature conditions.

Consider fermentation period for chicken manure when composting

When chicken manure mixs with auxiliary materials into the grooves, the first stirring is recorded as the beginning of fermentation cycle.

In general, it enters the high temperature fermentation stage after 3-4 days of warming (7-10 days in winter).

When the temperature of the fermentation grooves is higher than 55℃, it takes 15 days to make the material completely fermented.

When the temperature is lower than 50℃, it takes 30 days to ferment materials. Therefore, the fermentation cycle lasts about 18 days in summer and 35 days in winter.

If the temperature in grooves does not exceed 40℃ after 10 days, you can regard them as dead grooves and the fermentation has failed to start. You need to readjust the fermentation conditions.

What Can You Get After Composting Chicken Manure?

Composting improves the decomposition of chicken manure.

Composting in chicken manure to multiply and decompose the harmful substances to crops by using the aerobic bacteria. In other words, the organic matter in chicken manure is fermented and decomposed in large quantities, generating heat and promoting the decomposition of organic matter.

Composting promotes the harmless treatment of chicken manure.

Untreated chicken manure is thin with high water content and strong odor. Composting uses microbial activity not only to eliminate odor and dirtiness, but also to evaporate water to make it easier to spread.

Composting helps chicken manure to reduce harmful matter.

The temperature of compost fermentation can reach 70°C, which can kill pathogenic bacteria, parasite eggs, weed seeds, and other substances harmful to crops. This guarantees that compost process is harmless and stable to plants while also maintaining soil fertility.

Chicken compost manure enhances the quality of the soil.

Chicken compost manure contains not only a wide range of nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, but trace elements such as iron, copper, zinc, manganese, and boron, etc. Continuous application can progressively increase the organic matter content of the soil.