Chicken Poop Fertilizer for the Garden

Every spring, a bewildering number of new soil enrichment and fertilizer products appear on the shelves of stores. Ads for new products promising wonders for any vegetable garden arrive weekly in flyers, gardening magazines, mail-order catalogs, or stacked in piles at local garden supply, hardware, or big box stores. Sometimes, forgotten among all the hype, even among chicken flock owners, is that the humble homestead hen isn’t just an egg-laying machine but a soil amendment maker, a poop-producing powerhouse. Chicken poop, sometimes called ‘black gold,’ is available free of charge for use as a garden fertilizer for anyone who keeps chickens or knows someone who does. All it takes to turn this fabulous resource into ‘black gold’ is a little attention to the handling of chicken poop and a little patience. Chicken manure is considered a complete fertilizer, but what are its benefits.