Down Mulberry Lane

Manure Compost

Whew!  it is that time of year when our noses cringe when we go outside!   Springtime is cleanup time around the farm yard and Dh has been busy cleaning up! 

In the winter the animals get fed in generally the same area over time.  The animals try to stay warm by sticking close to the food.  That means all the manure drops with the scattered bits of hay that they pull out and stomp down which they have deemed unacceptable for consumption! 

If we would leave the manure/hay mixture it often does not break down.  We visited some farms and found someone with a pile as tall as the barn of manure and hay.  If you do not turn it, it just doesn't break down.  The top forms a crust (which is wonderful because it stops the smells from drifting).  It is not so wonderful to have a large pile of manure to look at day after day, however. 

Dh found that by turning the piles, it will break down and turn into a manure compost.  Basically it is like compost in that it resembles dirt when it is completely broke down.  However, the manure adds more nutrients to the compost, so that it is wonderful for the garden. 

This is the pile from our chicken/horse barn.  It is what is cleaned out from inside and from the feed area outside.  The ground where we feed is often lacking hay because the manure concentration is so strong it often kills the grass.  When Dh cleaned up this area, the chickens didn't mind one bit as you'll notice in the next picture...

They are scratching and digging the ground that was roughed up.  A chicken's favorite past time. 

This is our front pasture's winter feeding area.  It is to the north of my garden.  We are resting 1/3 of our garden area and putting the manure compost pile on top of it.  It will get turned throughout the summer and break down.  This will fertilize our garden beneath it so it is ready for next year.  Dh plans to do this each year, resting a different part of the garden each year.  The resulting compost will be used in other garden boxes and spread over the entire garden once it has broke down. 

Here is a close-up of our compost pile.  It is about 2-3 feet deep and 30 by 60 feet wide/long. 

This is from a different direction.  It really doesn't smell very good for the first couple turns.  But after a while, it loses it's smell and no one will be bothered by it.  Which is good, because our campfire area is just next to this area (close to the garden it is covering, yet before the house... it is very hard to see at this angle.)

This is last years pile of manure compost.  There is still some left, which I will use on the garden.  You can see a few stumps in the pile.  Dh pushed it onto some stumps and the sheep used it this winter to lay on, hence the brown crust you see on top where they drug a bit of hay on top of the pile.  But below the crust it is a nice dark compost... ready for the garden.  We're still in the midst of clean-up and need to get  the bale twine out.  We have about 4-5 trees to drop this fall in the pasture area; the trees have simply lived their life and died.   We need an area to feed in the winter and we limit the space for hay feeding.   Come spring, we use that same area to clean up and make the compost while the sheep, horses and chickens go out to pasture.   Removing the trees will help with this clean up. 

I love to watch the piles break down.  You will actually see the piles "steaming" when they start breaking down.  It is actually quite warm.   I think it is interesting to see how God planned for things that seem "useless" and a "bother" to actually be something that will help the ground replenish it's nutrients.  The cycle takes about a year for it to break down and be usable.  At first I thought it took too long... meaning I thought the mess of compost wasn't worth it.  The space it takes up wasn't worth it.  The time of working with it, wasn't worth it.  But some things take time and there are spiritual lessons to be learned when you work with God's land.  Seems to take that time working the earth to learn many of them. 

My fil offered us his compost bin (the type that are on a stand in a barrel and you add to it and turn it).  It is very nice, but Dh laughed and said... we really really REALLY don't need a small compost bin when we've got these huge piles to work with.  *grin*  

This is our third year with making manure compost.  This is, however, the first year we actually developed a plan of how to use it and where to work it.  I guess when you have 60 head of sheep, 60 chickens and a couple horses, eventually you HAVE to figure out what to do with all the mess.   I'm glad we found a natural way to deal with it and I realize how blessed we are to have it when I see the prices at the store for what might fill a 5 gallon bucket... Gardening can get expensive if you simply are purchasing everything... seeds, compost, etc.  Yet it can be very affordable if you are able to make your own compost, save your own seeds, etc.  God is good! 

Warmly, ~Melissa