Next up for International Compost Awareness Week: If you can’t put manure in your compost pile, what do you do with it???
These handy articles below explain a bit about why you should use it, and how you can safely compost it!
"Manure is a low-cost fertilizer and a wonderful way to utilize nutrients instead of creating a pile that is not getting used and could be harmful to water quality,"
“...chicken’ digestive system kills weed seeds — 98%! — that might otherwise be spread to the garden.“ Which makes them great for disposing of all those pesky weeds you pulled!
“Simply aging a manure pile for three months can kill about 60 percent of the weed seeds present, and bacterial counts start to drop within days after the manure leaves the animal. Then, when the aged manure is mixed into the soil, soil microorganisms clear out residual bacteria in about a month.”
I(mod S) have chickens and guinea fowl, all of whom create so. much. manure. There are a couple different ways I handle their waste, both of which require as little effort as I can possibly manage. The first is my designated bird waste spot, which is a repurposed feed trough that was probably originally intended for cattle, so it’s rather large. When the coops get cleaned out, the waste goes in the trough. It sits for a while, a few months at least, until it looks more like soil than manure. Then I usually plant it with flowers, gourds, maybe decorative pumpkins - in other words, things not for eating. After those plants have lived out their lives and died back, I dig out the now fantastic soil and distribute it around various beds, wherever it’s needed.
The other method I use is when I’m making a raised bed. I avoid buying soil as much as I possibly can, so I tend to get kinda creative when I need to fill in a bed. I put a few rotting logs in the bottom, followed by a thick layer of manure, and then a thick layer of soil. Then after a week when it settles a bunch and is no longer as high as I want it, I add more soil. This creates really nice soil that won’t need amending for a few years, at least, and since there is several inches at least of soil on top, I can plant directly in it, rather than having to wait for it to decompose.
Also, as a bonus for chicken keepers, you can feed them the dairy and meat that all the guides say not to put in the compost pile!
Don’t have your own animals creating manure, but have space to compost it? Many horse farms, at least around where I live, have more than they can deal with, and some actually pay to have it carted away. You may be able to score a load for free!
If getting manure from someone else, keep in mind that there may be herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals in it. It is exceedingly rare for horses to be kept organic, and it isn’t particularly common for chickens, either. Additionally, while chickens’ digestion kills weed seeds, other animals do not! Fascinatingly, some farmers have intentionally fed seeds such as clover to their animals with the intention of spreading them about the pasture via manure with decent success!
Happy composting!
- Mod S
