Can Chicken Manure Be Added To Horse Manure Compost?

Since many of us live on larger properties that have animals other than horses, I often get questions about blending manures in compost piles/systems. In this case the specific question was whether chicken manure could be mixed into the horse manure compost?
The answer is yes! Chicken manure is a great addition to horse manure compost. The manure from different animals has different characteristics from each other. Some are more complimentary than others.
Because horse manure is often low in nitrogen, especially when it has bedding with it, the addition of anything with a higher nitrogen value is beneficial. Chicken manure is an excellent example of this. While horse manure with bedding can have a carbon nitrongen ratio of 65 parts carbon to one part nitrogen, chicken manure is approximately 15 parts carbon to one part nitrogen. This gives chicken manure a significantly higher fertilizer value as it contains much more nitrogen.
The addition of chicken manure will help your compost finish faster as the "bugs" in your system will have the nitrogen they need for vigorous growth and therefore a larger and healthier population of "bugs" will be maintained.
Increasing the nitrogen in your system also makes you compost more valuable to your pastures as fertilizer. See a previous blog entry titled Checking the Fertilizer Value of Your Compost.