The Scoop on Poop

Chicken poop, cow poop, horse poop, sheep poop… all of them are excellent at adding organic matter to the soil, improving the structure and water holding capacity. Some poops also have the added benefit of adding nutrients, especially nitrogen, to give you plants an extra boost! But it’s important that you know a few things before you go up-ending the contents of your chicken coop clean-up on your veggie patch.

Where poop comes from

Hot manure vs cold manure:

Manures are either classified as ‘hot’ (contains lots of nutrients) or cold (low in nutrients). Hot manures are like fertilizer, they have lots of nutrients, but there is too much of a good thing and you can burn your plants if you overload them. Chicken manure is a hot manure and has one of the highest nutrient levels. Horse manure is also classified as a hot manure - but not as hot as chicken. For these poops, it’s best to either age it (let it sit, so the nitrogen can dissipate) or compost it (mix it with ‘browns’ such as dried leaves and straw, keep moist and let it break down). Done correctly, composting horse manure also breaks down any potential weed seeds that might exist.

Sheep, cow and alpaca (if you happen to have a local alpaca farm nearby) manure are ‘cold manures’ these typically have lower levels of nitrogen and are safer to put directly on your garden. Composting is still a good idea if you want to avoid weed seeds (though you need to get your compost heap nice and hot for this to work.)

There are often concerns raised about worming agents used on the animals making their way through the poo and killing your hard workers. Wormers are targeted to specific worm species - if you’ve ever wormed a pet and read the package it will give you a list of the worms it kills - earthworms aren’t one of them.

For what it’s worth I once used VERY fresh (smelly!) bags of horse manure, straight into a lasagne style veggie patch (layers of poo and straw) and planted directly into it. Nothing burned, and next time I looked it was teeming with worms.