|
Sure would be nice if they did strip it out of the stalls ! I took the liberty of trying my hand at making compost at the horse farm, don't have a lot of room, tiny little tractor, but I was able to make a big pile of finely composted material. If one has the room, you get enough rain or have a water source if it is dry, have a loader on the tractor, and are handy with same, it can be done. If I had a 920, 930 size cat loader, it would be relatively easy to do. It's a lot of work for the little tractor like this, have to keep the pins greased. It sells in this area, and the neighbor does it as a very successful seasonal type business. I really enjoyed the seat time and would like to get some equipment to do it, when we had 30-40 horses, there was no short supply of manure.
The biggest thing I found important was using consistent bedding, most preferrable for this compost was a pine sawdust, we used to get oak, and other hardwoods, pine seems to break down the easiest, or the bagged shavings and similar wood products. Keep the nitrogen up and check the pile temperatures, turn them regularly to do the aerobic type composting, it worked very well, I could turn over batches in 6 months doing it like this. Feeding the best quality hay also helps, when we had crap hay it gets mashed into the manure, source of carbon and it takes longer to break down, chokes up the material too much for my liking, best when they eat every bit of it, and when the d$mned help don't toss poly bale twine in the manure, jerks contaminated a big compost pile with it on me, it's probably good that I don't do much up there any more.
Downside, it's not my place, my father and wife own it, not my tractor, I don't think they saw the value in doing it, but me having spent a lot of time on heavy equipment, saw it being easily created and a product that can bring good seasonal revenue, spring and fall, offsetting the cost of running the place. I've had that little tractor on stockpiles of manure 2x as high, never took a photo, got too high and gave a bunch to the neighbor. Stopped doing it, but for anyone who has enough room, a loader and time to do it, well worth doing, people around here buy everything the neighbor composts, we used to give it all to him, and watch him make money off it, when we should have been doing it all along, generation before me just don't see the value in it, so I gave it up, had I the equipment I'd be in that loader all day long making money off it, sells $25-$35 + per cubic yard. 
|
