Composting, horse manure and flies

[weedsportpete]

In a vague way, I understand that horse manure, given time and a little turning, can become excellent fertilizer, at least for home gardens. I'm trying to figure out if it is worth time & money to work with it more.

We have three horses, on 18 acres, and may someday reach a total of ten horses. Right now we spread manure on unused fields, but in a year from now that will be fenced in and there will be horses grazing on it. I hope to be able to carve out one unused pasture for rotation..

I'm thinking about keeping manure in some kind of pile, informal or maybe in a structure. This would be to make compost out of it. I've got a compact tractor I could use to 'turn' the compost.

My fiance is worried about flies and how it looks.. the only place well out of site is the farthest distance from the barn.

One other factor, is that I've had a bit of excavation on the property and lost a lot of topsoil.

I've seen pictures of manure 'bins' that just had two walls, one on each side, so that manure could be dumped at one end and compost could be taken away on the other end (new manure would be pushed into the structure and the whole pile would be pushed out the other end, with the other end being compost because it was in there so long..??)

So I've got a lot of questions:
- if I keep piling compost in a heap, won't I get more flies?
- would I have less flies if I spread the manure over the pastures?
- can horses graze safely in a pasture that has manure spread in it?
- can/should I build a structure to hold the manure while it is composting?
- if I make compost, will it be easy to get rid of (give away or even sell) the excess stuff I can't use?
- is runoff from a manure pile bad for the environment? Should it be off the ground/protected from rain?
- can I mix it with the excavated dirt and 're-create' topsoil? If so, how? mixed or layered?

Signed, Confused in the Country.

[GERARD]

Don't know if I can help or not but I don't have a spreader so I can't spread my manure. I allow a big pile to accumulate over the winter. I have a pretty good slope to my land so out of the back door of the arena I excavated away some land and built a 4 foot retaining wall. I dump the manure off that until it's to the top, then just walk the wheel barrow out on top of the pile and keep extending the pile. Right about now I have a pretty big pile. When things dry up a little I load onto my 16 foot trailer, take to end of property, unload and spread out for natural decomposition. While you would think there would be thousands of flies around the pile I don't find that to be the case. Maybe has to do with the temp being too hot as the manure/shavings/urine mix decomposes or the whole mix being too acidic for the flies. While we have plenty of flies in the barn I don't see too many around the pile itself so I think you could do what you want as long as you mix some dirt with it. I've also read that the mix takes a long time to become usable compost because the wood shavings are very acidic. Don't have enough knowledge to know how true that is. Hope this helps a little.. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[RichZ]

Hi, Pete!! We dump the manure behind the barn. Except during the winter, I spread the manure on my hayfields every week or two, so the pile doesn't get too big. We have three horses also. The pile doesn't seem to attract many flies at all. We also use the manure in our big garden and in raised beds.

It's not a good idea to spread horse manure into horse pastures, because you can spread parasites, though I do spread out the manure the horses create in the pastures.

If you're going to spread the manure frequently, I see no reason to build a structure, but if you want to compost the manure, a structure might help keep in from spreading, but it isn't neccessary. And I think any gardener would jump at the chance to get composted manure. Selling it would depend on the availability of it. If you are in a farming area with lots of manure available, I don't think you'd be able to sell it, but if it's hard to get, then maybe you might find a market ofr it.

Runoff from a manure pile can be a problem if the pile is near surface water (lakes or streams), but if there's none nearby, and you don't let it accumunalte, it shouldn't be a significant problem with just 3 horses.

I often mix horse manure with dirt to creat a nice rich loam. However, horse manure is full of seeds, due to horses' inefficient digestive systems, so you really should compost it, and get it hot enough to kill the weed seeds, or at least most of them.

[Fawteen]

Rich covered it pretty well.

An open pile is easiest to compost, as you can get at it from all sides to turn it. Piling it about 6 feet or so high and letting it assume a natual conical shape is best for shedding rain and keeping the moisture content right.

It's critical to get the pile big enough for the natural heat of decomposition to get the pile up between 140 and 160 degrees in the center to kill weed seeds and pathogens. Turning the pile helps aerate it, controls the temperature and gets the uncomposted stuff worked into the center where it will compost.

Raw horse manure will compost eventually, but mixing it with some high-carbon materials such as straw or hay will give you better quality compost and speed the process, while cutting down on odors.

I compost all my animal bedding and truck in horse manure with wood shavings from the bedding (I don't have a horse) to add to my mix. I've never noticed any flies to speak of, and the only time I get any odor is when I turn it, and then only for an hour or two. If you consistently get odor, the pile is too compacted and is getting anaerobic. Turning it will stop that.

I have people lined up begging for compost, and have no trouble selling what I don't use myself for $40 a yard, delivered.

You've gotten good information. I will say a couple things. First what I would do is setup your pastures for a rotation system. That way you can spread manure on the fields the horses aren't in. Also if you are spreading manure and rotating pastures you won't have as much of a problem with the parasites.

What we do is clean the stalls daily into a small manure spreader that is spread daily. Also the spreading action of the spreader will cut way down on the parasites even if you aren't rotating pastures. In the winter it's a non-issue as they don't survive anyway.

Compost will take up to a year to become useable. Personally I don't want the ugly piles around my place. And yes the flys will be a problem.

[weedsportpete]

Thanks..

Sorry for the late response. We've been without power for three & 1/2 days. Time to get a generator..

I've been pushing for a fallow pasture ever since we got here and I may be able to carve that out. We can spread in there during the warmer months. I do want to spread daily, but thats a complex issue involving my fiance getting on my tractor.. I can at least do it on the weekend.

Thanks again everyone.

[theboman]

I haven't followed this post but a quick observation: It would sure take a pile of flys to make a compost pile.

[weedsportpete]

yupper!