5-30-21 Finding material for composting.
I thought that this post should be about raking in the compost again. A lot of the discussions I have with different people that are interested in gardening are about how to compost, and where to find the material needed for the sweet dirt. It seems mostly to be common sense to me, but common sense is based on knowledge too. If you haven't been in the game very long, then the knowledge has to come from somewhere.
Part of our composting regimen is to take a wide variety of organic material that we can find and run it through the wringer. Now, the organic material I'm going to be talking about today, is all that biological waste that we find from so many of the animals on the farm.
Here's one of those readily available materials that we add to the pile. It's those chicken manure impregnated pine shavings that we harvest from the brooder box. This box just happens to be a recycled six-foot chest style freezer that was tossed out by somebody when the compressor tried to burn their house down. We didn't need the motor, compressor pump, and evaporator coil ... we just needed the box. These guys are only about three weeks old, but boy can they generate the waste. A batch of chicks between twenty and thirty peeps can make about three-gallons of hot (nitrogen loaded) compostable material a week. We had to move them into this box because the next batch of chicks is almost ready to bust out of their egg-shell prison in the incubator, and we needed the smaller box for the new batch of chicks.
The donkeys can be another wonderful source of compostable material. Donkeys and horses both have a large pelletized skat that is high on nitrogen and is filled with lots of organic material that is in different stages of breakdown. I guess you could say that they don't digest very well. The more complicated the digestion system is on an animal, then the more the organic material is broken down. That makes it more readily available for your plants to take in the nutrients from their root systems. The things that haven't been totally broken down yet, give your plants more over time, as opposed to immediately. Both are needed for a healthy soil.
I'm sorry Jack and Fancy, if I'm talking about your droppings. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. We all do it.
Thank you Donkeys, for leaving us this compostable material to use. I bet you're probably done with it anyway. We'll try to put your gift toward a good purpose.
Cow manure is my go-to for filling the compost bins. They have an incredible amount of waste material, and it is usually just sitting out there in the pasture in nice little brown piles, just waiting for someone to go out there to pick it up. The older it is, the more of the nutrients there will be that are already leached into the surrounding soil, but when it's fresh, it is very hard to pick up. It will be better to wait a few days after the piles are dropped to attempt to get them, just to let them dry out a little bit before harvesting them. Wet manure becomes a solid ball of muck in a compost bin, and it is harder for the air to reach everything to assist with decomposition.
Hi cows, and you too El Toro (the bull). Hope you guys are staying happy over here in the shade. Did you leave us anything?
Where we feed the cows is always a bonanza of usable material. Just let them stomp it in, poop on it, stomp it in some more, and Voila! There ya go ... that old hay and manure is already starting to decompose.
Goats and sheep all have a small pelletized manure that is virtually free of weed seeds. They both have a very complicated digestion system, and seeds find it really hard to live through all that. Wherever the larger ruminants lay down for their sleep, there will be piles of those black jelly beans begging to go in a compost bin. They're not really jelly beans, and they aren't really sugar babies either, so I don't recommend tasting them ... they just look like that.
These guys are all waiting for somebody to put the feed out. They might look calm right now, but it's Katie-bar-the-gate when I have a feed bucket in my hands. It's a good thing that they aren't carnivorous ... I'd be a giant walking meat sack.
These are the quonsets for the sheep. They get in here for the snow and wet cold weather. It's about time to dig it all out again and start over. When they cover their bedding material with poop, we just give them another layer of bedding on top of that. It adds up pretty quickly. When it dries out in the middle of summer, that's usually the best time to dig it out. It can get at least a foot thick in there, and is already well on the way to being ready for a garden.
If you raise rabbits, then it is easy to scoop the droppings out from under the cages. They are so nice to leave it there for you. The area under the cages can also become a buffet area for worms, so don't be surprised if the earth worms create a colony under there. It's pretty common to put a shovel in the rabbit manure and turn it over to find ba-zillions of tiny strings of red spaghetti (baby earth worms).
Hi there rabbits. Hope you guys are staying happy and healthy. They provide us with lots of meat as well as mounds of loaded organic stuff.
Here's a pile of that molding rabbit manure. About time to fill a bin with this stuff too. With all the worms we find in there ... might just have to go fishing.
For anybody thinking about it, it's never a good idea to use human waste as an addition to a garden where you will be eating the produce. It might be ok for flowers, for bushes, or for fruit trees, but any food that could come in direct contact with human waste isn't really something that is a good idea to put in your mouth. Diseases and parasites that are exclusive to people can be passed in their waste material. Yes, I know ... it's been used like that for thousands of years all over the world, but that still doesn't mean it's a good idea. Just because it's ok for people in exotic places to get intestinal parasites, that doesn't mean that having intestinal parasites is an exotic thing to try. In a survival situation, you do what you have to do, but if you don't have to ... steer clear of that one.
I think I talked about harvesting the storm water drainage dirt in an earlier post, so I wanted to show all of you what I was talking about. Even a small place where rainwater builds up drainage material could be a good source of compostable material. You just want to make sure that it doesn't come from the highway, or from a giant burn pit, or from any other place where industrial or fuel waste could be around. Keep it natural if you can.
This is a set of culverts that are under the fence on the downhill side of the pasture where we feed the cows. There are two 24" culverts here and we have to clean them out periodically to allow the water to drain. If we don't clean it out, then the water can build up and wash out the fence (been there and did that). This is after the last few days of flooding rain that we got. Looks like there might be several cubic yards of sweet dirt right there. I'll be able to fill a couple of bins with that stuff, when it dries out enough to get a small trailer in there without sinking up to the axle. I'm so blessed.
I'm really glad you could stop by for a visit, and listen to me as I discuss the finer points of poop. Nothing like sitting in the shade, drinking a cup of sweet iced tea (or a cold beer), and discussing the intricacies of manure. Tell everybody you stopped by, and bring some more of your friends. I've got lots of things to talk about, and you are guaranteed to get a better understanding of how to grow your garden. I might even ramble on about a few other things as well.
Stop by any time.
Duane
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