Manure Management

[moving_to_dc]

A Newer Spreader can handle hay and straw to a degree. Mine gets loaded with 4 flakes worth of wasted/quided hay, along with manure and wet sawdust, whenever I have to stall the horses overnight. It spreads that amount of hay without issue.

My steer has a winter bed made of a bale of straw. I won’t be putting that in the spreader “as-is”, I will have to compost it some first.

Another benefit to the Newer Spreader is that it macerates the poop as it spreads it, vs. tossing it all “as is” like conventional spreaders. Plus, it is aluminum, so you don’t have to worry about rust/corrosion like you do with painted steel.

[cincoandrain]

The local trash company owner said they “aren’t supposed to” put horse manure in the landfill - that it gets too hot. I guess I will have to look into investing in a manure spreader once I find a creative way to get rid of my current pile.

[fatappy]

I am in the same boat as you. 4 horses on 9ish acres. No $$ for equipment.

I bed on straw. So i am able to burn a very big portion of my bedding. In the winter, I usually burn it 1x/ week. After I get a big pile. In the summer I burn everyday. I read somewhere that the smoke may help keep bugs down.

I also dump some of the straight manure into the drainage ditch on my property and let it dissolve. (Tsk Tsk, I know.)

I don’t know how much you want to work at this, but i did read about a guy who made manure “bricks.” He just made a brick shaped mold that he filled with manure and let it dry out. He then used them as fodder and heated his house with them. Just one more option…

[dcsobob]

Lol. I think I’ll avoid burning bricks for now.

[Emilia]

[QUOTE=dcsobob;7335948]
Lol. I think I’ll avoid burning bricks for now.[/QUOTE]

What? You do not want to follow in the steps of the phenomenal horsemen from the steppes? What a shame! :lol:

[dogponyshow]

Dumpster. I am on 5 acres, 9 horses, every piece of manure is picked up everyday-including the pastures. I also don’t have a tractor, but I do have a Rhino, and a cart with muck buckets.

[Equibrit]

You may be able to find a nursery/veggie grower/gardener with a trailer who would love to have the poop and collect it from you. You may have to build a ramp to dump it in to their trailer, but that would not be too much. My pastures were cleared by the last owner who buried gobs of felled trees, resulting in sudden cavernous holes appearing. I have been filling these with 6 horse’s manure for 10 years now and it doesn’t look like I’ll have to stop any time soon.

[HorseKrazy]

Ok! I am going to try Bucks method this year and see how it works. I’m a couple days in already, and thankfully I have pretty pasture trained oldies! I think I’m going to like this option!

[olim2005]

What I have been doing with horse manure…

Hi,

My scenario:

1. Two horses
2. Stalls and pasture, however, they have option to leave stall at anytime to go out to pasture so they don’t spend much time in it
3. I clean all poop around barn, sheds, and fence line near drive way every day
4. One FULL wheel barrow a day

What I do. 3-4x a year a guy comes in for $130 and takes the poop away.

I would like to explore options in compositing, however, I rent this barn and pastures and am limited on what I can just prop out there.

[QUOTE=dcsobob;7332220]
Morning/Afternoon.

Some initial setup:

1. Small acre farm. I have about 4 acres under fence and working on another 1.5. The 4 acres is parceled of into 2, 1-acre lots, a 3/4 acre lot, and about an acre of lower lot that is mostly surrender and flood area.

2. No tractor. Got a lawn mower (26hp) and a couple of 10cu ft pull carts. no Spreader, no front end loader, nothing

3. 4 horses (3 TWH and a sheltand mix pony)

When I get the upper pasture fenced we will have 3 good areas of rotation and a surrender area for rest time for the other 3.

So, the question is how does a small farm with no equipment mange manure? Last winter di reasarch and attempted a compost effort. Built 3, 8’ by 8’ by 4’ containment areas and carted the manure to them. Stuck in some “holed” 6" PVC lengths for air, covered with a tarp. However, the bins quickly got to the point that I could not turn them. So, I ended up with 3 large poop piles and no way to really mange them. This year I have picked an area in the back lot and I’m just dumping it in a long row, deep enough that I might be able to run a tiller through it to turn it. But, not sure that’s even a good solution.

I don’t have the money/equipment to haul off loads to the dump.

What are others doing? How do you handle manure mgmt on small acreage/limited resource.[/QUOTE]