vet on call: Yes it stinks, but like a rose with thorns, chicken manure is gold

Manure is a product of livestock farming that many take for granted. In fact, a lot of people in Kenya term it a by-product and give it little value.

This is mainly because the livestock farming industry in the country is very small-scale. Most farmers in the high rainfall areas own between one and four cattle and a few chickens in each household.

In the pastoral areas where farming is done by free-range grazing and individuals own large herds, most of the manure is scattered in the fields, eaten and buried in the land by hardworking dung beetles.

Interestingly, when chickens are reared in large numbers, manure becomes a major product and a nuisance to the farmer and the neighbours, particularly if the chickens are reared intensively on a small land.

Whether the manure produced by the chickens becomes a commercial product or a nuisance, it all depends on the ingenuity of the farmer.

I encountered a really difficult and potentially embarrassing situation a month ago, which reminded me of the difficulties farmers who produce large quantities of chicken manure without a good disposal plan have.

I do not rear chickens, but I know their manure is very high quality in providing very good nutrition to plants of all kinds. It also moderates soil acidity as it produces a lot of ammonia, which is alkaline.

You see, I had noticed my home compound lawn was dying out. The grass had grown weak due to repeated trimming every two weeks. There were patches of naked earth making the lawn appear like a head with ringworm infection.

I had tried applying fertiliser in the last long rains season but the effect was short-lived. The grass had recovered well but the nutrients added were soon exhausted. I, therefore, decided to apply manure to revive it.

I considered the various types of manure starting with the famous Kajiado dry type, which is ubiquitous in Nairobi but I quickly dispensed the idea.

The Kajiado manure may be good but it comes loaded with lots of unwanted guests including weeds, colonising grasses, ticks and fleas. The weeds come from seeds that survived the ruminant digestive system while the ticks and fleas come from parasite eggs in the manure.

I turned to my client Stanley at Ruiru who rears about 6,000 layers under the cage system. He told me he would be glad to offload about 10 tonnes of pure chicken manure in my compound on condition that I collected it from his farm.

SMELLY STUFF

He said he had a crisis because the person he had contracted to remove the manure had enough of it and was not able to take any more. Stanley’s compound was now buzzing with thousands of flies.

Chicken manure for birds raised in the cage system is very good for the farm and lawns. It is completely free of weeds since chickens are fed on factory-processed feeds where all the seeds are deactivated.

There are also very few chances of the manure having parasites such as ticks, fleas and mites because most layer farmers are very diligent in parasite control to maximise on egg production.

The manure was brought to my compound by a hired contractor. When I arrived in the evening, my dilemma began unfolding about 100 metres from my gate. I felt the very heavy noxious smell of a combination of rotting substances.

From my experienced nose, I could pick out the rotten-egg smell of hydrogen sulphide. Coming closer, the smell of ammonia also became evident.

By the time I reached the big manure heap at the centre of my compound, it was evident my dying-lawn solution had turned into a nightmare.

The manure was fairly raw, wet and steaming hot, the reason so much gas was being released into the environment.

By this time, my eyes were stinging and the nose itching. The ammonia level was just too high.

I worried about my neighbours, whose olfactory peace I knew I had seriously disrupted.

I called Dan, one of the neighbours. He was surprised that the smelly stuff was coming from my compound. “You know what, I thought I had a leak in the sewer and was just about to start investigating,” he said, adding he understood my predicament but hoped I would sort-out the mess soonest.

Now, the devil was in the details of how to clear the mess. The first thing was to collect all the manure and dump it on our rural land where space was much bigger and the population low. That option was not viable since it would neither solve the smell problem nor revive my dying lawn.

UNPRECEDENTED MAGGOT BOUNTY

Second, I could cover the manure with soil and let it compose for about 10 days before spreading it on the lawn. That would only partially solve the problem because the manure would still smell during spreading.

The other problem was that I would have to deal with a heavy housefly invasion because the manure heap would be the perfect breeding ground.

That would even be a greater nuisance to the neighbours as my unwanted guests would spill over to the neighbours, looking for more space.

When I closely looked at the manure heap on the surface and under it, I was amazed by the number of housefly maggots busy chewing away and bidding time to mature and produce more flies. That got me to my third and most viable option.

I decided to make use of the September sun with its bacterial and maggot-killing heat and ultraviolet radiation. If I spread the manure on the lawn in a thin layer over a wide area, it would dry and arrest the maggot and bacterial activity that produced the smell and the flies.

Since there are many wild birds in my area of residence, they would also congregate in my compound to feed on the unprecedented maggot bounty.

We spread the manure widely to prevent fatal burns on the grass and the smell dissipated to just a whiff within three days. I was at peace with my neighbours. Once the manure was fully dry, we spread it on the whole lawn and the grass has now turned healthy green.

Should you want to use chicken manure on your lawn or farm, ensure that it is fully composted or is dry. In intensive farming operations, the manure is dried, mechanically ground into a powder and packed for sale.