The Poultry Keeper

stephen · Last edited by stephen on Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:42 am; edited 2 times in total

I was driving home last night and listening to the WigglyWigglers podcast, and there was an article about EM. I'd never heard of EM, and it took a while before it was really explained.

EM is "Effective Microorganisms". It's a technology developed in Japan using three main types of micro organism phototrophic (or photosynthetic) bacteria, lactic acid bacteria, and yeast. It was originally developed as an alternative to chemical fertilisers by improving the viability of the soil that plants were growing in, effectively out competing the harmful bacteria and other organisms, whilst also providing useful compounds themselves, and breaking down toxins in the soil.

It's now also being used in animal husbandry and industrial processes.

One of the uses its suggested for is in poultry to break down ammonia in their litter and help to reduce hock burn. It's also suggested for keeping pigs and reducing the odour from them.

It also helps with composting, treating water courses, etc etc.

Now this really does fascinate me. There is a UK supplier, along with several others across Europe.

There is an interesting article about the concept here.

Has anyone any experience of this, or heard anything else about it?

stephen · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 9:03 am Post subject:

The stuff wiggly wigglers sell is linked here.

There is even a layers mash.

CP · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 9:14 am Post subject:

Never heard of it before, but very interesting. Wink

Henwife · Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 2715 Location: Monmouthshire

This sounds suspiciously like a compost accelerator. There are so many regulations about actually storing and spreading FYM now that slurry pits see to be the norm rather than the dung heap.
I can remember the time when animal housing was not mucked out in the cold months but had regular layers of fresh straw added. The composting of the lower layers produced heat. I also remember the spring mucking out when the ammonia in the lower levels was eye watering, but only once the bedding was disturbed. Hock burn is inexcusable and avoidable if sufficient depth of 'bedding' is achieved

Fenn · Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 2292 Location: Shrewsbury

I've heard of it, but never looked into it properly. I had a wormery from WigglyWigglers - it's fab Very Happy

Hock burn wouldn't happen if the housing/bedding was kept in good condition tho, would it? Wink

Sounds interesting, tho Very Happy

stephen · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 10:26 am Post subject:

No, and we've never had problems with hock burn either as we always clean them out regularly. As a strategy to outcompete harmful organisms and naturally break down waste products in a non-chemical way I'm interested.

We had a lot of success with the wormery from them, too, which is why I took interest in this.

Fenn · Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 2292 Location: Shrewsbury

Oooohhhhhhhh, I didn't mean you Stephen Embarassed

I meant commercial poultry farmers.

milkmaid · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 6807 Location: isle of lewis

i deep bed my goats and i believe that when goats live wild they return often to the same places to sleep the manure was 4 foot deep in one of the places ,
with deep bedding the composting is taking place in the sheds as more straw is put on ,it also produces warmth ,if you think of how warm a compost heap gets ,it means less feeding for animals on deep bed as they need extra food first for warmth and mantinance and then for production ,i'm planning on raised beds with the manure ,i don't keep chickens on deep beds they are cleaned out and kept on straw which i then mulch around my plants with
but i don't know if it's the same thing that you are talking about stephen
nonies farm has a slurry pit ,it looks solid on the top with grass growing on it ,it always looks dangerous to me ,the council buys some if it for producing electricity Very Happy

mojo · Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject:

i seem to remember reading a Dr hato i think his name has worked with the fella who invented yahult drink thingy in japan and that was the spur ...........the micro organisams actually break down toxics.......but whether it works .......no knowledge.but a friend made commercial water treatment plants.gravel/rushes etc seeded the system with them or something similair tohelp clease the grey water.......hope this makes sense

worldor · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 108 Location: West Midlands

I think you mean bokashi. Well thats em mixed with bran. I did an experiment with my three lohmans traditional that are living in the eglu. I bought the layers meal from wigglys and also some bokashi to sprinkle on the run floor. It worked really well during the hottest part of the year. No smelly poos from the girls. I couldn't keep it up though as it is more expensive. If I earned more than my pension I would use it all the time. I also tried the bokashi in my composter in the garden. It is full and I haven't looked to see the results yet. Every time I lifted the lid to put the poo in there were little dots moving round the rim. I put the lid back on quick. You can also get some pebbles/beads with em in them to drop into your garden pond. That looks good too but I haven't tried that yet.

Henwife · Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 2715 Location: Monmouthshire

Mojo - was it reed beds for sewage treatment you were thinking of? We'd just had a new septic tank installed when those were publicised and we would have made one had we known about it in time. As it is, the herringbone pipes keep the grass irrigated so all was not lost.

Lisa · Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 6:30 am Post subject:

I think Kitchen Garden mag run a series about using EMs a few years ago. Can't remember much about it though Embarassed

stephen · Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:36 pm Post subject:

Thought I'd update on this. We ordered the Bokashi "yoghurt maker" a little while back and had our first batch a few weeks ago.

We've used some of the resulting brew (10ml to 1 litre) to spray the poultry houses and bedding.

We've used the same solution to spray the compostable kitchen rubbish bin.

We've added some to the water of the cats, dogs and chickens from the end of this week.

We've also got a big bucket of home made bokashi bran ready for putting in the compost and adding to things such as the cat litter trays, kitchen bins and feeding to the chucks.

The results so far are this...

The barn and the week old litter doesn't smell. It never smelt bad, but it really really does not smell! Now this is only week, and it may just be a freaky week, but for a first week this is bloomin' marvellous!

The kitchen scraps bin also for the first time ever does not smell in the slightest.

It does seem the EMs are out competing the nasty bugs.

We're going to be starting with using the bran this week, providing it's worked properly. We'll find out tomorrow or Sunday.

The real test will be if the EMs manage to "denuclearise" Jyrkï's litter tray...

jaydee67 · Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:42 pm Post subject:

Keep us posted - sounds interesting!

stephen · Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:50 pm Post subject:

It certainly is more appealing to me than using nasty chemicals all the time.

We're using some of the first batch to try and brew a second batch, like you do with yoghurt. If that works (the "food" for the brew is black molasses) then for about a £30 investment you can have a limitless supply.

And as for the bran - a 15kg sack cost us about 70 SEK (c.£4). A third of a sack fills a big box and should last us ages - and is a lot cheaper than the pre-made bokashi bran!