Go BottomWhat to do with Horse manure pile
 | Kevin
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 64 New Hampshire 
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2002-01-25 34913
I have been placing my daughter's "muck" pile in a corner of our pasture. After about six months, it is starting to accumulate to the point where I need a plan. What are some of my options of what to do with this pile? Should I just leave it? Try to spread it over the pasture? I do not have a spreader but I do have a tractor with bucket.
I would be interested in knowing what others do with their horse manure. Obviously, the manure is mixed with stall shavings.
Part II - since completing my barn project, I have used my tractor very little. So little that I cannot justify having that much money sit idle. The only real need that I see for my tractor is to move this pile occasionally. If I sold the tractor is there another way (other than pitch fork & wheel barrow) that folks manage manure?
Thanks for your help!
Kevin, rookie farmer
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| Mrwurm
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 184 South East Michigan
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2002-01-25 34914
Kevin, I can't help with the muck problem but I can relate to the idle equipment issue. I have a lot of expensive equipment (toys) like mowers, tractors, motorcycles, snowmobile, ect. I don't use my mowers or tractors very much but I also work about 60 hrs per week and spend 2 hrs per day driving to and from my job in the city. My equipment, though not used often, lets me get my jobs done very quickly. For a person with little spare time this is important. Moving your muck pile with the tractor is probably going to be the fastest way to do it. So, the question is... How much is your time worth and how much of it (time) do you have? ....
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 | Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3034 Northern AL 
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2002-01-25 34916
One man's manure is another man's gold mine. Horse manure is not as strong as cow or chicken. Horses are not that efficient at converting their forage therefore there is a lot of plant matter left. You can apply it directly to the field, garden or composite it and sell it for fertilizer. My horses are normally in the field and very little accumilates in the barn. I have a flexible harrow and run over the field once in a while to aeriate and scatter the piles. ....
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 | DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2002-01-25 34917
When I moved to Nevada last year and got my tractor and a small trailer, I thought I might canvas my rural neighbors and collect their horse droppings to enrich my sandy soil. Then I noticed that everyone takes their horse manure to the dump and pays good money to dispose of it rather than using it for compost. The common wisdom around here is that horse urine, which is necessarily mixed with the manure in a corral or a stall, is so concentrated and salty that it will kill plants. Anyone else have input or scientific knowledge of this?? ....
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| BillBass
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 190 North Texas
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2002-01-25 34921
Sell your only tractor???? My god, man, snap out of it before it is too late!!!!!
Seriously, I am interested in the answers since my wife is after me to get her a hay burner. ....
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| Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2002-01-25 34922
That is news to me, mighth be the area you live in has high salt in the water. They don't manufacture salt although they may concentrate it bit.
They maybe thinking of the urea which is acidic, see below.
If you look in the field where the droppings are spread out they do not burn the grass near the pile like cow will. I cleaned (mined) my neightbour barns in Kentucky for the garden one year. Rubarb loves it. Like any fertializer you can have too much of a good thing and burn plants. Incidently the next year they wouldn't give it away in KY.
It is always best to compost it with the yard waste to provide the best soil. You may need to neutralize it with some lime depending on the acid nature of the plants/soil.
If they are stupid enough to give it away, collect it, compost it and sell it back at 5$ a bag. Make your tractor and tailer pay their way.
If you are going into business you may need to read up on composting care and construction.
I don't compost house hold waste only after is recycled as chicken a manure. ....
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| Charlie Iliff
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2002-01-25 34924
Stall muck generally has enough wood or sawdust to make composting a good idea before spreading, but we have used an antique spreader for years to spread fairly fresh manure on pastures. The reason wood requires composting is that it actually absorbs nitrogen as it begins to decay, releasing it later. Adding some high nitrogen fertilizer makes the muck usable earlier.
Unfortunately, many jurisdictions are imposing more and more regulation on what you can do with manure. It's a good idea to chack yours.
If you search the net under composting and horse manure, there is a lot of advice out there. The bottom line, however, is often to leave it in a pile for a couple of years and then put it on your garden or friends' gardens. ....
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| Gary in Indiana
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2002-01-25 34937
I bought an old stable with piles just outside the doors that look to have been there a couple seasons. I have a small 26 HP Deere with a loader bucket (that I wouldn't let go of short of being at gunpoint). I have no other equipment to use, though. Any ideas how to handle this mess with what I have? ....
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| Paul Fox
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2002-01-26 34938
I drive 15 miles one way to HAUL IN horse manure for my compost pile. I use hay for bedding (straw is a precious commodity in Maine, and I can't use wood shavings with sheep, gets in the wool) so I compost hay, yard clippings, sheep and chicken manure and the horse manure. I pile it in layers over the winter, start turning it once a week or so with the bucket in the spring, turn it all summer and spread it on the pastures and use it for garden mulch in the fall. Any that's left, I sell. I found a usable antique manure spreader, but it's nice, dry compost, and I did it with a trailer and a scoop shovel for a lot of years too.
And don't get rid of the tractor. You'll hate yourself for it later. Money invested in that tractor will give you a better return than the .02% you'll get from putting it in savings... ":^( ....
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| Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2002-01-26 34943
It pays to learn a little about composting it can save a lot of time. Some of these new item claim that they will compost in week rather than months or years.
The rate of composting is affected by 3 factors, temperature, air and mix of materials. If you can provide the compost with air eithor but turning or ventilation it is good. We would build the sides of the composter with mesh to provide air to the mix. I would assume that you could also pump air into the pile. I would be nice if there was a solar powered fan. Once the mix is going it will generate its own heat and can get quite warm. The third factor is mix. Too much of one type of material is not a good thing. I have had good success with the horse stall cleanings (with hay not wood) and layers of soil.
Peters ....
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| Stan
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 87
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2002-01-26 34948
I'd hate to see you sell your tractor, I don't have one YET and am tired of the wheelbarrow !!!
Any neighbors that farm ??? For two bottles of brandy (spring and fall) mine comes over, loads my pile into his spreader, and uses it on his fields.
How much pasture do you have? If you are set up so you are able to rotate your grazing, you could get one of the smaller spreaders currently on the market. Shovel from the stall(s) into the spreader, and then onto the field w/ it. It is recommended that you don't spread onto a field you are grazing - spreads worms, etc.
Other comments are correct, horse manure isn't considered the best fertilizer, but on your own fields, the price gets better.
Good luck, and even though we do accept donations, keep your tractor :) !!! ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2002-01-26 34959
I sure wouldn't advocate anybody giving up their tractor. I'd rather think up more work for it. But if it really is idle then it's not doing anybody much good. I've taken a brief look at AVT Mule types thinking that a 2-person ATV that can do some work as well might be useful in addition to my tractor. My starting place was Steve Carver's e-mail ad (Sometimes I do pay attention, and the ads here are a small price to pay for this facility).
Seem like manufacturers are trying to turn ATV's into equipment. The recreational market must be saturated. A whole range of implement like things seems to be made. I saw, but still can’t imagine, a back hoe on an ATV. I'd bet that something similar to a 3ph dirt scoop is available. One of these mules might scoop up the muck and move it around and could also pull an old type draw spreader. However, a simple scoop might not be able to load a spreader.
We use a composting toilet at our camp that uses coarse peat moss and optionally several additives. The process can render material suitable for spreading (except for vegetable gardens) in as little as two weeks after it is removed from an active drum. That’s a very speedy process and illustrates what can be done. However it does depend on good aeration. The active drum must be rotated every several days, and a compost pile that is turned only several times a year won’t decompose very fast. As mentioned, a balance of muck and a carbon source such as straw, moisture and oxygen are needed. Lawn fertilizer, ag lime and various enzyme and bacterial additives speed the process. Moisture is required, but flooding retards composing. Compost piles are well drained and ideally covered.
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2002-01-28 35022
Do what every one else does: get a spreader and fling it onto a field that needs improving. Horse manure is not sloppy like cow manure. It is mostly fiber and will go back into the soil and bulk it up as well. ....
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| Soundguy34421
Join Date: Posts: 1
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2002-01-31 35128
Every night I clean my horse stalls, and wheelbarrow it out to the manuer pile. I let it compost for a while, and then drag it out with a flexible chain style harrow, or if I have my box blade on, I will flatten it then drag it.
The plants love it, and the minor amount of wood chips in the mix don't factor negatively. Some of my best soil is in my back pasture where the manuer is drug / composted.
I havn't observed that horse urine is to adverse on the pasture...Your results may vary. ....
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| HarryW
Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 6 New Jersey
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2002-02-07 35364
We currently have four horses in the manure factory. I have found that using a spreader for fresh manure/wood shavings bedding results in the shavings building up into a thick thatch unless you have several acres to spread on. We have a Mill Creek spreader that is ground driven and works great, but we now only spread composted manure. Don't spread uncomposted manure where the horses will be grazing or you risk spreading parasites. I have found that the best thing is to let the pile sit for 6-12 months, then use it in the garden, spread it on the pasture, or spread it 6" thick on lawn areas that need improving, and till it in. You will know when the compost is ready, the wood chips turn black. Some of our best lawn areas are composed of crappy sandy fill with tilled manure compost.
If you don't pick up the manure in the turnout, you should at least scatter it with a fexible tine harrow. The commercial ones work great, but you can get by with a length of pipe and a piece of chain link fence. This reduces the parasite load and discourages flys.
Oddly enough, the compost pile has very little oder.
One of the main reasons I bought my 4100 was to handle the horse manure. I pull it into the barn aisle, and clean the stalls right into the bucket, the 61" bucket can hold the days "pickin's" from 4 stalls with only one trip to the manure pile. Using the tractor has also allowed us to put the pile a greater distance from the barn. Use the loader to turn the pile now and then will speed composting. If you live in a dry area, some water must be added to the pile, but too much is not a good thing either.
HarryW
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