This sounds more and more like I should look into the dumpster option. Easy is really what I am after here. I had read about a form of composting called bokashi, which is a fermentation process that is apparently really fast but it sounds like the resulting material is too acidic to be spread on pastures.
These pics are great! Makes me want to go get some pics of my compost 
Thatâs a huge bummer you werenât happier with the O2 system, I always thought that was SUCH a cool way to go. Your compost looks really, really WET to me in these picturesâdo you find thatâs the case? I see your bins are covered, how are they getting so wet?
If this is the sum total of you waste that needs to be spread/composted/disposed of I might try spreading in my climate on even a small acreage like you describe you have. Unless you have some enormous wheel barrow!
I collect approximately 20 muck buckets per week of manure from my paddocks and stalls from two horses. Thinking of an average sized wheel barrow I imagine that would be at least 10 wheel barrows full. Too much to spread raw on my wee acreage. But if it was only two, I would be inclined to try spreading it.
Yes, my guys are not closed up in the stall, they just come in for grain and to get out of the weather. I used to muck the whole pasture but then I got lazy and started harrowing. That seems to work out well and eliminates those areas they wonât graze when there are manure piles. But I get 4-5 months of winter when I canât harrow and that is when the pile gets big. At that time of year I may be doing 3-4 wheelbarrows per week because they are spending more time in the barn.
I use bedding pellets, which break down very quickly in our warm climate. For years, weâve composted our manure/soiled bedding/uneaten soiled hay by building up a series of relatively small piles (using a wheelbarrow), in an area where the horses donât have access. We donât bother to water.
Given enough time, this breaks down to beautiful compost, which I use in my garden, and for top-dressing the soil around the drip line of trees (as recommended by our arborist).
However, we have been experimenting with dumping the wheelbarrows in places such as low spots in the pastures, raking it out to level, then adding nitrogen fertilizer â to basically compost in place. Still takes time, but is working well here, and saves a lot of shoveling.
Iâve owned a Newer spreader for many years; in my experience, it doesnât take that well to sitting with a load of manure, day after day as more is added. Does much better, IME, when promptly spread before it has a chance to sit, even though that wonât be a full load in my situation.
I rarely use it nowadays (keep intending to go back to it), but when I did, since it doesnât apply a heavy strip of manure, I could spread with it on an unused pasture and the manure would break down pretty rapidly.
There might be someone who would be interested in your horsesâ manure - someone that you wouldnât have to pay to remove it. For example, a neighbor who was a serious gardener asked me for some, and another horse-owning neighbor would periodically haul her horsesâ manure (on a flatbed trailer) to a local orchard which could use it. I told her she was giving away her topsoil!
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Oh I see!
Hmmmm. Poop is a pita.
A dumpster might be easiest if you have some sort of bank or ramp up to the top.
Composting is super if you can manage it without breaking your back 
I want to see your compost pics!! Yeah I have no idea how itâs getting so wet considering itâs covered. The top is dryish, the middle is good, but the bottom is a disgusting layer of mud that doesnât allow the air to pass through. Youâre supposed to put something porous around the pipes like larger wood chips, and I have tried that to no avail.
When the Soil Conservation guy came out he said he sees this with aerated systems a lot. The moisture runs to the bottom and then you canât turn it to even things out. He said it might be extra bad because I only remove wet shavings from my stalls, which made me wonder how many clean, dry shavings other people are throwing away!? He thinks Iâd be better off with a more traditional compost system that I can turn with the FEL.
Sadly the wall between my two bins just rotted through and burst, so I really have to decide whether to patch/reinforce it or switch to a new system kind of soonâŠlike maybe yesterday would have been good.
I was reading about bokashi composting (an anaerobic composting technique), which is basically fermentation. It apparently creates a lot of liquid by product that needs to be drained off. So maybe there isnât enough oxygen getting in? I also read about composting for small farms where they put the manure in large garbage cans and then pipe in a leaf blower that is on a timer to blow air into the bin for 2 mins every hour. This will apparently fully compost a garbage can full of horse poop in a couple of weeks. I could probably do this with a few garbage cans but getting power to the spot where I would want to store the poop cans would be a challenge. And the leaf blower needs to be protected from the weather. Why does this have to be so complicated?
@Weezer What youâre describing with the blower is the O2 Compost system @Libby2563 has set up.
Hahaha, horse people are so weird, arenât we!
My bins arenât NEARLY as fancy as what you have, but itâs worked really well for us. I think I have quite a lot more room to let this cook for months and our tractor definitely gets back in there. Pls forgive the spring weeds etc, Iâm just back to barn work after taking several weeks off after surgery.
Three bins. Each is 16â deep & 8â wide. Oak fencing planks for sides. Floor is just dirt. Four horses, in at night, on pelleted bedding. I mostly just use the first & third binâŠbut the middle one is great to have in the dead of winter when I donât want to spend hours moving a done bin to make room. If I had to do it again, I would have used 2 by lumber or rough cut 2 by. Fence guy said these planks would be fine, but thicker woulda been betterâthese really warp with the moisture.
Fresh stuff in the first bin, just turned over. Obviously not near done.
Whatâs cooking in bin three. I turned this over with the tractor to try to show the inside, but itâs all nicely crumbly, and it just backfilled itself. This is about 3 months old. Still hot, still a couple months before done, but getting there
This is totally done compost thatâs been moved out of the bins and is fill to extend a slope.
Fresh stuff gets turned by the tractor as the bin fills up and everything gets piled up and back. And then when the first bin is full, it all gets moved to the third bin. After that, it just sits. No cover, just gets rained on. When itâs ready to go, itâs also just LOADED with earthworms. The hotter parts of the pile is home to little mice families (sigh) and the occasional snake (a bit of a surprise, but a sign of a healthy ecosystem?!)
We used to have just a pile, and it was a nightmare to work, even with the tractor. Having bins makes it SO much easier to keep contained and sort out what is ready to be used elsewhere.
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I think that renting the dumpster may be the best way to go.
BTW, we compost our manure, but we donât have a fancy system. Everything just gets put in a pile. Thereâs a finished pile, and the currently working pile. There are little to no shavings, and very little hay. (We burn the remnants of winterâs round bales in spring, large amounts of hay donât get put in the compost.) Besides the horse manure from three horses, there is a lot of chicken manure and bark mulch that we use to bed the chicken runs, and some leaves and grass clippings.
The key to our set up is a tractor with a front end loader. The working pile needs to be turned once a month with the front end loader to ensure even heat distribution and continued decomp. It takes about 12 months for the pile to finish working, and by then itâs black, dense and crumbly, with no distinct manure bits and can be put on the gardens and fruit trees or sold to gardeners.
But this would not be possible without turning with the FEL, so I do think the dumpster option would be best.
I have both. A concrete bottom bin where the manure goes directly from stalls, and then a series of piles that are a bit farther away and can be approached from all sides with the tractor, so you can flip it all.
In the end, I donât really care about the product, just trying to make it smaller. If I did, Iâd pour a concrete pad for the piles too, so that they are less likely to migrate and just form giant weed piles. But you can flip the weed growth as well. If I want to use it for my gardens, I dig deep to the center of an old pile to try not to get any weeds.
I"m gonna have to try to find some photosâŠbut this IS a subject Iâm kinda the poster child for! HA!! I have a very small property. VERY. I always thought Iâd want a tractor. I truly DONT anymore. For what? I donât have the fields or the land to use one on. So, think that out. I do have a garden tractor/mower, and I did buy a Newer spreader. I have a tiny (cute as a button) little barn and I felt I could use the Newer spreader for sure. But honestly, its (IN MY OPINION) âmeantâ to clean stalls, drive off and spread. its not meant to be filled from a huge compost pile. too little to fill with a FEL, and compost so heavy to fill by shovelfull. so to me its a âpickâ (stall or field) and spread type of function. That said: I DID plan a nice 3 bin system. It was (and certainly could be anytime) to be electrified to speed up composting. so far? Iâve had the bins manure contents hauled away once filled, typically? about once a year. but, they DO make a huge difference in flysâŠin ease and help of how to fill. I designed mine with a slight upgrade to the tops for wheelbarrow loads, and in the back ground pad for removal. on the small properties? Iâd design a space for containing the âpileâ for ease of dumping and ease of removal with covers on the bins FIRST. it helps so much. then? perhaps use your spreader for picking paddock days and if ever needed direct from a stall. but without a large area to spread compost on, I would probably get a harrow instead .
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This was the hard part for us. I didnât have room to get to the âpileâ spot from every side, and that just made it a royal pain in the ass to manage. Weâre just too hilly, not much flat ish space for manure pile management. Thatâs where the bins have shined, I only need access from one angle.
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Well⊠I am the Worldâs Laziest Composter. 
My pile was from 2 horses - bedded on shavings, then pellets, now back to shavings - until I added a mini 5yrs ago.
I used to fill a wheelbarrow, then trundle that across the indoor to a side door on either side & dump there - so I had 3 piles.
3rd from when I picked stalls & lazily tossed the forkfuls over the fenceline into an area formed by my attached indoor & the fence.
I never turned the pile, except when removing the top layer to get the Good Stuff beneath for my gardens.
When I do, the underneath stuff has composted so well, it steams & has a layer of ash.
A neighbor regularly comes & hails away 1/3+ of the pile by the barn for his garden.
Horses are out 24/7, with access to stalls if they want & {knock wood} since grass has come in I have rarely had to pick a pile from any of the 3 stalls.
I was at 5 days & counting when the mini left me a pile in his stall last night.
The manure in the 2 pastures - small: ~.5ac, large: ~2ac - I leave where it lays.
Drylot surrounds the front 1/2 of the barn & I will pick piles there & toss over my fenceline - into pastures or the small L-shaped hayfield on my acreage that a neighbor cuts & bales.
I thought I wanted a Newer Spreader, but in 17yrs have gotten along fine without.
@ayrabz Your system looks awesome.
You shame me 
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I borrowed a Newer Spreader to spread my composted manure pile. It did not work well for the manure that was composted.
It worked great for the little bit a fresh manure.
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2dogsâŠyou made me laugh seriously!!! âI SHAME YOU??â buahahahaâŠit wasnât lost on me you wrote: then trundle that across THE INDOOR. please! Iâd kill for an indoor. my manure dump area came from total NECESSITY simply because I didnât have the land to have one!!! . the hard pack is all I have (and you can see how close to the house :() directly from our driveway lane. out of camera are our tiny âturnoutsâ and that is all I have. woods on all 3 sides directly into ravines and non buildable useable. side fencing of turnouts directly on others property lines. so, I used all the space I had! to me: enough land to spread manure on, to have a large composting system, to have a nice tractor and FEL is always the best way. It wasnât available for me to do that here! so my input was from a person who decided her tractor would be a huge waste of moneyâŠand went another way.
Great composting pics! I had to chuckle because I do not think most people would ohhh and ahhh at pics of how we store and compost horse sh&! Love it!
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so, again, my pix have to do with a small footprint of no land. (at least that is useable) so for reference here are a few more showing how it was orchestrated for small land area for machinery and hay delivery and manure removal.
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I have a total of 5ac. Including the acre-ish plot the house & lawns sit on.
In hindsight, I wish I had done perimeter fencing to maximize pasture & minimize mowing.
Indoor was admittedly my Folly when I built. Thought I had to have one, then I hardly used it the first 5yrs, preferring to ride outside. Lost my Steady Eddie horses & the New Guy - 17H WB - was iffy outside & his Evasion of Choice was UP 
Now it is largely 1/3 to 1/2 hay storage for my hayguy. In return I get hay - delivered & stacked - for an embarrassingly low price.
I do use it now to lesson on my newest horse, but infrequently, as I am a Weather Wuss.
I maintain your bin system is A Thing of Beauty. And far more presentable than the pile I have mostly out of sight 
The view from my back porch, some 250â to the barn:
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OMG. SO worth it. Nearly unlimited storage of embarrassingly cheap hay & a great relationship with your hay guy? A place to ride in poor weather is the bonus! If we were all so lucky to have such expansive hay storage! 
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