Another new development on our farm has been to commence the construction of bays in which to compost our stable manure. We have rubber stall mats in our stables (Stable Comfort brand) which helps us minimise the amount of stable bedding we need to use and we highly recommend them. However, even with the mats, we find it is still essential to use a small layer of bedding (usually pine shavings) to absorb the urine.
Prior to commencing composting we used to just directly spread the used bedding/manure straight onto our paddocks. We have a manure spreader which we tow with our quad bike which does a great job of spreading. However, now we will use it to to spread the finished compost instead of the fresh manure and bedding. We feel by composting we will be getting much more value from this plentiful resource by better converting it to fertiliser as well as being able to utilise it to manufacture our own “compost tea” to also use on our pastures.
We are using a hot composting technique which requires that the compost is turned regularly to maintain aerobic conditions within the pile. We have a small tractor with a bucket which we use to turn the pile when it reaches around 65 degrees Celcius. We also monitor the moisture level within the pile and add extra water when turning if we feel it is too dry.
At present we only have 2 bays, but we are just about to commence the construction of another 2 bays which will give us sufficient spare bays to allow us to have a spare bay for turning and a couple of other bays containing compost at varying stages.
We are aiming for approx 25% – 30% manure content within the piles and will monitor this as we go to see if it sufficient to allow the breakdown of the high carbon content pine shavings within a reasonable time period (at this stage we are hoping to have finished compost within 4-6 months of the the completion of a full bay).
Dimensions of our bays are 2.4m x 2.4m and 1.2m high. We have used untreated hardwood sleepers (200mm x 75mm x 2.4m) for the entire construction and treated any cut surfaces. They are coach screwed and bolted together with M6 sized bolts.
More pics of our manure compost bays below.
Brookland Ridge Farm 