We do both - composting/spreading and hauling out. The ground water / Bay water protection rules in Maryland do not allow manure spreading on the fields when the ground is frozen (too much nutrient runoff). So once a year, we have a RO-RO dropped off and fill it with whatever is sitting in the manure pile at that time. It has actually worked out to be a rather nice system for us.
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I looked at a place with a couple micro bins when we were house hunting. Two horses on the property, pelleted bedding, all manure picked up daily. They had two bins, 4 x 4 x 4. Set into a hill, filled from the top. They’d fill one, cover it, and by the time they filled the other (about a month, IIRC?) the first one was reduced in volume by about half and finished compost to use on the garden. It was VERY slick and I was impressed how scaleable the system is. The two little bins were really all that farm needed, and the place itself wasn’t huge, so the small footprint worked very well.
This pokes me in one of my pet peeves. We generate so much biomass, hire somebody to haul it away, then pay the municipalities for electricity and gas. All the while we were sitting on our own energy! The problem is that biogas reactors are not hip in the US. I guess because we have enough room to dig big holes and bury our stuff. The reality is that we could solve the eutrophication problem from run off AND make our own energy if we could use a biogas reactor. Here is an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdIQ1G-2VXk&t=62s
Actually, no! 
When you remove grass from it’s field you are removing fertility. Whether you remove it by baling the grass or by having the grass eaten and then the manure generated elsewhere you are damaging your soil by removing the minerals and other elements necessary for a strong stand. So in that sense what you want to do is not reasonable if you value your land’s fertility. And this is as true if you have 5 acres as it would be if you had 5000.
So, what to do? You do what is PRACTICAL on your particular acreage. You don’t note where you are. Practices that are great in CA or AZ might be problematical in MN or ME and equally so in TN or FL or TX or AR. If you can,spread the manure on your five acres. Composted manure is best but raw manure can be spread. Just precisely how you do each one is dependent on your local conditions. What’s your stocking rate? Where are you geographically? How does you land lie? What’s your field rotation plan? What kind of equipment do you have? Your specific piece of ground will tell you what you can and can’t practically do. As “regulation,” remember that “we’re the government and we’re here to help you” is one of the Three Great Lies!
Start by talking to your Extension Agent. You maybe be not seeing opportunities that you have; they will have a new set of eyes and experiences to help you out. It is possible that you might be in a place where your stocking rate is incompatible with your acreage. If that’s the case you reduce the stocking rate or ship the surplus waste off site. You mention bedding as well as manure. Some barns are frugal with bedding and some are profligate. Which one are you? You might be able to reduce your barn waste production by altering your stall maintenance program.
While I hate the word because of its tendency to used to justify “fru-fru” practices, being a holistic husbandryman is an excellent idea. Do what works in your area to enable you to achieve your goals.
Good luck as you go forward.
G.
We have several dairies here using manure digesters to produce electricity for their business.
One of the towns here does burn trash for the same purpose.
They still have to use some electricity from the grid, but it does help.
Wind farms are growing here like mushrooms in August.
They have been shown to be so much more efficient that expected, serving whole large areas and selling the excess electricity to East TX and NM.
There is a very large one now being built right South of us.
The hangup to alternative electricity production over conventional is reliability for on demand use, which is how we use electricity.
That would be solved if we finally get some storage technology to support that some of that energy production is not reliable for on demand use.
Or find a way to make the sun shine and the wind blow non-stop, 24/7.
I do think that alternative technologies we can’t imagine today yet will probably be so outlandish to what we know today that they may surprise us.
I would love a wind turbine on my farm but the cost? Aiyyyy… no.
I pay $132 per month for a 3 yard dumpster. Cost apparently varies.
OP, you can spread directly from your stalls onto your pasture. It will save you a ton of time and money. Just put 1/3 to 1/2 cup fertilizer (21-0-0 or 34-0-0) in the spreader after each stall and your grass will be fine. I also add pelleted lime, and when the spreader is full, off I go to spread. Year round. No turning manure piles. No paying someone to haul off manure.
@ShotenStar - what does MD do about horses who defecate outside when the ground is frozen?
I think the OP needs to talk to someone who knows about the area where the OP lives because how manure breaks down and how spreading it all without composting will work or not work totally depends on the environment the OP is in.
It works the same as if the horses were outside 24/7.
My horses don’t eat the grass in the areas they use as a bathroom. Not sure they would appreciate me spreading their manure on all the grass…unless maybe it you have a LOT of pasture and they can avoid the spread areas for a season or more. Or, I guess, if they have no other option.
I know some people worry about spreading parasites by spreading fresh manure.
And how well that works depends on the area and the climate.
I personally clean up the manure my horses make outside too. Otherwise I would have a smelly bug filled mud pit all around the barn because around here the manure does not dry up and blow away.
There have been threads where people have tiny lots and have no issue with manure build up because of their soil and climate. The manure breaks down and disappears.
And like S1969 said, in the pasture my horses do not manure everywhere. They only eat the grass where the manure is not.
Different things work amazingly in different areas. What works in one climate with one soil condition does not work at all in another climate with another soil condition.
When you leave manure in piles, it takes a long time to decompose. When you spread, it’s broken down into small pieces and decomposes quickly. But yes, I agree that if you are on a teeny property and are mucking your paddock along with your barn and can’t rotate pasture you might want to have it hauled away.
I’m in N Texas, 2 horses on 4.5 acres of pasture. Loafing shed only, so no shavings (which compost slowly) unless someone is temporarily stalled for injury or show prep. I dump all manure directly along my side fence line, 1 wheelbarrow load immediately next to the first so it’s a thin strip of approximately 2’ high x 2’ wide poop. It composts itself quite quickly. After 3 years & 1 month on my property, I’ve never even used the entire 375’ length of fence because my starting end is usually nearly flat within 9 or so months so I start over again. Fire ants LOVE it, so I’m sadly unable to use in my garden.
I periodically drag my pastures - aiming for when rain is in the forecast to help break it down - and haven’t had any issues with the horses not grazing where it was spread.
Anytime I have an empty grain or dog food bag, I’ll fill it with manure and dump in my regular trash can for my normal weekly pickup - it may only be 100 lbs in a month, but that’s 100 lbs off my property.
Y’all are hauling to the dump a valuable resource that was once the central object of a major case in Property Law:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haslem_v._Lockwood
G.
I now have my manure hauled away to a large composting facility. They provide me with a 20 yard roll-off container. When it’s full (about 2.5 months) they bring an empty one and take away full one. Cost is 200.00 per drop off.
This is not feasable unless you have room for 2 containers side by side + room for massive truck to pull in, turn around + have room for truck to park in front of full container in order to pick up = 60 ft including container.
I had to build a large gravel pad for this entire operation. Thankfully a contractor I know had some reclaimed asphalt and loads of bricks from a house demo that he gave me for free. I only had to pay for item4 gravel topping.
Best part was that I had some unused land at the end of my driveway near the main road = no flies near barn + I don’t really see the container from house/barn. Helps that container is black & not beat up; kinda blends into the background.
Turns out that the county I live in is soon going to require manure be hauled away; no longer allowed to compost on your own property. No idea how this will be enforced if you have a lot of land on which to conceal compost piles.
Well, that’s pretty relevant.
Animals on pasture are required to be in pastures that do not access / cross streams, etc, that allow run-off into the rivers that feed the Bay - basically streams and ponds have to be fenced off with a buffer zone to help absorb the nutrient run-off.
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