Manure management plan for small farm

[Stormers85]

I’ve been Googling, but nothing compares to getting feedback on what people actually do…

We’re going through purchasing an 11 acre property that is within city limits so before we commit to purchasing it, we’re applying for it to be rezoned. The process includes going before a board that can approve/deny our request to allow horses on it. Ugh, if there were any other properties outside the city, that’d be great, but no go.

Anyway, here is the layout of what we plan to do to it, but I just know we’re going to be asked about manure management. Right now we only have 1 horse- a 4 year old OTTB, but are planning on getting a pony/small horse for the kids and an older horse for my husband. My horse goes out 24/7, and I’m expecting the others to probably be the same.

What do you all who have similar acreage/# of horses end up doing with your manure? How much space is allocated for it and what equipment do you need? We have always lived in suburbia and boarded so starting from scratch here!

[2DogsFarm]

I have 2 horses (well 1 WB, 1 pony) on 5ac.
I compost manure in piles just outside my indoor arena.
Then spread the composted manure in my veggie & flower gardens each Spring.

The 2 produce waaaaaay more than I can use, so a greater portion of the pile(s) remains from year to year.
I try to take my garden stuff from the bottom/most composted layer.
If I had a spreader I’d spread as much as possible on my acreage.
I did this one year using my riding mower & a dumpcart to transport compost to the acre or so I have set aside for wildflowers.
Quit after 12 trips back & forth.

A neighbor cuts & bales a lot of the perimeter that is not fenced for pastures & plans to spread on the part he cuts this year.

Since you are within city limits you may be required to use a disposal service.
But with 11ac, IIWM, I’d plan on spreading.

If I won the lottery I’d budget for a sub-compact tractor, spreader & a box blade to at least flatten the piles.

[TrotTrotPumpkn]

I can tell you what works for me with similar animals. I have 8+ acres. A horse, donkey and mini donkey. I just dragged the 2.5 acre pasture. I have a rather large row of poop built up on the south end of our property from cleaning the dry lot. If I had a spreader that easily could have gone out on the other three-four acres of pasture we aren’t using. I will be building a compost bin though.

FYI, they live out 24x7 with a big run in. I matted the run-in and can just scoop shovel out the poop. I don’t use any bedding, except a bag of pine pellets once a month to make a “pee-spot” to encourage peeing outside.

In town I imagine you will need to utilize a dumpster if they won’t agree to composting.

Equipment: A Drag. A riding mower (I don’t use this to drag). Shovel and wheelbarrow. You can drag behind a truck or a 4-wheeler. Or you can go hand pick all the poop–I’m not suggesting you have to drag your pastures. I wish I had a spreader, but I have a zillion other things to buy right now.

Once a year we rent a skid steer for a weekend to do the heavy moving. So far that has worked great. No need for us to buy and maintain a tractor. I hire out my snow removal.

[alfonsina]

You might get some ideas from this composting system:
http://www.o2compost.com/why-o2compost.aspx

[Stormers85]

Thanks guys. I was thinking dumpster also at first but I can’t find a service in my area. While the front and one of the sides of the property adjoins with others, most of the property is pretty secluded and the entire back is wooded, so composting is a possibility. I’ve just never done it before, and wasn’t sure if 3 horses would produce way more manure than I could keep up with.

[horsepoor]

We have 3 horses on 10 acres. Compost manure using a 3 bin system where you dump new in one bin til full, then turn that into a second bin, and start filling first bin with new again. When full, turn the older (second) bin into the third, turn first into second, and start filling first. By the time you’ve filled that bin again, the oldest stuff should be ready to use. We keep ours covered with tarps but eventually will add a roof. We use a small tractor with front end loader to move it, but when we first moved here, SO did it by hand and that is hard work!

Since I’m in the rainy NW, my horses have gravel dry lots which we clean daily, plus the stall cleanings. Then I also pick up manure in the pasture areas just to help with flies and parasites, but do that only as needed. Most of what goes in the compost is pure manure, plus a little of the pelleted bedding from the one horse that pees in his stall (the others prefer to use the gravel paddocks). I think the figure I have read is that a horse produces 50 lbs of manure a day, so that adds up quickly!

The finished compost can be spread on the pastures, but we usually generate more than I can use, so have a neighbor who has been coming to get some and wants more when we have it ready next. I’d try to find others to take it before I just send it to the landfill, as that seems such a waste.

There is a WA group called Horses for Clean Water that you can google and find the website as they have lots of good info on managing smaller horse properties.

[AmarachAcres]

Another proponent of the 3 bin system. 5 horses on 6 acres.

Our neighbors love us, they get the extra compost we do not use!

[Blume_Farm]

I have 3-4 horses on 12 acres. What I have done is keep two piles…an older one and a newer one. I have a small tractor with FEL and turn the piles every month or so. When the “new” pile starts looking like dirt and less like poop I move it into the “old” pile. I use some in my garden, but give a lot away. It is easy with my FEL to put in the back of folks trucks. I am very popular this time of year!

[GotMyPony]

If you are interested in gardening for trees, shrubs and flowers, here’s an idea I first read about in a gardening magazine (Fine Gardening, I think) and have now watched one of my neighbors actually do. She picked areas around her property where she wanted to create raised beds - not bordered by lumber or anything, just “mounds” of soil. She just had all of her manure taken to those areas and dumped, then covered it with shavings or mulch and let it sit for a long time - maybe a year - just aging in place. Now she is using those areas to plant shrubs, trees and perennials.

This might not work in your more suburban situation but it’s a thought, especially since part of your property is pretty secluded and some is wooded. Since I’m living in the land of clay I’m always looking for something to create higher quality gardening soil.

[mkevent]

Here’s what I did and how I set it up

http://thepitchforkchronicles.com/stable-and-farm/45-composting

I sold my compost for $15 a full sized pick up truck. I loaded it with the FEL for the customers. I had repeat customers every year and I never had too much compost. I put an ad on Craiglist when I had a finished bin of compost and it went pretty fast.

[Megaladon]

Raised bed garden(s).

[Simkie]

I’ve got 4 horses on 10 acres and will be watching this thread with interest. We have one manure bin right now and are planning on building another three for a three bin system + a spare. We have a wee tractor with a FEL and a garden.

Headaches we’ve run into: the wee tractor has a wee FEL that holds about as much as my rubbermaid yard cart. We don’t have a trailer to fill to haul the manure to the garden, so it’s A LOT of trips to drain the bin.

We also bring horses into the barn at night (no shelter in the fields yet, and I really don’t think the 10 acres is enough to have them out 24/7 and still have good grass) so I have a lot of bedding in my pile. I use pellets, so they really do break down pretty quickly, but it sure does add volume.

We’re also not sure how we want to build the new three bin system, and locating it is a bit of a bear. The place that I think will work drifts snow badly in the winter, which is why we’re planning on leaving the existing bin where it is. I think the plan right now is to build in a rather temporary fashion, in case we change our minds. Will probably just use lime and crushed rock for the base, and only sink real posts for the back and outside walls, using pallets and t posts for the interior walls.

There’s a pic of the bin we built this year here. The people we bought this place from had put down a cinderblock floor and used the snow fence for the walls. We snagged a bunch of free pallets and built it up. It’s worked great, honestly, even though it sure looks red neck, and we’ve been going with it since November. It’s FULL, though, and we have to figure out what to do now.

It would really be nice to have a spreader to use to get the finished compost onto the fields, but that’s not real high up on the list.

One thing we did learn with our red neck bin: make sure it’s WIDE enough! We only have a 4’ loader, so I thought 6’ would be good. NOPE. The tractor with the underbelly mower deck barely fits in the ~7’ wide bin we’ve got now. It would be a real hassle to pull the mower deck off the tractor every time we need to do something in there. We’re planning 8’ wide bins for the 3-bin system we’re building next.

[Victorious]

What is the fly situation like with those bins? They are intriguing to me. We have 13 acres with 2-5 horses, mostly in stalls 12/ out in runs or fields 12. So we have bedding as well as manure from the runs. I have an 80 bushel H & M spreader that we like. Right now, with 3 (1 is a colossal pig), I spread about every 5 days. I also rake up wasted hay, etc. Things to consider with spreading are… Do you have a well drained field? They don’t stop pooping when it’s gross out, you have to be able to get in that field to spread-and the wetter your spreader and its contents are …the deeper you sink:-(. You will need a tractor with at least 25HP in the PTO ( I think-it’s been a while since we bought one). Might want to park it inside in the winter- I hate this part. It smells bad, is ugly to look at, and tightens up our aisle way, but mine are all good about walking past it with a 12 ft aisle. Otherwise, the track can sometimes get frozen when the manure freezes and the chain will snap when it’s initiated. Usually this happens once, and you vow to never make that mistake again! There is a lot of time to think about the mistake as you are shoveling the frozen contents of the spreader out in order to repair!!
I am also interested in the compost bins, but I’m not sure how fast we would fill those, too fast maybe. And I hate flies. A lot.

[Frog_Pond]

There’s a huge difference between what to actually do with your manure and what to say to city officials about what you do with that manure :winkgrin:

Try to find out as much as possible about the board your appealing before you appear. In order to get my property approved for horses I had to apply to the board of health, the conservation commission, and the building department. They all had different requirements.

Health: wants the manure pile 200’ from residences, 100’ from lot lines, 20’ from septic leach field, not upstream from neighboring water supplies.

Conservation: wants horses & manure 100-200’ feet from the wetlands, streams, beaver ponds, and vernal pools nearby.

With these setbacks, my 9 acres has about a 1.5 acre area where the barn and manure pile were ok.

If your city is anything like mine, I would re-read horsepoor’s post here and try to commit it to memory! Tell them you’re building a 3-bin compost system with a roof over it and are going to have a tractor to turn the piles. It’s going to be far, far from neighbors, water supplies, and your own well and septic. You plan to improve your property with much of the compost – years worth of raised beds and pasture improvement. Act like that compost is a valuable commodity and not a nuisance. Don’t voluntarily admit to dragging or spreading – these sound, to the uninitiated, a lot like ‘never going to clean the pasture’. Good luck!

[SLW]

I am down to one horse and one standard size donkey on 3.5 acres which includes the house, barn and turn around between the two. We have 3 grass paddocks for grazing all roughly 100’ by 200’, 1 full time dry lot that is roughly 100’ by 200’ and small pens with limestone screening right off the stalls. I am in the country so left to manage the manure as I please.

My two are out 24/7 on the big dry lot. The two critters tend to have specific places they poop in the limestone pens and the main dry lot. The pen poop goes in a unofficial compost pile and the poop in the main dry lot gets turned under and improves the clay footing of my riding area that makes up part of the big dry lot.

The grass paddocks are managed differently. Anyway, I do not notice a significant number of flies on my compost pile. Flies seem to like fresh manure over the old stuff. I turn the pile based on how much rain we have had. I use the compost in my landscaping but also take in a pick up truck load to a community garden in town when they call asking for a load.

I think urine soaked bedding or hay smells awful but once it gets dumped down into the compost pile it’s not a problem.

[TrotTrotPumpkn]

Simkie, thank you for the tip on the 8’ width. I had been trying to figure this out and was about to start a second post.

[walkers]

I have 3 horses ,a 1/2 dry lot and 4 acre pasture the rest of the 10 acres is a mature hardwood forest. I have used the forest for manure dump for 8 yrs now. The dry lot is cleaned every few days, my horses are neat use the same area so its easy to pick it up put it in a small trailer attached to riding lawn mower. I then deliver it to the trees, no smells, no flies and its only about 1ooo feet from the house. sometimes i do use this black gold for the house hedges but I’m no gardener. I would have thought I’d have run out of space and I just use a small area of the woods however no trees have died, they look very happy and the piles just get smaller as time goes by.
I do have a 2 acre pond and make sure the manure doesn’t drain towards the pond.

However my main problem is urine, if it doesn’t rain the urine stink can be intense. I think the urine smell will be your real issue as it is ours.

[DHCarrotfeeder]

[QUOTE=Stormers85;8091273]
I’ve been Googling, but nothing compares to getting feedback on what people actually do…

We’re going through purchasing an 11 acre property that is within city limits so before we commit to purchasing it, we’re applying for it to be rezoned. The process includes going before a board that can approve/deny our request to allow horses on it. Ugh, if there were any other properties outside the city, that’d be great, but no go.

Anyway, here is the layout of what we plan to do to it, but I just know we’re going to be asked about manure management. Right now we only have 1 horse- a 4 year old OTTB, but are planning on getting a pony/small horse for the kids and an older horse for my husband. My horse goes out 24/7, and I’m expecting the others to probably be the same.

What do you all who have similar acreage/# of horses end up doing with your manure? How much space is allocated for it and what equipment do you need? We have always lived in suburbia and boarded so starting from scratch here![/QUOTE]

We have 9 horses on similar acreage.

Make sure your pastures have good setback from the waterway and good groundcover in between. If you talk about building up or maintaining the riparian buffer along the creek that’s good too.

We pile the manure outdoors on bare ground and have it removed on a regular basis. (Farmer brings dump truck, I load him with the tractor). This is extremely convenient but runoff water can run across part of the pile and pick up nutrients, which is not good. So locate your manure on a high point to prevent runoff from getting polluted, and preferably in a covered location on an improved foundation. A manure dumpster is certainly a good option and for two horses, not crazy.

Waste hay is not “manure” until it’s in the pile. While hay will compost in a manure pile within few weeks, it’s very bulky and if you’re paying to have the manure removed you might want to separate most of it.

Whether or not you can compost it and spread it on your own property is a big question. It certainly should be composted first, and where I am, if you spread it you need to measure the nutrient content and keep a record of that in a Nutrient Management Plan. We export ours and so an NMP and testing is not required.

Another critical discussion is your sacrifice area (aka Animal Concentration Area). Water runoff should not flow through it, and runoff from it should flow in a predictable way and preferably through a filtration feature (wetland for example) before reaching the waterway. You’ll want to consider improving the surface of that sacrifice area and expect to clean up that manure.

Know the definition of “pasture” in your area and know how manure is expected to be handled there. For us it’s about spreading the manure and keeping it both mowed and well grown. (Lack of grass demotes it to a sacrifice area)

Anyway that covers some Best Management Practices used in my area. YMMV. Most planning groups are accustomed to people with practically ZERO forethought or preparation, so if you make an honest effort I doubt you’ll face emotional challenges and it will boil down to practical considerations.

[Stormers85]

A lot of stuff to think about! We have only been to the property three times, but if all goes to plan we’ll be taking May-July to prepare the property for horses before we bring my guy home in August. The creek only runs behind the house, not next to it and separates the back yard from the woods. Ideally I would like to have the compost bins outside of the sacrifice area since there are no neighbors there, just rail road tracks, and our property line extends all the way to the tracks so even if there was a restriction such as the bins had to be x amount of feet away from the property line, I don’t think that would be a problem.

Dumping it in the woods is also a thought, since the woods back up to railroad tracks also- only hassle would be that you have to cross the creek and it’s a bit far from the barn. My husband is planning on building a bridge across, so that could work as well. These are great starting points to think about and I appreciate all the responses. Guess it’s time to start looking at tractors as well! Husband will be thrilled.

[SLW]

With that creek abutting your property you will want to have the compost pile away from it. The county/city will try to ding you on runoff and EPA stuff so plan ahead. They put our property under a “watershed” umbrella a few years ago. So far we haven’t had to redo anything but one day they will come knocking…