Manure at WEGs

[vineyridge]

I was very disappointed to learn the company handling manure in the WEG barns did nothing but haul it to a landfill. No composting, no resale, no spreading, nothing. Manure is golden, and it seems to me that someone might have come up with alternatives, especially these days.

Does anyone know if this is standard for the Horse Park or Kentucky farms in general? I know that in Pennsylvania the track refuse is used for mushroom production. Or was there a special WEG contract?

There might be some sort of added value business for someone dealing with all that manure.

[caryledee]

The horse park recently implemented a new system where they are turning the manure into energy to run the park. It cost quite a bit of money, but down the road should end up saving them money on energy. Not sure why this system wasn’t in use at WEG, unless there was just too much manure for the system.

The training center gives their manure to mushroom farmers.

The problem is, in a large agricultural area like Lexington, there is much more being produced than there is demand for it. So yes, many farms do end up hauling it off.

[Auburn]

I thought that you had to bed on straw for it to go grow mushrooms?

Were all of the WEG horses bedded on straw?

[r3dd0g]

I would be surprised if manure went to a landfill. The city of Lexington has quite a sophisticated composting facility, and Creech has another privately owned one right next door. The KHP has played around with various manure mitigation solutions over the years, so I’m not sure what method they are currently using. That said, many of the larger horse farms have on-site composting designed for them by members of the Thoroughbred Resource Conservation and Development Council and USDA. One can even rent a compost turner from RC&D. In depth composting workshops are common in Kentucky–so we are pretty savvy here about the value of compost.

[SmplySweet1021]

Last I had heard they were composting it.

Riders had the choice when they arrived at Quarantine to have their horses bedded on straw or shavings when they arrived at the park.

[Drive_NJ]

Another Marketing Opportunity lost…

Why not -

compost, bag and sell it to the suburbs as “Certified WEG Fertilizer” From a champion horse to champion garden.

Interesting fact. One of the reasons horses worked in cities for as long as they did was there was an economical cycle from city to farm. Farmers would ship (by horse) in hay, grain and bedding and ship out the manure - BUYING it for fertilizer for their fields.

One of the reasons for switching to motorized transport was that someone developed low cost phosphate fertilizers, killing the sell back market and now city horse keepers had to pay for manure removal rather than making a small amount of money on it.

[vineyridge]

I asked the night people when the manure removal guys came, and they said it was going to landfills. That’s why I posted. Maybe the information was wrong?

[r3dd0g]

I’m not saying your info is wrong, but it doesn’t make sense. Maybe the manure removal people were mis-informed. The LEX composting area is huge and might be mistaken for a small landfill since the windrows are about 20 feet high before they compost down (can you tell I’ve been there?).

There are a lot of horses in the bluegrass and the area is very keen on sustainable processes–recycling manure being one of them. Why have recycle bins all over the horse park, then take manure to the landfill? If I remember correctly, LEX has pledged to make itself landfill free in the near future. If they did landfill the manure, well shame on them, because they know better.

[Lord_Helpus]

IF your information is correct then it is a one time thing. POSSIBLY because of the number of foreign horses which might still be harboring some unacceptable virus or bacteria which would not be acceptable to process and then spread as fertilizer or use as compost??? Just a thought.

Usually manure from the horse park is processed and recycled. I had heard that the processing center was right on the property, although memory might not serve me right. It has happened before.

Rest assured, recycling manure is part of the nature of farming in Ky – Many/most big farms create manure piles which are spread on their own fields as fertilizer.

Having moved from Lexington, I am still a “straw bedding person” and I still spread manure on my fields.

Another misconception from above: Creech does not GIVE away their compost. They have contracts with (at least in the past) Campbells, Vlasic, etc. and sell it as organic fertilizer which did go to mushroom farms in the upper midwest.

It used to be free to dump there since Creech was making its money on the back end, but they became overwhelmed with manure, so they started charging in the mid - 90’s.

[SmplySweet1021]

@Lord Helpus;5150804

IF your information is correct then it is a one time thing. POSSIBLY because of the number of foreign horses which might still be harboring some unacceptable virus or bacteria which would not be acceptable to process and then spread as fertilizer or use as compost??? Just a thought.

Only the manure at quarantine was bagged until tests were completed to ensure the horses didn’t have anything. Once they were at the HP they had already gone though quarantine.

[Glimmerglass]

Louisville Courier-Journal Oct 9, 2010: Oh-oh, a lot of popo at World Equestrian Games

Up the hill in the northwest end of the park, officials hope soon to shrink the operation’s fragrant landfill contributions by firing up a $2 million biomass-generating station. It will burn each day’s haul, eliminating a $200,000 annual waste-removal bill while generating $80,000 a year in electricity.

If I’m reading that article correctly the biomass plant simply isn’t operational yet.

[vineyridge]

Thanks, Glimmerglass. You’d have thought that would have been one of the first HP “venues” to become operational.

[pony_grandma]

:lol: Horse people… have inquiring minds! - what happens to the shit??? :lol:

[Stormgsd]

Uggggg! Is there anything that somebody doesn’t have an issue with this is just plain …manure:lol:

[poltroon]

It seems highly likely that someone confused “hauled off in dumpsters” with “going into landfill”.

In the stadium, they had trash attendants who were helping me to separate my garbage into recyclable, compostable, and trash! Any entity that was going to the effort to compost my hamburger bun is certainly composting the manure.

[Across_Sicily]

@Auburn;5150520

I thought that you had to bed on straw for it to go grow mushrooms?

Don’t think so… my parents run a CSA where they grow all the fruit and veg, and mushrooms are part of the veg that they grow. They use the manure from their (well, my, technically) ponies as compost all over the farm, including their mushrooms, and the ponies are bedded on shavings.

Obviously that’s just one situation, though!

[mbm]

just curious - why would putting manure in a land fill be a bad option?

it is going back into the ground, composting and feeding the probably very very sick land fill soil…

[kookicat]

[QUOTE=mbm;5152429]
just curious - why would putting manure in a land fill be a bad option?

it is going back into the ground, composting and feeding the probably very very sick land fill soil…[/QUOTE]

Because it doesn’t compost- it breaks down differently and gives off nasty gases. (Short answer sorry. I’m sure someone can explain better. )

[mares_tails]

[QUOTE=mbm;5152429]
just curious - why would putting manure in a land fill be a bad option?

it is going back into the ground, composting and feeding the probably very very sick land fill soil…[/QUOTE]
Modern landfills are very expensive and go to great pains to isolate the fill from the surroundings (especially leachate into the groundwater). The more stuff you can keep out of the landfill, the better.

[r3dd0g]

[QUOTE=Glimmerglass;5151441]
If I’m reading that article correctly the biomass plant simply isn’t operational yet.[/QUOTE]

The fact that the biomass plant isn’t operational doesn’t mean that manure goes to the landfill. In any case of large-scale manure production there is a cost associated with mitigation. Companies like Creech charge farms to haul manure away.

If you tour a composting facility like the one at Victory Lane Training Center you’ll see that properly composting waste from 350 stalls still has an associated cost, but the cost of composting still saves the company about $40K per year–plus it produces a valuable end-product.

Raw manure is not compost and should not be used as though it is. Raw manure can contain pathogens that proper composting destroys. It can burn foliage, it can contain a high level of salts, and pharmaceuticals. Improperly composted material is not much better than raw manure and can actually be harmful to the environment depending on the effectiveness of the composting process.

Immature compost is a haven for many of the ‘bad’ microorganisms, like those that cause blight and wilts. Mature, aged compost, on the other hand is a proven source of disease resistant properties because of the types of microbes that appear as it ages.