Poultry Keepers Podcast

Manure Management-Part 1

• Rip Stalvey, Mandelyn Royal, and John Gunterman • Season 2 • Episode 72

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In this episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast, Mandelyn Royal, John Gunterman, and Rip Stalvey discuss effective strategies for managing poultry manure. 

 They cover the impact of manure on the environment, including the risk of runoff contaminating local water sources and affecting wildlife. They highlight the importance of consulting local agencies for guidance on manure management and available state programs. The panel also emphasizes safe composting methods, focusing on achieving appropriate temperatures to eliminate pests and pathogens. 

 They discuss the benefits of using different bedding materials and best practices for maintaining a healthy coop environment. Proper manure management can reduce ammonia buildup, control pests, and improve the health of domestic animals. The podcast concludes with practical tips on feeding practices to minimize manure output and promote poultry health.

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Mandelyn Royal:

Hello, my name is Mandelyn Royal, and I'm here with my cohorts, John Gunterman and Rip Stalvey, and today we're discussing what to do with all that poo. What you put into the front of the bird is going to come out the back side, so we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about the management, the composting, some safety considerations, and just generally the best ways to manage all that.

John Gunterman:

Yes, lots of manure and we have to handle it properly to protect ourselves and our local environment and our domestic animals and the wild animals that are close to us.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah, it's something we all have to do, deal with, no matter what. Watch your situation. Sooner or later,

Mandelyn Royal:

it's coming.

John Gunterman:

Yep. As far as Gump says it happens,

Rip Stalvey:

john, you mentioned something about impact on wildlife. What can be some of the potential impacts?

John Gunterman:

For me, I live literally at on the headwaters of Whitney Brook. So I'm worried about runoff off my property, going down into my wetlands. And, possibly polluting the waters downstream for my neighbors. We have a lot of agrarian activities in the area. The very next neighbor downstream is a dairy farm and they have 200 head of cattle. So it would be pretty bad if I were to like, irresponsibly release salmonella or some other thing into the water that is feeding these cows. And ultimately the milk is being made into cheese and feeding people. Understanding your place, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant in your food chain is pretty important.

Mandelyn Royal:

We have some of those same concerns because our property is sloped directly into a small creek. And this creek is tiny. There's probably a good month, two months, it doesn't even have any water in it, but when it rains, it pours, and whatever's on the surface, it's gonna run right into that creek. The, what is it, algae blooms from the nitrogen load is a, Yes, problem that will affect the oxygen levels and the native species there because we have a couple different varieties of frogs, amphibians, crawdads. I don't want to kill that creek by having too much manure running into it. So we rely on a lot of ground filtering on the way. And we strategize drainage and actually install drainage to control where our runoff goes. And this is just from having a small, in terms of scale, a small flog, like there might be a hundred birds, but I have over 200 foot of filtering before runoff ends up in that creek.

John Gunterman:

Sure. And if you're smart about it and you design little catchments and swales to do this function as part of your inherent design, then it's done. You just need to think about it a little bit and, prepare for worst case scenario. We've seen a lot of torrential floodings recently, which has had an impact on a lot of people's farms and birds. And it's really highlighted the importance of watching out for stormwater runoff in these cases.

Rip Stalvey:

And, sadly, John, it doesn't take much of contaminated runoff to cause a major problem. I would encourage folks, if you're listening and you're interested, you should be interested to check with your local organization, state and local organizations about manure management. Because, we were talking about this earlier, that it can so vary, not only from state to state, but from county to county.

John Gunterman:

And this is where your county agents, you should absolutely leverage their knowledge and experience because they will also have access to state programs which they can recommend, which may be beneficial to help you mitigate some of these concerns through grants or labor bank stabilization, rainwater mitigation, there's a lot of states have programs available to help people in funding these projects to protect themselves and their neighbors. So your county agent is definitely your best resource in this case.

Rip Stalvey:

We were talking a little earlier about runoff, contaminated runoff, and we seem to focus on bacteria when we think of that. But it's also, it can spread pests around. We were talking about this last night. That when you're treating for internal parasites and you don't manage that manure properly, you can be spreading roundworms and coccidiosis and all kinds of things.

Mandelyn Royal:

So composting, I know a lot of us probably do composting. I myself have no less than six different piles going at any given time. And there's a range of bedding materials that I use depending on what pen it came out of and what life stage the birds were in. So some of my piles are more based on pine shavings. Others are mostly sand out of my adult pens. And then I strategize those piles for achieving the temperature needed to sterilize them. And there's a couple of different temperatures when you're composting that'll do different things. John likes to run his hotter than I do. Like I'm really aiming for about 140 degrees, but if you want to sterilize it, really, what did you say, John? Like 160 is the temperature you're going for?

John Gunterman:

We liked to see if you're sterilizing and hot composting anything over 170 was delightful in our winter piles. Cause we were also composting meat. Type products being animal carcasses. I do compost my birds that I don't consume personally. So you do need a hotter compost pile. Check the regulations on that. There's also a fantastic book on this topic. I mailed my copy to Rip. It's called the Humanure book. The title is a little scary, but it really talks about all these things. I highly encourage people to just do the research, find, what your Comfortable with and stick with that, but 170 is pretty good.

Mandelyn Royal:

With the pest, my number one, most hated pest is flies. And so by running that warmer compost, I am eliminating their breeding ground by keeping it hot enough to prevent them from taking over because flies, they can travel in from other places. You might not be the breeding ground. You might be the recipient and they might be coming from the horse farm two miles up the road. They might be coming from the cattle farm five miles away. Those flies are going to end up there. And their favorite thing is moisture and warmth. So if your compost is running at their perfect preferred temperature, yeah, you're going to be a breeding ground for them.

John Gunterman:

You're creating a niche. Yeah, you're creating

Mandelyn Royal:

a habitat if you're not composting at the appropriate temperature.

John Gunterman:

So managing your piles is getting the right combination of, Browns and greens and nitrogen. It, there is a bit of an art form, but you do learn it pretty quick.

Mandelyn Royal:

And then knowing how the different beddings break down is helpful because pine shaving, straw, they all break down at various speeds, but the chicken manure itself, it's going to perform the best. If it has a minimum of six months to balance out the nitrogen load. Cause when it comes out of the backside of the bird, it's hot. It's too hot to use immediately. But I did see some research that said if you do spread it over your garden areas fresh, then you need to give at least 140 days for it to disperse itself before any vegetable plant comes anywhere near it. So this is something you could do in the fall so that it has winter and early spring, but you don't want to put your vegetables anywhere near fresh manure. It has to age so that it can go through its natural processes to become safe, and then temperature is a driving factor in how long that'll actually take. It could be anywhere from three months if you're down south and your compost is in a real warm, sunny spot. It's going to break down faster than if you're up in Michigan. You're gonna be looking at it six months minimum all the way up to one year And when you're turning that compost, it'll tell you where it's at and how long you actually need to wait before you can use it.

John Gunterman:

If it's identifiable you'll get to know your compost. It, this is one of those things that you just have to see it and experience it. But while you're doing this also, please keep in mind that there are some health hazards to humans in there, and you should at least be wearing an appropriate, lung protection. There's some things going on there that we should not be breathing. There is this poultry workers lung disease. It's pretty well documented. As long as you take basic safety precautions, you'll be okay. Now is

Mandelyn Royal:

that fungal or is that bacterial? Because I think there's a couple different things. And I think the worst thing that could happen is the fungal. Long infection.

Rip Stalvey:

Yes, that fungal infection is serious business. And it's really hard to treat.

John Gunterman:

Yeah. Anytime I'm

Mandelyn Royal:

cleaning a pen or working with birds cause the birds will kick up dust off their floors just by you being in there chasing them. And I'll wear a respirator sometimes for that too. Unless I forget.

John Gunterman:

Can't forget. My body will remind me. I'm in the process now of cleaning out my garage. Peat moss everywhere. Remember that warning folks. It's amazing, but. If you use it indoors, it's going to be everywhere. But I have to wear my respirator. It's a 3M full face mask with an external belt pack with a proper filter. If I'm in there more than three or four minutes, I can feel it and I got to put my respirator on and I need to use that garage for other things. So as mounting health concerns take care of yourself. As long as I protect myself, I can continue poultry keeping.

Rip Stalvey:

There's one thing that we haven't really talked about an advantage to managing your manure and your bedding and all that kind of stuff is that we'll keep down on moisture in the coop. Yes. And moisture in the coop is not a healthy situation because eventually, if you've got wet bedding, you're going to have a problem with ammonia.

John Gunterman:

It all starts with keeping the bedding dry.

Rip Stalvey:

Absolutely. Turn it frequently. Remove any wet spots because that ammonia, it's really hard on chickens. And by the time we can smell it, it's well into the range of damaging your poultry. And Rip, you've

John Gunterman:

seen these things physically in judging. Can you describe Iburn? High burn

Rip Stalvey:

looks like and it is caused from the ammonia gas accumulating in brooders and bedding. But it will look like almost like a cloudy little cataract.

John Gunterman:

I

Rip Stalvey:

was going to ask, similar to a cataract in humans. They can't see.

Mandelyn Royal:

There's that, and then there's the respiratory distress that it can trigger. And if they're standing on it long term, they can get ammonia burns on the bottom of their feet too.

Rip Stalvey:

Yes. Yes. So this is another reason.

Mandelyn Royal:

Often like never let it get wet because when it's wet, you're getting that increased ammonia. You're getting increased risk for parasite contamination, and that's going to create the habitat that the flies love too.

John Gunterman:

Yes. That's going to be your fly larvae is going to start getting laid and start hatching, and it's just going to trigger this whole cycle that you don't want happening in your bedding. You want it happening out in your compost pile.

Rip Stalvey:

I see more incidents of wet bedding. I don't know about you guys up north, but here it can be a real problem pretty quickly when it's cold weather, because the birds are. They basically stay in one sort of confined area and don't get out and move around as much and the manure accumulates in a hurry. The moisture can build up because it, even if you're not spilling water, you got moisture in that manure. And you can have problems with that.

Mandelyn Royal:

Now, for some people, they clean often, like they have poo boards in the coop where they can just scrape it off daily, or maybe they attack it weekly. And then there's another method with the deep litter method, where you're not cleaning as often, but you're still maintaining the environment. You're not letting it get excessively wet. You're not letting it get excessively poopy by adding little bits of bedding over time

John Gunterman:

to

Mandelyn Royal:

create that deep litter. It's almost like a self composting system that you clean out, usually twice a year. I've tried it, but I can't keep up with it. So I do,

John Gunterman:

that's been my challenge.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. So I scrub out pretty often, but I'm using a lot of sand and peat moss. So it's more of a sifting, retrieving the poo, but leaving the bulk of the bedding there.

John Gunterman:

Locally, we run out of peat moss about. Midwinter because it's tightly rationed coming out of Canada and that's when I start throwing straw and even hay down. And that's right when things start getting, start thawing and getting a little damp and moist in the coop. And it's exactly when I don't want that happening.

Mandelyn Royal:

Our local feed mill started getting really fine chopped pine shavings. And I've got to say, I prefer them. Way over the bigger flake, like you can get a large flake, medium flake. There's a lot of different sizes. And if you're doing pine shavings, my preference is for the finer chopped.

Rip Stalvey:

Yes.

Mandelyn Royal:

It breaks down faster in the compost pile. It spreads further. You can get more in a bale and then they compress it. And then the birds don't confuse it for food, because I tried the pellets, the little wood pellets.

Rip Stalvey:

Oh, they thought they were yummy.

Mandelyn Royal:

Oh, yeah. And I get worried about crop impactions, and I get worried about them missing their nutrition if they spend too much time eating the wrong thing. So my betting choices usually fall in with what they're not going to eat, because mine love to find new food sources.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah.

Mandelyn Royal:

And I don't want it to be their betting.

Rip Stalvey:

You were talking about. The size of the pine bedding, those fine chips, to me, don't seem to compact and hold moisture.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah, they stay fluffier.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah, the way the bigger size does. And you would think that being smaller it would get wetter faster. But, just go in there, just take a raker in there and just rake it around a little bit, stir it up. You get a lot of good use out of that stuff.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah, it lasts longer than the bigger

John Gunterman:

plate. I tried, literally. making some sort of a sifter to sift and recycle their peat and dry it and reuse it. Yeah. How'd that work out?

Mandelyn Royal:

Fantastic.

John Gunterman:

Okay.

Mandelyn Royal:

So I'll use a leaf rake to go through and build a pile and that'll catch, all the bigger poops. And then I took a horse stall fork with the basket on it. Cause I know you can get horse stall forks in a couple of different styles. And I like the full basket. And then I line that with quarter inch hardware cloth. And I just use zip ties and kind of form it to fit, cut off the excess. And that basket being lined with the quarter inch hardware cloth, now I can use the tines, dig in, grab a scoop out of my pile, give it three taps, three shakes, and the only thing left in that basket is the poop. Nice.

Rip Stalvey:

I've not done that with peat moss, but what you're saying would really work, but I have created a similar thing when for sand bedding and I

Mandelyn Royal:

started it with sand. You can buy them now for a metal detecting. You can get shovels with holes already in them.

Rip Stalvey:

That was back in the day when you couldn't get those things. I'm not talking about how old I am or anything, but I used a little pooper scooper sets for dogs and a little rake and then a little scoop type thing.

Mandelyn Royal:

That was very Zen.

Rip Stalvey:

And I took the the scoop thing and I just drilled a little hole, just lots of little holes in it. And just like you said, Mandy, you can get it full of manure and shake it a couple of three times and then just dump out nothing but manure and maybe feathers.

Mandelyn Royal:

And that really helps to relieve the compost pile of an excessive biomass buildup. But nothing built a bigger pile than when I was trying to use straw. Cause straw here, it's cheap, it's plentiful, but it's not, Absorbent. I had a lot of complaints about straw, like it's good for insulation, and that's about it. The rest of the year, I hate straw. It builds up too fast, takes forever to break down,

John Gunterman:

floats away,

Mandelyn Royal:

and I can't use the

Rip Stalvey:

tool. Has either one of you guys tried leaves? We don't have a lot of deciduous trees down here, and we don't get all that many leaves.

John Gunterman:

I, I rake everything downhill into, so my compost method is a hugelkultur. And we have a lot of deciduous trees in the area. So when I rake the yard every year, I rake it downhill. And I put it all into the hugelkultur mound and it's three or four feet tall chest height by the time I'm done in the fall and in the spring, it's ankle deep again and ready for more stuff.

Mandelyn Royal:

We blow them into the outside runs and it'll go in by the time I open up the gates and split piles between the pens. It'll be like three to four foot deep leaves in the run and I'll push it all the way until maybe five feet from the pop doors. So then when the chickens come out, they stare at it and they go, wow, what's that

John Gunterman:

buffet? They're taller than they're,

Mandelyn Royal:

but then they get brave and they start going in there and doing their little chicken things of stirring it up and spreading it around. By the time it's spring, it's gone. It's gone.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah. I've got a friend in Alabama.

Mandelyn Royal:

It helps the soil within the runs a lot. Oh,

Rip Stalvey:

you bet. I've got a friend in Alabama that raises buckeyes and black turkeys, and he will put probably two feet of raked up leaves in each hen as bedding. And he said they go through that stuff in a hurry and they break it up and it gets really fine. And he says next year, he's got some of the most beautiful compost for his garden.

John Gunterman:

Yes. Leaf mold is awesome and you add chicken the act of stirring and breaking down and shredding as well as, all the insects that are coming in to feed off of this process are being consumed by the chickens. So you're increasing their natural protein source and decreasing your feed bill and producing happier, healthy chickens. It just, it's a beautiful cycle and it all works.

Mandelyn Royal:

So I was doing some reading and it says that they'll poop anywhere from 12 to 15 times per day. They're going to average anywhere from 80 to 100 grams of manure per bird per day. And it ends up being 3 4 percent of their body weight is coming out the backside every single day. And that can add up to almost 6 pounds per bird per month.

Rip Stalvey:

So it's worth figuring out

Mandelyn Royal:

what your plan is.

Rip Stalvey:

Sounds like you've been doing some computations there, Mandy.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah, a couple. That should be

John Gunterman:

part of your capacity planning and most people don't account for the amount of manure.

Mandelyn Royal:

Not until it's piled up and stinky. Yeah,

John Gunterman:

we love our feed conversion ratios, but You got to think about where is all that other food that's going in the front end that's not being converted to meat and eggs going and it's right out the back. So we need to capture as much nutritional value while it's in the bird and utilize it.

Mandelyn Royal:

And without wasting it too, because there is such a thing as too much protein. And if you feed that protein excessively, it's coming immediately out of that backside, and it has a much higher nitrogen content that converts to ammonia. You're increasing the ammonia if you're excessively feeding protein, which makes it stinkier, it makes it more hazardous.

John Gunterman:

Yeah, so the number one way to save money and labor all the way around is to feed the appropriate ration. At the appropriate time

Rip Stalvey:

and to feed grit.

Mandelyn Royal:

Oh yeah. To help. That

Rip Stalvey:

Really, you would not think I was surprised back before I religiously fed my birds grit. And then I switched over and I was really surprised at the reduction in the amount of manure.

John Gunterman:

And the healthier bird. Proper gizzard action is going to extract and release more micro and macro nutrients, make them available to the bird and let less go out the back end.

Rip Stalvey:

And they're actually eating about 15 to 20 percent less feed. So that reduces your manure output.

John Gunterman:

Especially if you're providing a quality feed, that's a whole grain with fibers.

Alex:

Thank you for joining us for Part One of Manure Managemnt here on the Poultry Keepers Podcast. Be sure to join us next Tuesday for Part two of this series Remember, we talk poultry, from Feathers To Function.

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John Gunterman

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Mandelyn Royal

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Rip Stalvey

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