Chicken muck

Barley

Member
Has anybody got experience of volunteer wheat growing that has come in the chicken muck? As going to be spread before spring barley, my hope is it won’t come to much as it’s going to of sat in the heap a few months. Thanks for any help!
 

Salopian_Will

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Shropshire
Quite unusual, as I have never seen much grow in broiler muck save for docks and redshank! I wouldn't worry too much about it though - a large amount should be 'cooked' before it is spread and anything left should be easily smothered by the spring barley.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Has anybody got experience of volunteer wheat growing that has come in the chicken muck? As going to be spread before spring barley, my hope is it won’t come to much as it’s going to of sat in the heap a few months. Thanks for any help!

Most Lincolnshire broilers are on sawdust bedding. A small amount of wheat straw used for topping up by a few chicken rearers. Layers no wheat straw used. I have not seen any incidence of wheat in poultry manure over several decades of seeing the stuff used.
 

Barley

Member
Thanks for the advice it’s as I thought it’s just that the barley will be grown for seed. The wheat in it is coming from the feed rather than the bedding in this case. Thanks again
 

chipchap

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Shropshire
Most Lincolnshire broilers are on sawdust bedding. A small amount of wheat straw used for topping up by a few chicken rearers. Layers no wheat straw used. I have not seen any incidence of wheat in poultry manure over several decades of seeing the stuff used.
Usually when we fetch litter from a site we are waiting for the catchers to finish in one or two sheds.
As soon as they are finished the first chore is to empty all the remaining feed in the pans onto the floor, before the feeder gantries are wound up.
The feed is almost entirely wheat.
 

jed

Member
Location
Shropshire
understand the zero risk to the crop, but have had cases of foxes or dogs carrying chicken carcases onto adjacent grass fields with stock in them
We too have had this problem have lost sheep and cattle over the years from chicken carcasses been dragged onto grass fields by scavengers and carrion especially from piles of stockpiled broiler muck.
 

BRBX

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
nottingham
Takes approx 6 weeks for the roots to get to it with wheat any way. Just needs a boost to get going until then.
Thats interesting, we have layer muck to go on after jan lift beet and was thinking about sumo type of operation but plough would be better from a seedbed point of view and sorting ruts out.
 

eagleye

Member
Location
co down
We used to plough down 10t/ha broiler litter for spring barley (march), drill barley and put on 24kg N to get it going. as soil warms and roots go down barley gets really lush by june. MUST spread the litter evenly on calm day or you will get lodged stripes!!
 

BRBX

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
nottingham
We used to plough down 10t/ha broiler litter for spring barley (march), drill barley and put on 24kg N to get it going. as soil warms and roots go down barley gets really lush by june. MUST spread the litter evenly on calm day or you will get lodged stripes!!
My thinking was it will be a right mess after beet gets lifted so get the spreaders in then and get it sumo'd or ploughed, that could end up stripy with the ruts , otherwise plough spread on top and pull wheelings out. Was that the total N for the crop?
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Usually when we fetch litter from a site we are waiting for the catchers to finish in one or two sheds.
As soon as they are finished the first chore is to empty all the remaining feed in the pans onto the floor, before the feeder gantries are wound up.
The feed is almost entirely wheat.

Thats interesting. The broiler farms I get involved with all feed is milled. No whole grains fed. I will keep quiet in future. I am also surprised by comments made by other posters about carcasses in the litter. Locally here that practice ended several years ago. Better management of houses with dad birds picked daily and any that do slip past picked up and removed from litter by cleaning team. Cheers.
 
Thats interesting. The broiler farms I get involved with all feed is milled. No whole grains fed. I will keep quiet in future. I am also surprised by comments made by other posters about carcasses in the litter. Locally here that practice ended several years ago. Better management of houses with dad birds picked daily and any that do slip past picked up and removed from litter by cleaning team. Cheers.
As I understand it Avara contracts allow growers to add in an increasing percentage of whole wheat to the ration as the birds grow where as Moypark only use milled feed.
 

Southeastsean

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Wexford, Ireland
@EagleEye Was the Broiler muck ploughed in direct behind spreader? First year using layers muck here, have got sample tested and and back at 3.9% N. Unsure about how much to bank on with losses and unavailable N etc, don’t want hungry crops but definitely don’t want flat crop either!!
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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