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  • From: Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] "Withdrawal" time following fresh chicken manure
  • Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:52:16 -0500

I often recommend using the home chicken flock to help with gardening chores such as tilling in cover crops or opening up new garden ground. Inevitably readers want to know what kind of "withdrawal" time is safe following deposition of fresh chicken poops onto garden ground. I'm copying here an exchange on the subject I had with a visitor to my website.

~Harvey

**************************

(Responses interspersed below)

K H of SE Pennsylvania wrote:

> I've been working on my garden plans for this year and I had a question about using our hens to clear a new patch of ground for us. I wonder if you might know the answer.

Put them girls to work! I've done this several times here, though have recently added a new wrinkle: Do try to find a copy of the next issue of Backyard Poultry (due out pretty soon now)--it will have my article on using chickens as shredder-composters. One spinoff from the central theme is: laying down a mixed debris field over a patch of ground we want to convert to new garden, and letting the chooks turn it into a nice compost/mulch in place, while destroying the old sod. Check it out.


>
> Should I be concerned about planting food crops in a hen-cleared bed too soon after a great deal of manure is laid down? I'm thinking about using the ground they clear for potatoes, so this might be more of an issue since it's a root crop, as opposed to, say, peppers.
This is one of those areas where there is a "correct" answer and a real-world answer. Poop can unquestionably be a vector for disease, so we are wise to be careful about the possible pathways thru which it could contaminate what we're going to put into our mouths. But poops laid down on the soil are part of the routines of soil life--as soon as they get into the soil, various players start gobbling them up as a source of energy, passing their fertility on to other players, and "cleansing" them of any pathogens they contain.

It's really funny to me: We are *terrified* of the chance for contamination of our health from poops, but never give a thought to the multitudinous ways in which industrial food is poisoning our metabolisms--from children's breakfast cereals loaded with additives to the pristine, shrink-wrapped package of chicken parts in the supermarket cooler (found by Consumer Reports to have contamination rates as high as 80%).

I digress. The standard recommendation is a 60-day "withdrawal" between removing the birds (or any other application of raw manure) and harvest of crops in close contact with the soil--root crops like radishes or potatoes, and lettuces, spinach (we've seen the damage it can do, n'est-ce pas?), etc. (Some sources recommend even longer withdrawal times--I think I've seen up to 120 days recommended.) Whether you want to stick strictly to such a schedule is your call. In the case of potatoes, of course, harvest period is more than 60 days, so there should be no problem in any case.

Joel Salatin sent samples of his dressed poultry meat to an independent lab for testing. Along with it, he sent samples of his poultry's *manure*. *Both* samples returned a verdict of "pathogen free." His experience supports my belief that--in a well managed, healthy flock of homestead/small farm poultry (as opposed to the disease incubators of industrial poultry production)--the chances for the manure being a vector for disease are low. I keep my flock overwinter on one or both of my garden spaces (under a heavy mulch--I describe it a couple of places on the site). In the spring I don't worry about withdrawal times--I just plant the spring crops and get on with the season.

There is another consideration for potatoes specifically: I would allow a three-week "rest" between removing the birds and planting. Potatoes don't like being planted in soil that's just been amended with raw manure.



> I would of course set them to work clearing as early as I can, but I imagine I would need to plant 6-8 weeks later, at the most, and possibly much sooner than that. What do you think?

With the exception of the concern about planting the potatoes too soon, I wouldn't think you'd need to wait 6-8 weeks to *plant*. How long you allow until the *harvest* of a given crop is your call. Hope my remarks will help in thinking that through. As said, I've started the spring season with chickens on garden plots for years now, and never got real precise with withdrawal times. A healthy soil ecology is cleansing--that's my belief.

Best luck for the coming season.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us




  • [Livingontheland] "Withdrawal" time following fresh chicken manure, Harvey Ussery, 01/12/2009

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