Would it make sense to put a chicken house as a first step, to get a source of manure?

Organic chicken house? (If there are commercially raised organic chickens)

It's all theoretical now, but most land in SC is very depleted, and I thought offering a land lease to a local operator (lots of chicken and pig houses in the Carolinas) would be a way to get enough manure to amend the rest of a farm.

2,000 tons of manure per year, for a 100k layer house, as a rough estimate from a Clemson paper I found.

I guess it would have to be composted as well.

https://www.clemson.edu/extension/camm/manuals/poultry/pch3b_00.pdf

Bradley.Kohr.II said:

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2,000 tons of manure per year, for a 100k layer house, as a rough estimate from a Clemson paper I found.

I guess it would have to be composted as well.

https://www.clemson.edu/extension/camm/manuals/poultry/pch3b_00.pdf

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Where are you gonna get that many chickens, where are you going to sell them, have you looked at the expense of,building a chicken house to,hold,them. Plus,feed water heating and cooling

Not necessarily, but 4-5 tons per acre is about as much as any good stand of bermudagrass will want with good grazing/cutting management.

I read an article years ago, perhaps in the Wall Street Journal, that described how abandoned mines in the west were complying with their reclamation requirements. Per the article, they were bringing in cattle and feeding them at the mine site in order for the cattle to drop manure. I have no recollection whatsoever of the statistics, but it was amazing how quickly the ground around the mine recovered.

I have not an agricultural bone in my body so take that for what you paid for it.

Manure is good if it's free.
Farms around my county were using bulk ( tons) chicken manure from Maxim Egg Farm near Wharton.
Neighbors for 5 miles around hated them because of the smell, it's strong.

Best way to improve depleted soil is with cover crops.
Especially if you don't till and just let the roots decompose in place.

First hand experience recovering 8-10 acres of my pastures every year planting April, August and October with a no till drill. Best to have a 24 month succession plan. I rotational grazed cover crops using poly wire electric fence.
I'm an Agronomy major and was surprised at how effective it is.

This is a very good source for seed and info.
https://greencover.com/

Read anything Ray Archuleta has written. NRCS guru.
He is a top tier SME on soil recovery with cover crops.
https://www.north40ag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Soil-Matters-Ray-Archuleta.pdf

Gabe Browns book is inspirational if not directly applicable to your situation. You'll pick up a lot of tips.

https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Soil-Familys-Regenerative-Agriculture/dp/1603587632/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Q-kdu554uLk42dzwn0B0cLmuJtszvNwVJIuZw5QXe7MTtYPFrWVvRhnGe3KCSUfZRvPeaFDCdcn4d3XkP4BJVASDscC3j-Ffk4X_h1c_8fKnqQaOMT5FKoabxp7YR-QXuPK4oacW68IWDSrTk8fdtGSIsNMBw2neSLeWYMrBI1juWOXKzQSoXrbqBTaH8gnc.mjoDiHIO_4ZLM-VJxdyrYpsEYq8w9BJQ5lcmuRKbsE4&dib_tag=se&hvbmt=%7BBidMatchType%7D&hvdev=c&qid=1730427265&refinements=p_27%3AGabe+Brown&s=books&sr=1-1

Commercially raised organic chicken does exist, but does it exist in your area? That's the question. If so, most integrators in the poultry world are hurting for contract growers. Give the local companies a call and look into it if you're serious. But it will be a sizeable financial investment along with a ton of work (unless you hire help but that eats into profit) and a commitment to the integrator lasting several years. If you're serious, there are plenty of people that do well for themselves raising birds.

If you're not serious, source the manure/litter from nearby growers. Some (maybe even most) will bring it to you for free.

A) Big fan of Gabe Brown. My brother does regenerative ag on his pecan farm in Kerr County. I get the benefit of cover crops - and SC does have rain, so it may be faster, but it takes 5-7 years for cover crops to work, I think, and I'm not sure what can even grow…

B) I still need to buy the farm, first.

My thought was to try to find a young person who grew up on a chicken farm, and offer them the land lease for free, for the life of the building, provided they followed the correct policies for putting the manure on the farm.

It was just a passing thought.

A couple of hippies and chicken tractors would help, I guess, but that doesn't seem like it would produce enough to do anything.

If a smaller house can be operated in a cost effective manner, we do go through a decent amount of eggs. (About 24-36 pallets a year, I think)

There are a lot of variables in play including soil type, soil nutrients, and local markets. A visit to your county extension might be a good first step. As has been alluded to, raising chickens just to get the secondary resource of the chicken litter is going to be a lot of work.

One other more passive approach may be planting clover inoculated with nitrobacter to help fix nitrogen in the soil. There are plenty of other options out there too.

Burdizzo said:

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There are a lot of variables in play including soil type, soil nutrients, and local markets. A visit to your county extension might be a good first step. As has been alluded to, raising chickens just to get the secondary resource of the chicken litter is going to be a lot of work.

One other more passive approach may be planting clover inoculated with nitrobacter to help fix nitrogen in the soil. There are plenty of other options out there too.

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This part of it sounds like a pretty good Aggie joke!

Bradley.Kohr.II said:

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A) Big fan of Gabe Brown. My brother does regenerative ag on his pecan farm in Kerr County. I get the benefit of cover crops - and SC does have rain, so it may be faster, but it takes 5-7 years for cover crops to work, I think, and I'm not sure what can even grow…

B) I still need to buy the farm, first.

My thought was to try to find a young person who grew up on a chicken farm, and offer them the land lease for free, for the life of the building, provided they followed the correct policies for putting the manure on the farm.

It was just a passing thought.

A couple of hippies and chicken tractors would help, I guess, but that doesn't seem like it would produce enough to do anything.

If a smaller house can be operated in a cost effective manner, we do go through a decent amount of eggs. (About 24-36 pallets a year, I think)

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A pallet of eggs is like 10,800 eggs. Times 36 pallets divided by 365 days and a production of 75%, you need like 1400 hens. Not sure how much manure you'll need, but that should get you started.

But seriously, just find someone to get manure from.

Apparently, we go through 96 pallets of eggs a year, usually at a rate of 12 pallets in 10 days, when we are processing eggs.

(Double checking the numbers. I think we get more than 500# of eggs per pallet. I work with the eggs after they've been liquified.)

Still, 3x times that, I'd say 5-6,000 hens.

For the smart Alec's, I did plan to sell the eggs/broilers, not just raise them for the manure.

Just trying to figure out the overall lowest cost way to get it.

Rotational grazing is much easier, but I'm not sure how much profit there is in raising them. Farms tend to be small in SC. (It's hard to find even 100 acres)

Even if I just bought feeder steers and finished them out, I don't think it would turn much of a profit.

Bradley.Kohr.II said:

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Apparently, we go through 96 pallets of eggs a year, usually at a rate of 12 pallets in 10 days, when we are processing eggs.

(Double checking the numbers. I think we get more than 500# of eggs per pallet. I work with the eggs after they've been liquified.)

Still, 3x times that, I'd say 5-6,000 hens.

For the smart Alec's, I did plan to sell the eggs/broilers, not just raise them for the manure.

Just trying to figure out the overall lowest cost way to get it.

Rotational grazing is much easier, but I'm not sure how much profit there is in raising them. Farms tend to be small in SC. (It's hard to find even 100 acres)

Even if I just bought feeder steers and finished them out, I don't think it would turn much of a profit.

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If there was profit in production. agriculture, fewer people would be getting out of it.