Composting manure

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Jacob Johnston

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:47 pm

Guest

What's the guidelines for aging chicken manure before using it to fertilize
your garden. I was going to use what I clean out of my pens on my garden
next year, but supposedly the food poisoning from the spinach came from
improperly prepared manure.

Jill

Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 4:32 am

Guest

Jacob Johnston wrote:

Quote:

What's the guidelines for aging chicken manure before using it to
fertilize your garden.

One of the main problems is its so strong
What have you mixed it with?
How do you manange your compost?

Quote:

I was going to use what I clean out of my pens
on my garden next year, but supposedly the food poisoning from the
spinach came from improperly prepared manure.

What food poisoning from spinach?
Intriguing

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

Jacob Johnston

Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 8:00 am

Guest

There was an outbreak of e. coli (I think) from bagged spinach a few months
back. The local farmers spread the stuff from chicken houses pretty much
straight onto their fields but there's not much grown for human consumption
around here, mostly cotton, animal feed corn, and occassionally soybeans,
which if they end up in the human food chain will be processed enough it
won't matter.

I was going to go with the less is more theory and spread a little bit on
the patch instead of mixing it with something. I don't have a whole lot of
chickens and both I and my parents will have plots next year and theirs
tends to be pretty large.

Jacob

"Jill" <news@NOSPAMkintaline.co.uk> wrote in message
news:45a747a9$0$8736$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...

Quote:

Jacob Johnston wrote:
What's the guidelines for aging chicken manure before using it to
fertilize your garden.

One of the main problems is its so strong
What have you mixed it with?
How do you manange your compost?

I was going to use what I clean out of my pens
on my garden next year, but supposedly the food poisoning from the
spinach came from improperly prepared manure.

What food poisoning from spinach?
Intriguing

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

Mary Fisher

Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 8:15 am

Guest

"Jacob Johnston" <aracauna@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:v-idnWjlyphPmTrYnZ2dnUVZ_sapnZ2d@trueband.net...

Quote:

What's the guidelines for aging chicken manure before using it to
fertilize your garden. I was going to use what I clean out of my pens on
my garden next year, but supposedly the food poisoning from the spinach
came from improperly prepared manure.

I suspect it was e-coli and not a function of preparing the manure but
improperly preparing the spinach.

My hens scratch and deposit in the vegetable plots when they're fallow and
are excluded during the growing season - unless the crop isn't going to be
eaten by them. The droppings are thus diluted in the soil.

The accumulated deposits from the coops are put into the compost bin with
the shavings and mixed with other garden and kitchen waste. It's two or
three years before that compost is used.

It was seeing the enormous benefit of poultry droppings in our garden that I
began growing vegetables, which get better every year.

Mary

Quote:

Jill

Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:08 am

Guest

Jacob Johnston wrote:

Quote:

There was an outbreak of e. coli (I think) from bagged spinach a few
months back. The local farmers spread the stuff from chicken houses
pretty much straight onto their fields but there's not much grown for
human consumption around here, mostly cotton, animal feed corn, and
occassionally soybeans, which if they end up in the human food chain
will be processed enough it won't matter.

I was going to go with the less is more theory and spread a little
bit on the patch instead of mixing it with something. I don't have a
whole lot of chickens and both I and my parents will have plots next
year and theirs tends to be pretty large.

If you compost correctly -- ie get the heat up then you will destroy the
pathogens
What you are talking about using is very different from raw slurry
Get a good book on composting - its an art and quite fascinating.
You will be fine

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

Quote:

Jacob

"Jill" <news@NOSPAMkintaline.co.uk> wrote in message
news:45a747a9$0$8736$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
Jacob Johnston wrote:
What's the guidelines for aging chicken manure before using it to
fertilize your garden.

One of the main problems is its so strong
What have you mixed it with?
How do you manange your compost?

I was going to use what I clean out of my pens
on my garden next year, but supposedly the food poisoning from the
spinach came from improperly prepared manure.

What food poisoning from spinach?
Intriguing

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

Amy Blankenship

Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:09 am

Guest

"Jacob Johnston" <aracauna@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:v-idnWjlyphPmTrYnZ2dnUVZ_sapnZ2d@trueband.net...

Quote:

What's the guidelines for aging chicken manure before using it to
fertilize your garden. I was going to use what I clean out of my pens on
my garden next year, but supposedly the food poisoning from the spinach
came from improperly prepared manure.

Organic guidelines are that raw manure cannot be applied later than 90 days
before the crop matures if the edible part of the plant touches the soil or
120 days if it does (such as spinach). Not that you're trying to be
certified organic, but it's as good as anything as a rough guideline. If
you compost it, you need to ensure that the pile heats up to the right
temperature/duration before application. I'm don't recall the exact numbers
on those, but I suspect you can find something like that here
http://attra.ncat.org/soils.html or here
http://journeytoforever.org/compost.html.

When we move our chicken house, I usually let it sit for 3 weeks to 2 months
under a tarp (to prevent leaching and do a rough solarization) before
preparing the soil to plant. This depends, of course, on the nature of the
crop that's planned to be first after the chickens have moved on.

HTH;

Amy

diddy

Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:15 am

Guest

Quote:

Jacob Johnston wrote:
There was an outbreak of e. coli (I think) from bagged spinach a few
months back.

Bagged spinach and then onions. In fact, 22 outbreaks of E-coli tainted
vegetables from california ORGANIC fields in the last several months. All
with Confined Animal Feeding Operations nearby contracting out their e-coli
concentrated liquid manure fertilizer.

Jill

Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:36 am

Guest

diddy wrote:

Quote:

Jacob Johnston wrote:
There was an outbreak of e. coli (I think) from bagged spinach a few
months back.

Bagged spinach and then onions. In fact, 22 outbreaks of E-coli
tainted vegetables from california ORGANIC fields in the last
several months. All with Confined Animal Feeding Operations nearby
contracting out their e-coli concentrated liquid manure fertilizer.

http://www.dhs.ca.gov/opa/ecoli/

<just the first part of the page>
CDHS E-Coli Update For Oct. 18, 2006
Update
To date, 204 cases of illness due to E. coli O157:H7 infection have been
reported to CDC, including 33 cases of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), 102
hospitalizations and three deaths. California has confirmed two cases in
Riverside and Shasta counties. The first death was an elderly woman in
Wisconsin. The second death of a 2-year-old in Idaho and the third death of
an elderly woman in Nebraska were confirmed by CDC today as posted at
http://www.cdc.gov/foodborne/ecolispinach/100606.htm.
States Affected
The 26 affected states and numbers of illnesses in each state are: Arizona
( Cool

, California (2), Colorado (1), Connecticut (3), Idaho ( Cool

, Illinois (2),
Indiana (10), Kentucky ( Cool

, Maine (3), Maryland (5), Michigan (4), Minnesota
(2), Nebraska (11), Nevada (2), New Mexico (5), New York (11), Ohio (26),
Oregon (6), Pennsylvania (10), Tennessee (1), Utah (19), Virginia (2),
Washington (3), West Virginia (1), Wisconsin (50), and Wyoming (1). In
addition, Canada has one confirmed case.
Status
On Oct. 4, 2006, U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan of the Northern District of
California issued a statement on the execution of two search warrants on
Growers Express in Salinas, California, and Natural Selection Foods in San
Bautista, California, in connection with the outbreak. The statement is
available online at
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/can/press/2006/2006_10_04_spinachsearches.press.htm
FDA, the State of California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) continue to
investigate the cause of this outbreak. This includes continued inspections
and sample collection in facilities, the environment and water, as well as
studies of animal management, water use, and the environment.
FDA announced on Sept. 29, 2006, that all spinach implicated in the current
outbreak has traced back to Natural Selection Foods LLC of San Juan
Bautista, California. This determination is based on epidemiological and
laboratory evidence obtained by multiple states and coordinated by CDC.
Natural Selection Foods issued a recall of all implicated products on Sept.
15, 2006. Four other companies have issued secondary recalls because they
received the recalled product from Natural Selections. See below for a
complete list of brand names that are subject of the recalls. Spinach
processed by other manufacturers has not been implicated in the outbreak.
Next Steps
There has been a long history of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks involving leafy
greens from the central California region. Spinach processed by other
manufacturers has not been implicated in this outbreak, but based on
discussions with industry, and given the past E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks, FDA
and the State of California still expect the industry to develop a
comprehensive plan which is designed to minimize the risk of another
outbreak due to E. coli O157:H7 in spinach grown in central California.
While this plan is under development, FDA and the State of California
reiterate previous concerns and advise firms to review their current
operations in light of the agency's guidance for minimizing microbial food
safety hazard
FDA and the State of California have previously expressed serious concern
with the continuing outbreaks of foodborne illness associated with the
consumption of fresh and fresh-cut lettuce and other leafy greens. After
discussions with industry, FDA and the State of California, as part of a
longer term strategy, now expect industry to develop a plan to minimize the
risk of another outbreak due to E. coli O157:H7 in all leafy greens,
including lettuce.

--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk

0tterbot

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 5:51 am

Guest

"diddy" <diddy@nospam.diddy.net> wrote in message
news:Xns98B6684EFF02danny@216.196.97.142...

Quote:

Jacob Johnston wrote:
There was an outbreak of e. coli (I think) from bagged spinach a few
months back.

Bagged spinach and then onions. In fact, 22 outbreaks of E-coli tainted
vegetables from california ORGANIC fields in the last several months. All
with Confined Animal Feeding Operations nearby contracting out their
e-coli
concentrated liquid manure fertilizer.

0tterbot

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:00 am

Guest

Quote:

"Jacob Johnston" <aracauna@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:v-idnWjlyphPmTrYnZ2dnUVZ_sapnZ2d@trueband.net...
What's the guidelines for aging chicken manure before using it to
fertilize your garden. I was going to use what I clean out of my pens on
my garden next year, but supposedly the food poisoning from the spinach
came from improperly prepared manure.

what i've been doing which i'm very happy with:

muck out the pooey straw, then pile the pooey straw (near the garden, of
course Wink

in small piles & water well. i turn it & water it (if necessary)
until it's observably breaking down (this has been taking about 3 weeks -
it's summer) & then spread it over the beds as mulch. voila Smile

i think if
left longer, it would become compost rather quickly, but i'm motivated
towards mulching so this is a good way to organise the problem & get the
benefit from the manure.

there's no such thing as "improperly prepared manure" - either it's rotting
or it's too fresh; either way it's full of stuff you probably don't want on
your dinner plate - the natural world being full o' microbes Wink

. chook poo
is "hot" & MUST be well-rotted otherwise you risk burning your plants
(rather than contracting an e-coli infection). sheep & goat is "cold" & you
can use it any time, but bird poo is notoriously quite the reverse.
hth.
kylie

diddy

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 8:08 am

Guest

in thread news:CY1qh.428$u8.233@news-server.bigpond.net.au: "0tterbot"
<spl@t.com> whittled the following words:

Quote:

"diddy" <diddy@nospam.diddy.net> wrote in message
news:Xns98B6684EFF02danny@216.196.97.142...

Jacob Johnston wrote:
There was an outbreak of e. coli (I think) from bagged spinach a
few months back.

Bagged spinach and then onions. In fact, 22 outbreaks of E-coli
tainted vegetables from california ORGANIC fields in the last
several months. All with Confined Animal Feeding Operations nearby
contracting out their e-coli
concentrated liquid manure fertilizer.

you are, of course, aware that soil contains a great many things you
probably wouldn't want to eat in large quantities, e-coli being just
one of them.

e-coli tainted food doesn't get that way during the _growing_ process,
fertilisers or no. otherwise we'd be eating all sorts!!
kylie

Actually, in the case of the spinach it did. The fertilizer was overapplied
and the E-Coli was IN the spinach and didn't wash off.

diddy

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 8:09 am

Guest

in thread news:052qh.430$u8.46@news-server.bigpond.net.au: "0tterbot"
<spl@t.com> whittled the following words:

Quote:

there's no such thing as "improperly prepared manure" - either it's
rotting or it's too fresh;

Well if you served raw chicken.. it would be improperly prepared.
It's too fresh.

Farm1

Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:16 am

Guest

"diddy" <diddy@nospam.diddy.net> wrote in message

Quote:

in thread news:CY1qh.428$u8.233@news-server.bigpond.net.au:
"0tterbot"

Quote:

you are, of course, aware that soil contains a great many things
you
probably wouldn't want to eat in large quantities, e-coli being
just
one of them.

e-coli tainted food doesn't get that way during the _growing_
process,
fertilisers or no. otherwise we'd be eating all sorts!!
kylie

Actually, in the case of the spinach it did. The fertilizer was
overapplied
and the E-Coli was IN the spinach and didn't wash off.

I was fascinated by this claim as I've never heard of any claim that
E. coli could actually be INSIDE a plant and I've gardened and been an
avid reader of all things gardening for more years than I care to
remember.

E. coli is a normal resident of the gut flora of mammals, and, since
vegetable don't have guts then how could it be possible for E.coli to
be found IN a vegetable???? It may be ON a vegetable but IN
it??????????? I thought this was such a truly weird claim that I just
had to do some googling.

I checked a lot of US sites including the CDC (sloppy writers - why is
the art of clear, unambiguous writing so rare these days!) that site
mentions e. coli in "bagged spinach" which of course is not the same
as "in the spinach". It implies a contamination of the bagged product
with E. coli. Later mention is made of how E. coli has previously
been a problem on lettuce but it goes on to mention that washed
lettuce, where the bag records that it is washed, would be OK. No
help at the CDC site, so I moved on.

The best sirte I could find was this one:
http://www.dmaonline.org/fppublic/connect73.html
Where the nearest comment to e. coli actually being "in the spinach",
is as follows:
Quote, "the FDA issued an advisory warning consumers throughout the
country not to eat any bagged spinach products. Frozen and canned
spinach were not affected by the advisory, because these products
receive processing treatment that would destroy bacteria. FDA
officials also noted that washing spinach would not be an effective
step in making it safe, because bacteria could get inside the leaves."
end quote.

This does not sound like the E. coli was "in the spinach" but more
like a case of contamination of E. coli "on the spinach" or "in the
bag of spinach".

From there I decided to do some more research on the particular strain
of E. coli, viz. 0157:H7.

I found this site:
http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/ecoli.html
which discusses E. coli in general and the 0157:H7 strain in
particular. It concentrates on the appearance of this strain of E.
coli in meat - ground beef in particular and recalls from ground beef
contamination in the US.

Quote "Unless there is a cut in the meat, the meat below the surface
is normally sterile (unless there is some intracellular organism
present). However, whether or not some intracellular bug is around,
the outside surfaces of all meat will have bacteria present - so - if
some meat happens to be contaminated with the rare E.coli strain,
O157:H7, it will be on the surface of the meat, and not down inside
the fibers of the meat. However, as soon as the meat is cut with a
knife or punctured with a fork, the knife blade or fork tine will
carry the bacterial cells down into the cut or puncture - usually,
such a situation is relatively safe because we cook the meat -
certainly we cook the surface of the meat. Remember though, bacteria
are _really_ small, so even a tiny, pretty much invisible cut in the
meat could introduce bacteria down inside. In the case of E.coli
O157:H7, the total number of bacteria required for infection appears
to be about 10 - that's right, only 10 bacterial cells! Therefore, it
is always safest to cook _all_ meat at least until the juices of the
meat run absolutely clear - not pink - clear. " end quote.

I'm satisfied that any claim that the E. coli was IN the spinach is
not true.

Mary Fisher

Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 6:39 am

Guest

"0tterbot" <spl@t.com> wrote in message
news:sZnqh.913$u8.813@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

Quote:

even our Dear Jackie

Who?

Quote:

said not to put grey water on root crops, lest the evil small traces of e.
coli in shower water get "in" your root crops. it's the only dumb thing
i've ever known her to say so far, but really. it's tickety-boo to put
horse manure all over your root crops for the worms to drag down, but god
forbid the shower water goes on them Wink

e. coli can't survive in a carrot
for months, for heaven's sake.
kylie

It sounds as though Dear Jackie is a politican. They're politicans because
they have no specialist ideas as a rule. If they had they'd be earning
honest money.

Mary

Quote:

0tterbot

Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 6:41 am

Guest

"diddy" <diddy@nospam.diddy.net> wrote in message
news:Xns98B748D7CD6E6danny@216.196.97.142...

Quote:

in thread news:052qh.430$u8.46@news-server.bigpond.net.au: "0tterbot"
spl@t.com> whittled the following words:

there's no such thing as "improperly prepared manure" - either it's
rotting or it's too fresh;

Well if you served raw chicken.. it would be improperly prepared.
It's too fresh.

yet thankfully, we are talking about _manure_, not anything else.
kylie

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