Sound Horsekeeping- Composting Manure

Hi, my name's Alan Schenck, and I'd like to welcome you to my little farm here in Mukilteo on the Puget Sound. I've been interested in farming for a number of years, and I've also wanted horses ever since I was about five years old. My name is Caitlin Price-Youngquist, and I'm a farm planner for the Sonoma's Conservation District and the Compost and Manure Specialist. I'm going to talk to you a little bit today about some of the basics of the compost process. Composting is a great way to turn a waste product on the farm into a very valuable resource. I don't want people to be intimidated by composting. Composting does happen. If you give it the right materials, it'll do its own thing. Basically, if you just provide the manure, don't put too much wood shavings in there. Manage the air and manage a little bit of the water. Pretty much the compost is going to happen on its own. And remember, a pile has to be at least three feet high or three feet wide in order for cooking to start. A horse produces about 30 pounds of manure a day and urinates about two and a half gallons or about 20 pounds of urine a day. So that's quite a bit. Two horses, that comes out to almost a ton of manure a month. Composting is a relatively simple process that's very scalable based on the size of your operation and the needs that you have. So as you're thinking about location where you're going to design and build a compost system on your farm, consider drainage on your property. Make sure that the compost system will not be draining into any streams or ponds. Consider where the fence lines are, where your neighbors are, and consider access, particularly during the winter. You want to make your chores as easy and as efficient, as time efficient as possible. You don't want to have to put things in a wheelbarrow and then haul it up a hill or down a hill or to the back 40. You want that compost bin relatively close to where your horses are so that all you have to do is take the fork, pick it up, put it in the pile, and you're done. Some of the common challenges with composting in this climate particularly is that the pile gets too wet, which means there's not enough oxygen and the microbes that are aerobic that require oxygen cannot breathe and the process slows down and there are odor issues generally when the pile is too wet. One way to keep our piles from getting too wet in the winter is to cover them either with tarps or with a roof. A roof is ideal because it allows airflow still through the pile. The oxygen is essential for composting. Generally, the least expensive manner is to just take a tarp and put it on top of the pile and then put things, I put cement blocks or boards or something of weight. The ideal moisture content of a compost should be about the same as a wrung out sponge. So if I take a handful of compost in my hand and I squeeze it, it should leave a thin layer of moisture on my hand. I shouldn't find any water dripping out of the compost and it shouldn't be so dry that it crumbles. This is about ideal here. There are three good systems for managing the oxygen in your compost pile. One is a static pile that has air pipes that run underneath that are just open and that facilitates the chimney effect as the cold air moves from the bottom of the compost up through the top of the compost. Another option is to hook up an electric fan or blower to those pipes and actually force air through the compost system. That's going to give you the fastest, most uniform product. A third option is to use a loader or a tractor to physically mix and move the compost between bins. Measuring your temperature is the best measurement of success in composting. So if your compost is hot, typically over about 110 degrees, then you know that you're doing a good job with the compost system. If it's cold, that tells you that the bacteria and the fungi are not working very well in the compost pile and something needs to be adjusted or that your compost is already finished. If you're interested in killing the weed seeds and any parasites that may be in the manure, it's important that your compost gets up over 131 degrees Fahrenheit for at least three days and use a compost thermometer that has a three-foot probe and put that in the core of the pile and really watch your pile temperature carefully. If you're really on top of making sure it's getting just the right amount of water, you're aerating it and stuff like that, compost will probably be ready in about three or four months. You can pretty much bet that it's going to be fully composted and cured. If that isn't the case, then you just let it set. It might take, you know, six months. What you'll notice here with the raw materials is that the horse manure is still easily distinguishable. You see grass, hay, horse manure, and shavings and quite a few insects in this raw material. You'll notice the finished compost is rich and dark, earthy smelling, and it's difficult to distinguish the horse manure or hay or anything else that went into the compost. So once you're finished with the compost, you have a really nice, beautiful product that you're going to want to use on your landscaping, in your garden, or on your pasture. Basically, I like to use it on my pasture. A lot of times I have people asking for my compost. The neighbors covet it, and sometimes people say, hey, I'll take some of that from you. I don't want to give it away. I want to put it on my pasture. One of the obstacles to doing it, I think, is equipment. Sometimes people have a tractor, but they don't have manure spreaders. Well, it just so happens that the Conservation District has solved that problem, because now we have a manure spreader that's small enough that you can pull it with a lawn tractor. We also have a larger one for larger loads that you can use on your pasture, and it's free. There is no benefit to the grass by spreading compost in the winter, and you will likely be polluting water with nutrients and fecal bacteria. The best time to spread compost is late August or early September when the dry grass is waking up and the ground is firm, preventing compaction. If you're a larger place where you have more horses and you have too much that you can use, usually you can give it away. The Conservation District actually has something called a manure share list that you can put your name and contact information on, and we'll share it with others who would be interested in taking your compost. And remember, when life gives you manure... Make compost!