Chicken Poop Garden ‘Tea’ (Liquid Fertilizer)

Free liquid fertilizer! If you keep chickens in your backyard, chicken poop garden ‘tea’ is as easy as soaking the chicken poop in water for a week!

Don’t Throw Away Your Chicken Poop!

If you keep chickens in your backyard, not only do you have beautiful feathery friends roaming, you also have free fertilizer generated for your garden, daily! You can add the chicken poop to your compost pile and its heat will help breakdown the other natural matter but you can also make a wonderful liquid fertilizer.

I watched my Dad make Chicken Poop Garden ‘Tea’ as a child. When the tea had ‘brewed’ for long enough, he’d dilute it and then add a good helping to each and every vegetable plant. At this time, he’d make sure to sit my sister and I down and explain that it was essential that we wash everything that came from the garden because the fecal matter of chickens may be stuck to the produce. And now, as an adult, I deliver the same lesson to everyone who lives on our property and takes from the garden.

Before I explain how to make liquid fertilizer from chicken poo, let me give you various reasons for keeping your own backyard chickens. You may find the article I wrote on this topic helpful if you’re not too sure whether you should purchase a few chooks to keep. If you’re interested, here is the article: Chemical-Free & Low-Waste Reasons to Keep Chickens

But the summary is below:

A Summary of Chemical-Free & Low-Waste Reasons to Keep Chickens

1. Chickens create manure

2. Free-range chickens help aerate soil

3. Free-range chickens provide free pest control

4. Chickens reproduce quickly and easily

5. Chickens eat kitchen scraps

6. Free-range chickens don’t need big coops

For explanations on each of these points, you can read the article I wrote on the topic here.

What You’ll Need:

• A big plastic bin / half a metal drum / a deep bucket
• An old orange/avocado bag / material bag / something porous to hold the chicken poop but soak in water
• Old broom handle / strong stick longer than the diameter of your vessel
• Chicken poo. Enough to fill the bag halfway or more.
• Enough water to fill your container of choice

Instructions: How to make Chicken Poop Garden Tea

Step 1

Fill the container of choice with water. If you have an extra large vessel then consider only filling to half-way. Shovel chicken poop into the bag and tie the bag to the stick. Balance the stick over the perimeter of your vessel so that the bag is in the water and the chicken poo is soaking. Leave the chicken poo to soak for about 7 days (leaving it longer is fine).

Step 2

After a week or more of soaking, your chicken poop garden ‘tea’ is almost ready. At this point, to use it neat would burn your plants. Dilute the ‘tea’ 1:4. I put one part chicken poop garden ‘tea’ to four parts water in a big bucket and use a cup to distribute the liquid fertilizer at the base of my plants. Do no spray this fertilizer onto leaves, it may burn them. And, do not discard the bag of chicken poop!

Step 3

You can use the bag of chicken poo again and make another batch of chicken poop garden ‘tea’! The only difference is that after 7 days of soaking, dilute the ‘tea’ 1:2, as it won’t be as potent as the first batch. You can try another batch and mix it 1:1 with water. When you think the chicken poop has soaked as much as it can, put it in your compost heap.