Yep, I use it all the time. It starts out as mulch and ends up being fertile compost.

Would you believe they also use it in cattle feed?

Really? Chicken waste = cow food?

No wonder commercial beef can be so screwed up. Yuck!

That's horrible!
Cute chickies!

I keep chickens and ducks for their eggs and feathers they shed. The litter from the coop floor is a very important ingredient for the tilth of the 30x40 ft garden.
Previously the soil was sand and gravel forced to produce with the liberal application of chemicals. Since the addition of nitrogen rich chicken poop and the leaves,sawdust and straw I use for their deep bedding the tilth has vastly improved. The soil is rich and loamy with lots of worms.
When I rototilled the area this past spring I found a single worm in the 1200 square ft 'garden' area. Now the beds are full of worms, descendants of those I introduced. It gets watered even in these winter months so the critters in the soil don't dehydrate. I pick weeds and grasses for the birds and they lay eggs all winter. The symbionic approach really works well, the partnership between plants and animals assisting each other is basic and rewarding.

Two questions: (1) Do you age your bedding before adding it to the soil? (2) How do you keep your dog from rolling in it?

I've been struggling with this. I use wood chip bedding in my coop and clean it out on a monthly basis. I initially dumped the mixed waste in my compost pile but then had a very fragrant dog (yuk). I don't have any empty beds that I can immediately turn it into, and thought it should age a bit before scratching it into my existing flower beds. I think my solution will be to create a more dog-proof compost pile, likely out of wire with a lid of some sort. (My current compost method is pretty old-school - make a pile and turn with tractor bucket occasionally, start new pile when first one is ready.)

I put it directly on the beds, but I do not dig it in. It sits on top like mulch - the compost-in-place system. My dogs do not come into the house, so aroma is not such a problem, besides they'd rather roll in fresh horse poop!

porkpal said:My dogs do not come into the house, so aroma is not such a problem, besides they'd rather roll in fresh horse poop!

YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! poor doggies, not allowed in the house.. but I wouldn't want my house smelling like fresh horse poo either..

The dogs have a big barn to shelter them - or they can pile up on the porch. We don't have your kind of cold weather.