Ideas for manure disposal

4Rcattle · Oct 28, 2020

For those of you who have cattle in the barn, what do you do it regards to disposing of the manure? How often do you haul it off (if that's what you do)? We clean stalls daily as well as the "let-out" pen. Most days, we also haul it off with the wheel barrow and fill up low spots in the pasture around the barn with it. I've heard of people using manure spreaders and/or tractors also. From what I've looked at, the manure spreaders are pretty expensive.

knabe · Oct 28, 2020

for the barn manure, i mulch it and add some fert and water to heat it up.

my neighbor does same with horse manure, and he uses tarps, but he's retired and has lots of time.

Doc · Oct 28, 2020

Around here you can get an older ground driven manure spreader to pull behind your tractor for $800 to $1,200

Medium Rare · Oct 29, 2020

I have a really old ground drive manure spreader parked next to the barn. It's so old and small most people use them for decorations in their farm yard. I think I gave $200 for it at a goat farm sale. It can be pulled with about anything and one of the 5 settings for the floor chain is very very slow so the spread pattern can be set to where it's barely noticeable.

Bigger sacrifice and winter feeding areas away from the barn and out of sight get pushed up into a pile with the tractor and loader or dozer to compost until I can get them spread on a crop field. The economics really don't allow for much hauling distance though. The larger piles can also come in handy when a live stock decides to become a dead stock. They'll compost away to nearly nothing with time, just make sure you remember what pile you put it in so you don't dig into it too early.

GoWyo · Oct 29, 2020

In the big pen (100'x120') just pile it up in the center about 8-10' high and the calves work it down to about 4-5' high and lay on it. It stays pretty dry compared to the rest of the pen. The smaller pens, just push it out to a pile and keep letting it cook -- someday get someone in with a spreader and move it out. We are only a 12-15" precipitation zone here though and nearest neighbor is 3 miles away.