Cleaning Day

Sara, Fertilizer Maker

Today was Poop-Cleaning Day, or Coop-Cleaning Day—whichever you prefer. Or, we could call it Fertilizer Collection Day. The process is simple: Arrive at chicken coop and remember that your custom made poop-scraper is broken; leave. Re-arrive at coop with random gardening tools. Inadvertently offend the modesty of a chicken trying to lay an egg in the privacy of her nest box. Remember you forgot the wheelbarrow; leave. Return, re-offend the chicken (who runs away to squawk her troubles to the flock). Hold breath to avoid inhaling poop dust. Use random gardening tools to scrape poop into wheelbarrow without actually touching or inhaling poop. Put wheelbarrow under adjacent beautiful camphor tree to take a picture for Steemit. Dump poop in designated Poop Pile in garden. Easy-peasy.

Poop-Barrell

I don't have any significant knowledge on using chicken poop for fertilizer, only the experience I have had with it. I was told, in a sort of condescending manner, by a Canadian friend that I could not use fresh chicken poop in gardening—it had to be composted, or the high nitrogen content would burn the plants. I don’t actually let my (chicken) poop compost, although unused portions of it do sit for a bit in the sun, sometimes. I think what my Canadian friend may not have taken into account is the difference in soil. I’m assuming where she lived the soil was much heartier. Here, growing in sand, I am of the theory nutrients drain away quickly.

Dominique, the Nosy Chicken

As an experiment, I snuggled a baby plant down into a large amount of our “fresh” chicken poo, and it grew robustly. What the science is I don’t know, I am just going with results.

I wonder where that chicken ended up laying her egg.