Chicken
manure tea is
a great
source of nitrogen
and other nutrients, and can quickly perk up a
plant that needs a shot of nitrogen. Tomatoes,
asparagus, cabbage and watermelons are examples
of heavy feeders which may greatly benefit from
some extra nitrogen.
I always add important trace minerals to my manure tea to meet this pressing need in my garden.
.
Like other birds, chickens do not urinate. Therefore, all of the nitrogen which other animals excrete through their urine is in the chicken litter. To balance out the high level of nitrogen, it is a good idea to add in trace minerals to your tea, and apply calcium to your soil.
Chicken litter has one of the highest contents of nitrogen of any manure. Nitrogen in chicken litter is also in a more available form than the nitrogen in non-bird manures. Therefore, it is doubly important that the chicken manure be aged for a year, or composted before using.
This will substantially lower the nitrogen level of the manure, plus help to reduce or eliminate pathogens.
Even then, care must be taken not to burn plants, or their roots. If you do burn a plant with too much nitrogen, it actually looks like the leaves went through a fire – they look dry and shriveled up.
As with most other manure teas, our goal in making chicken manure tea is simply to dissolving nutrients from the manure into the water. We are NOT trying to increase beneficial bacteria. Therefore, just add 1 part chicken manure to 3 or 4 parts warm or hot water, and agitate. This may be done by stirring occasionally, or by pouring the contents back and forth between 2 buckets (called boxing). Let the bucket sit in the sun and steep in between stirrings.
To apply, (manure tea app. page) dip the tea out of the top of the bucket, or pour it through a cloth into another bucket to strain it. For the average sized plant, one to two cups of weak looking tea is probably sufficient. If the tea is too dark, dilute it with water.
