Farmyard manure management - ohhhh crap.

I'll admit the obvious - we are learning as we go. I wasn't raised on a cattle ranch and neither was my DH (as much as he doesn't like to admit it); so we don't have much to draw from. We don't seem to collect much for cowey friends either; just horsey ones.

My DH did spend countless days out at Uncles grain farm, and there were some cows kept there at the homeplace. So he has the basics down; feed, water, minerals, immunize, ivomec, mid-wifery - he is very good at all this.
It seems with 3 kids my most valuable talents lie in cooking and cleaning.

When I go out to cows I can't help but wonder How to deal with All This Crap!
Poop everywhere. And mud underneath.

In winter, the cows stay in a small corner of the pasture- close to food and water. The poop that has built up is staggering and seems unhygienic for their feet.

Is there a standard system throughout the winter for manure management? Just scrape and pile? What about when it has thawed and the mud under manure will undoubtedly get tractor stuck?
What about damage to pasture grasses?

My DH is not concerned; but sometimes I feel he doesn't think as deeply as I do! Hahah
Good thing he doesn't read this stuff!

Scrape and pile, scrape and pile. We use our Bobcat and clean our corrals, shelters and pens every year or two, then every few years, we pay a manure hauler to come and spread it on our fields.

However, you do have to wait until everything dries up, or you'll just be getting your equipment stuck.

You're also not supposed to spread manure on top of snow. We usually try to hit that brief window of time in the fall, after the crops have come off, but before the snow flies.

This is an excellent question, Kat, gonna watch this thread. Wish I could offer some input. Where I had my cow share, they just layered down straw over the frozen manure when it got to where the cows wouldn't walk on it to come in the barn to be milked. It's like rounded rocks and looks hard on their feets.

I only have one small cow, and she is in a small grassy paddock. I have a flock of Light Sussex chickens in with her (7) and they are always scratching the manure up and spreading it around. I don't think I will have to clean up more than her shelter. Of course, we don't have winter like you folks do. Isn't it usually cleaned up with a small grader? Then you could compost it and put it in your garden.

My horse has a run in shelter where her manure piles up, but it stays dry in there so her hooves turn it into dust. I go in there with a wheelbarrow and a shovel when I'm building a new raised bed in the garden and take up what I need to fill the bed. Then I plant right in it. I also top dress the older beds in the spring. Then I use the shovel to scoop any lumps in the back forward where she will mash them up for me. I haven't cleaned out her shelter in the 3 years its been standing.

authenticfarm wrote:Scrape and pile, scrape and pile. We use our Bobcat and clean our corrals, shelters and pens every year or two, then every few years, we pay a manure hauler to come and spread it on our fields.

However, you do have to wait until everything dries up, or you'll just be getting your equipment stuck.

You're also not supposed to spread manure on top of snow. We usually try to hit that brief window of time in the fall, after the crops have come off, but before the snow flies.

Yep.

Sweetened wrote:This is an excellent question, Kat, gonna watch this thread. Wish I could offer some input. Where I had my cow share, they just layered down straw over the frozen manure when it got to where the cows wouldn't walk on it to come in the barn to be milked. It's like rounded rocks and looks hard on their feets.

Yep, we just layer straw on top when it's looking too crappy. Also, we put out a fresh layer of straw every time it snows.

We put out a LOT of straw this past winter.

authenticfarm wrote:

Sweetened wrote:This is an excellent question, Kat, gonna watch this thread. Wish I could offer some input. Where I had my cow share, they just layered down straw over the frozen manure when it got to where the cows wouldn't walk on it to come in the barn to be milked. It's like rounded rocks and looks hard on their feets.

Yep, we just layer straw on top when it's looking too crappy. Also, we put out a fresh layer of straw every time it snows.

We put out a LOT of straw this past winter.

I guess this is the downside of our climate eh?

Sweetened wrote:I guess this is the downside of our climate eh?

Snow and I are FRIENDS OFF right now.

But I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Unless there's a magic land where it never gets above 15 C or below -10 C, in which case, I will move there.

authenticfarm wrote:

Sweetened wrote:I guess this is the downside of our climate eh?

Snow and I are FRIENDS OFF right now.

But I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Unless there's a magic land where it never gets above 15 C or below -10 C, in which case, I will move there.

I'm so glad someone else understands this concept. LOL. Anything about 15C and I mope. I'm good with cold... you can always put more on, but there's only so many layers to peel away.

Sweetened wrote:I'm so glad someone else understands this concept. LOL. Anything about 15C and I mope. I'm good with cold... you can always put more on, but there's only so many layers to peel away.

I spend more days hiding from heat than I do hiding from cold. Heat is gross.

So is manure! *bring it back around!*

I have always said that the key to good farm management is to be able to manage your waste. Everything else falls in line if you have your sh!t together.

I work pretty hard with my shovel and wheelbarrow, but I also am careful to prepare to manage the waste well before it comes out the end. Deep litter is a godsend.

authenticfarm wrote:

Sweetened wrote:This is an excellent question, Kat, gonna watch this thread. Wish I could offer some input. Where I had my cow share, they just layered down straw over the frozen manure when it got to where the cows wouldn't walk on it to come in the barn to be milked. It's like rounded rocks and looks hard on their feets.

Yep, we just layer straw on top when it's looking too crappy. Also, we put out a fresh layer of straw every time it snows.

We put out a LOT of straw this past winter.

So how big an area do you layer in straw? Just where they bed? Or the entire High Traffic areas?
We used 12 1000 lb straw bales just in one bedding area this winter, because its not protected from snowfall.

We bed three different areas in the cow pasture - a three-sided shed, it's probably 16x48 or so, an area near a windbreak called "The Pile", and a third open-sided shed (just a roof with poles) that is also probably 16x48. We try to keep around 150 straw bales going into winter.

We don't bed the routes they take to get between the waterers and the feeding areas and the shelters - we just bed where they sleep.

We also bed smaller shelters in the bull pens and the calf corral.

Well there you go.

We will max our herd out at only 50 breeding cows. Doing the math here; imagining that we had enough cows to need 150 straw bales. We paid $25 each last fall; $3750 in straw. Not sooooo bad I guess if you've got the numbers to justify.

KatuskiFarms wrote:Well there you go.

We will max our herd out at only 50 breeding cows. Doing the math here; imagining that we had enough cows to need 150 straw bales. We paid $25 each last fall; $3750 in straw. Not sooooo bad I guess if you've got the numbers to justify.

We only have about 30 cows. We just like to have tons of feed and straw on hand. We usually calculate what we need for the worst possible winter (like we had this year), then add 50-100% extra. That way, if you have a drought year where your hay crop is crap, you have enough to carry forward and survive the winter. The drought of 2002 was hard on a lot of people, but we didn't have to buy any feed because we plan for contingencies.

If it's a year where we haven't put our own crop in (we often rent some or all of our crop land out, depending on what we have in the bin and how busy my year is looking), we have paid anywhere from $5 to $15 per bale for our rounds - but that's with my husband going out and doing the baling and hauling them home himself. We just make sure to talk to the neighbours early on and get that field reserved for our use, and then they can plan accordingly - ie. they won't put the chopper/spreader thing on the rear of the combine, so it will make nice swaths of straw for us.

Luckily, we have plenty of grain-only farmers nearby, so we can buy their straw. The mixed operations typically need their straw for their own herds.

I think this info is pure gold! Thanks so much Authentic.

Yes my DH is trying to pry his way into being able to bale someone's straw - we find that nowadays farmers have caught on to how valuable the straw is for their soil, better for the field to chop it and leave it.

But we put up all our own hay - so far. We dont have enough Hayland to support 50 cows for one year straight, let alone 2.

KatuskiFarms wrote:I think this info is pure gold! Thanks so much Authentic.

Yes my DH is trying to pry his way into being able to bale someone's straw - we find that nowadays farmers have caught on to how valuable the straw is for their soil, better for the field to chop it and leave it.

But we put up all our own hay - so far. We dont have enough Hayland to support 50 cows for one year straight, let alone 2.

Definitely talk to them early - like, May - and ask if you could buy their straw from any oat/wheat/barley crops. Bribe them with home baked goods. Everyone else will start hitting them up closer to harvest, so if you've already thrown your hat in, then you should have first dibs.

I like oat straw the best - nice and soft, and if there are any seed heads left on, you don't have to worry much - but wheat or barley straw is fine, too. The cows love to pick through the oat straw for any under developed grains. I suspect chickens would also be big fans of it!

authenticfarm wrote:

Sweetened wrote:I'm so glad someone else understands this concept. LOL. Anything about 15C and I mope. I'm good with cold... you can always put more on, but there's only so many layers to peel away.

I spend more days hiding from heat than I do hiding from cold. Heat is gross.

No, NO, that is just WRONG. I am lizard girl, hot rock in the sun and I am happy. Not comfortable until high 20s, closer to 30s. Every winter I want to curl up and rise when it is over.

Hot rock in the sun!!!!!

coopslave wrote: No, NO, that is just WRONG. I am lizard girl, hot rock in the sun and I am happy. Not comfortable until high 20s, closer to 30s. Every winter I want to curl up and rise when it is over.

Hot rock in the sun!!!!!

I'm with you, Coopy!

Me lizard girl too, bring on those hot summer days. Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, those days of soda, preztels and beer.....a good song. I actually found my hammock in the back room yesterday and brought it out. so many visions of relaxing on my deck, below that roof, sipping on cold stuff, and maybe actually going to read a book. that would be a dream, might come true.

Right, managing manure. I only have to manage it two times a year. Now Daughter, 5 horses, a bobcat for sure that stacks the mountains of crap and then they have a tractor that has a big spreader and they spread it on the field, after they have made another mountain beside the mountain that is already at the back. That is where I grew my squashes last year, well, most of them, and they loved it. It was a non-irrigated crop and still gave me copious amounts of squashes. Out there, forever more, not to waste space in my garden where little veggies grow, smiling. Have a wonderful day, spread crap!! CynthiaM.

coopslave wrote:

authenticfarm wrote:

Sweetened wrote:I'm so glad someone else understands this concept. LOL. Anything about 15C and I mope. I'm good with cold... you can always put more on, but there's only so many layers to peel away.

I spend more days hiding from heat than I do hiding from cold. Heat is gross.

No, NO, that is just WRONG. I am lizard girl, hot rock in the sun and I am happy. Not comfortable until high 20s, closer to 30s. Every winter I want to curl up and rise when it is over.

Hot rock in the sun!!!!!

I agree to a point much like cynthia I do enjoy my hammock in the trees. I'm not lucky enough to have a deck yet. I hate the cold wind on my ears and to many layers makes me very uncomfortable.
Oh yes manure, I was lucky enough to get my hands on some fresh oat bales. They went over like gangbusters. Between the pigs and the cows I'm just about out. My chickens really perfer alphalfa. They rumage and roll and throw it up in the air like confetti at a party.
My question is how long before the oat bedding which is now just straw will break down? Do I have to do anything to help it along...

Ruffledfeathers wrote:
Oh yes manure, I was lucky enough to get my hands on some fresh oat bales. They went over like gangbusters. Between the pigs and the cows I'm just about out. My chickens really perfer alphalfa. They rumage and roll and throw it up in the air like confetti at a party.
My question is how long before the oat bedding which is now just straw will break down? Do I have to do anything to help it along...

We pile up the straw along with the manure and after a few years, it becomes this GORGEOUS loam. Great for growing things.

We don't do anything to help it along and it seems to do fine. No watering, no turning, we just let it sit in a big pile.

authenticfarm wrote:We pile up the straw along with the manure and after a few years, it becomes this GORGEOUS loam. Great for growing things.

We don't do anything to help it along and it seems to do fine. No watering, no turning, we just let it sit in a big pile.

Do you pull from the bottom/middle of the pile then? *Interested look*

*Hijacking my own thread here*

Hot Composting for the Serious Gardener.
I just started a thread about it in Gardening.