We like to let our poultry litter get quite aged before we use it. It can be way too hot if used too early and will actually kill your plants.
What we do is clean out the coop area and leave the litter in a big pile. Then about 6 months later we will use that pile. We always have a few piles going and make a new one everytime we clean out the coop. Whenever we need chicken compost we just grab the oldest pile and off we go.
I have mixed the fresh litter in with my regular compost (using a tumbler) and it worked very well.
