Morning folks, I haven't posted in quite some time. By the grace of God and some answered prayers my wife finally moved from afternoons to a daytime higher paying job. Needless to say spending evenings on YT just don't happen much anymore with Mom home at night with me and the kids. New income in the house and a change in insurance is going to net us some good future money for some iron! Question of the day though involves cow manure and pricing. I'm going to try a large garden expansion this year and called a local contractor for some pricing on delivered cow manure. Quoted $22.50/yard delivered + 20 dollar surcharge for delivery over ten miles. Now I understand the delivery charges and trucking-insurance-ect ect is expensive. What I don't understand (please forgive the ignorance)is the product. I realize it's returned in many cases to the farm as fertilizer what's the worth of that in your area per cubic yard? Do any of you folks typically sell it? Finally, If I haul it myself and a farmer loads for me what's a fair offer per yard for me to come and get it? Thanks, Tom B.
 
I couldn't put a value on it. If you were a neighbor of mine and you wanted a spreader load you could just come and get it.
 
That doesn't sound like a bad price. Around here that's not much more than what you would be charged just for the truck. I can't help with the price picked up but anything less that $50.00 wouldn't pay the cost of starting a tractor to load it and the time. remember that by the time they talk to you, collect your money, bs with you for a bit and get you out they will have most of an hour in it.
 
Neighbor has a dairy and he has been feeding round bales in the same spots for about 10 years. Last year he went in and pushed this into huge piles and it is just black dirt with hay in some spots. He gives it away if you load it by hand but was just offered $2 a bag by a large company. That would be 50 40lb bags at $2 a piece which is $100 a ton and he just has to push it in a pile. They come out and mix, clean, bag and haul away.
 
Supply and demand...

Lots of horse operations here. No need to pay for manure here, ever. Some places without a loader are shovel-your-own. Others might want a couple of bucks for diesel but mostly they will contribute the tractor just to get the pile reduced. One guy offered to pay me if I hauled off upwards of 100 yds. He had a problem.

My truck holds 7 yds, and dumps. Enough to last my composting for a year. For a garden, pay attention to what is in the manure. My sources never know what might have been on the hay fed to the animals, but some herbicides will survive the trip through the animal and still be active. Not what you want in your garden. Dow is correct when it claims long life for the herbicide.

My manure always has de-wormer, routinely given to horses. Usually breaks down in under a year at the horse facility, but I never use manure that hasn't been further composted here. My garden's full of worms and I want to keep it that way. Waiting that long, the manure loses a lot of N, but with free (for the hauling) manure, I simply use more.
 
I don't have cows but I once had a town guy giving me heck about what comes out of a cow and the pollution of a feedlot and such and asked me just where the feedlot's manure ends up...... I told him that they put it in bags and sell it to city folks!!! Of course it was composted first but the guy did finally realize that what I was telling him was the truth.
 
Depends on the manure.... but a lot of times if you did an analysis for NPK and extrapolated that out to NPK on a tonnage basis... it would come close to adding up to the 22.50 you're looking at as a delivered price. I charge somewhere in that range for very local delivery on manure... and I'm not getting what I should be getting for it.

Rod
 
Cow and horse are the best. You want it to be dry. It gives it a little time to ferment and break down. Horse has more fiber in it. Stay away from chicken, it is too hot "high nitrogen". You will also have PLENTY of weed seeds in it. Mostly lambs quarter in this area. Jeffcat
 
The extension service at most land grant universities should have estimates of the fertilizer content and dollar values of most manures, maybe some composts too. If your state does not have an extension service, check Iowa State, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan State Universities.
 
I give it away also (horse manure). Will load it and you haul it. Some come in pickups, one came with a 1 ton dump. Glad to load it out. Not going to run out any time soon.

Find a buddy with a pickup and look on craigslist....

John
 
I basically give away aged horse manure to anyone willing to load and haul it. My daughter made a decent spring income selling "SOS" (s--- in a sack) stuffuffing feed bags full and selling them 3 for $10 on the side of the road honor system
 

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