How to grow mushrooms in chicken coop
You probably like your chickens as much as you dislike their mess. But what if you had a chicken run that literally ate the mess? Tradd Cotter, founder of a mushroom farm and research lab in South Carolina called Mushroom Mountain, did an experiment to accomplish just that, mixing the wood chips of his chicken run with mushroom spawn. While most chicken runs benefit from a little mulch, Cotter added to his a mushroom called King Stropharia or Wine Cap (Stropharia rugoso-annulata) that literally eats chicken manure, combating both harmful bacteria and odor. Added bonus: Wine Cap mushrooms make an edible secondary crop. He says the method is cheap and easy to replicate, even if you’re a fungi amateur. Mushrooms 101 To understand this coop-cleaning method, first let’s talk about mushrooms. Mushrooms are fungi. Though they seem to pop up overnight, they actually take days or even weeks to develop, and the process occurs mostly underground. Mushrooms ...