Manure management plan for small farm

[DHCarrotfeeder]

[QUOTE=horsepoor;8100898]
Uh, I can’t agree with this figure at all. My bins are 4’ deep (tall). By this calculation, my bin full of manure should reduce from a 4’ tall pile to 4"? Maybe if I left it there for years! Our best guess is that the piles maybe go down to about half the original size once fully composted, and even that might be optimistic. I would be wary of presenting that kind of overly optimistic figure.[/QUOTE]

IME:

Manure in a compost pile is not terribly heavy, and does not self-compact quickly. If you turn it over a few times, say weekly, I find it becomes less than half of the original size and digests well. If you turn it over weekly again for a second month, it compacts to half again. The amount of hay / shavings has much to do with it.

I agree that getting to 1/12th the volume would take some doing in the form of a pile, but I could believe that a foot thick pile of compost would add only 1" of height to the topsoil by the following season.

[stoneymeadow]

We have a local farmer that takes our manure to compost and fertilize his fields. We clean into a dump trailer and every two days haul it over to his place. It is wonderful to not have any standing manure on the property and it is so much less work for us not to worry about what to do with it. This is no cost to use and he takes as much as we can give him.

So you might want to check out farmers in your area and see if any would like your manure!