I’m ordering a dumpster for our farm as manure disposal has become a problem. We have 10 horses here and I hope to have it picked up weekly, and be able to fit some feed bags and other sundry stuff in it.
Could I get away with 4 yard? Do I need a 6 yard or more? I’m not dumpster savvy…
A lot of times they don’t want anything but manure in it.
The place I board at fills a 6 yard dumpster every week, 5 horses.
Ours doesn’t usually pick up manure, so they may not be as picky.
Ok - so I might need two pickups a week for 10. We do use pellet bedding and that has significantly reduced waste, but I want to be sure I don’t undersize it.
You can always downsize after a trial period.
The horses are out for 12 hours a day, but half of that time is in limestone paddocks where the manure is picked and put in the dumpster. So consider that’s 18 hours per day worth of waste that gets removed. The other 6 hours are in grass paddocks, so no removal for that time period.
OMG when I read the thread title I thought you were looking for a dumpster big enough to put 10 horses in…very relieved to see you are talking about their manure…phew!
Bahahhahaa, no, that would be terrible - I’ll have to edit the title.
Ours are in dry lots as well. We will still have a manure pile to do some composting, we just have too much volume right now.
Since you will be billed by the number of times the company will pick the bin up, get the biggest bin you can fit into your farm. Build a ramp to get to the top to dump the manure in there. It’s worth it. If you can get up on top of the growing pile, you can compress it, and fit MORE manure into the bin before calling for a dump. The ramp must have railings on it, and good abrasive traction so that you don’t slip while pushing the barrow up the ramp, and a flat area at the top to keep your balance as you dump the barrow. Ours was a beauty, built by the DH, we called it the “suicide ramp”. Dig the area under the bin down a bit, if you can, to lower it some, especially where the ramp accesses it (the end distant to where the truck will hook onto it to load it onto the truck). This decreases the height of the ramp required. This is what we did when we were running the race training farm. The cost is prohibitive of course, and much higher now than it last was when we were doing this. We quit the business, it wasn’t worth it. And dealing with the manure bin and the company that provided it and dumped it was part of the headache that made us quit and move away. Just warning ya!
We called it the “suicide ramp” because… when we got snow, the ramp became icy, or snow covered. Picking up steam to run the barrow up the ramp required effort, with questionable footing. You’d get partways up the ramp, and lose your footing, resulting in falling flat on your face, with your hands still locked onto the weelbarrow handles. The heavy wheelbarrow would rock back, crushing your hands on the ramp under the wheelbarrow handles. While, at the same time, the manure would dump backwards onto your head as you lay there, thinking you were dead already. Just lovely. And it happened to EVERYONE who was involved in stall mucking. And not just once.
Our horses now live outdoors, year round. Manure is a valuable commodity here, picked out of sand paddocks in summer months. Horses turned out from training in winter. Manure in fields is fertilizer. We have no mud. Snow is dry. Bedding for stalls is no longer purchased, and no manure bin to be dumped either. Win, win, win.
Enjoy your new manure bin!
After all that, this…
is the icing on the cake! 
One barn where i’ve trained at had a dug-out for the bin right behind the barn, and then a retaining wall out of jumbo concrete blocks…wheel barrows were just rolled from ground level and dumped. I have no idea what they did with the accumulated high pile on the lip end? a U shape would probably solve that…but that would require more jumbos ($$).
We have four horses, three miniatures and eight goats… solid waste is bagged, wet waste is composed. All paddocks are cleaned twice a day. Pastures are picked twice a week.
The bagged solid waste is pickup as standard trash twice a week.
Cost is $14,50 per month plus the bags we use at 15 cents each
I would ask the dumpster company if there is a weght limit, on one of our jobs sites a subcontractor was putting pieces of concrete in a dumpster and it was literally too heavy for the dumpster company to come pick up. They had to dig down and remove the heavy concrete. So while the idea of letting it compost and sit sounds wonderful and cost effective, if you go over the weight limit for them to pick it up and take it to the dump you are going to have to remove some of that, no fun…no bueno.
This is the funniest thing I read all day. Even my husband enjoyed it! Umm, that’s what you call experience. @NancyM: thanks for sharing!
This, too. Concrete or anything similar in weight needs a special dumpster.
Living in an equine community and using dumpsters for manure disposal, I have learned the following about dumpsters. I am not including the rental and haul-off costs as this is a big location-related variable.
Dumpsters come rated for content size in cubic yards. The common industry sizes are 10, 20, 30, and 40 cubic yards. The latter 3 sizes are 22 feet long and 8 feet wide, but vary in height. A 20 yard dumpster is 4 feet deep, a 30 yard is 6 feet deep, and a 40 yard is 8 feet deep. The 10 yard dumpster is only 12 feet long, still 8 feet wide, and is 3-1/2 feet deep.
Am average horse, if there is such an animal, produces 0.5 ounces of manure per pound of body weight per day, or approximately 31 pounds per day for each 1,000 pound horse. Horse manure averages 25 pounds per cubic foot.
Doing the calculations for a herd of 10 horses, assuming the average horse in the herd is 1,000 pounds, the herd’s manure output is 12.4 cubic feet per day. If you rent a 20 cubic yard dumpster, the herd will fill it to the brim in 43.5 days, or approximately 6 weeks. If you go with the smaller footprint 10 yard dumpster, it would need hauling every 3 weeks. This is based on manure alone.
Obviously there are a bunch of “what ifs” like whether bedding and absorbed urine is added in this estimation, but if you know nothing about dumpsters it at least is a starting point for you.
Dumpster rental contracts frequently include the hauling costs. Be careful with weight limits. If you overpack a dumpster with more than the contracted weight limit, you could be hit with a hefty unexpected surcharge. In the case of a 10 yard dumpster, the weight limit is in the 4-6000 pound range. At a 25 pounds per cubic foot estimate for horse manure, you will put 6.750 pounds into the bin, and way more if you do aggressive packing of wet manure.
I used a 4 cu yd dumpster at my old place for three horses, picked up weekly. The waste management company allowed anything to be put in it, including yard waste and paper or plastic from grain bags and shavings bags.
When I moved two years ago I called for a dumpster and was told they wouldn’t allow manure since it was too heavy. I got a small dump trailer and used it to haul to the dump’s green waste site until the dead of winter, when the manure froze and I couldn’t get it to fall out of the trailer. I called the city again, got a different person on the phone, and ordered a 3 cu yd dumpster which is emptied weekly, no problems. Go figure.
I have three horses, stalled in the winter and bad weather, stalls bedded with pine shavings. I usually fill the dumpster to the brim in winter, and only half full in the other months.
Long story short, but weight seems to be the issue. I actually called the old company where I used to live and talked to them about why the new place wouldn’t haul manure. Their answer was they must have old trucks so weight is a big deal.
This is super helpful! We will have bedding, but we use pelleted bedding so it’s pretty slim compared to what we used to have.
Now, if I can just get the sales person to call me back, that would be awesome.
Regarding weight keep in mind that as you start filling a dumpster the manure will not dry out over time and weigh significantly less than when you put it in. It will probably end up weighing more, as the typical dumpster has an open top and will get rained in, adding water weight.
Each inch of rainfall collected in a 20,30, or 40 yard dumpster will add over 900 pounds. Same amount of rain in a 10 yard dumpster adds 500 pounds. This makes it even more important to try to find a dumpster company with a very high weight allowance. and be prepared for significant muddy truck tire ruts from the road too the dumpster unless you have a paved access for he truck.
A lot of the maintenance staff’s time here in my equine community is spent re-grading the dirt access road to our dumpsters to keep the road passable. The segments that were asphalt have long since been pulverized by the heavy trucks…If you are thinking about having a concrete access road installed, it should be 8 inches thick in order to handle the dumpster load. That’s twice the thickness of a typical concrete driveway.
The people before me at my property with 20 horses used a 10 yard dumpster and it was picked up weekly.
It’s easier for me to compost cause the dumpster dumping sucked in the winter when I was boarding. If I had more than 3 horses I would use a dumpster.
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