If you’re a horse owner then you may be wondering how you can better manage the manure that comes from keeping horses. There are three very useful techniques that can be used for good management of your horse’s manure. This includes storing it, composting it, and applying it as fertilizer. Here we’ll take a look at some steps to manage horse manure well.
Storing The Manure
The amount of manure that one owner will experience compared to another in the barn has a wide variation. It will partly be dependent on how much bedding is used. If a stall is heavily bedded then there will be more to deal with and this is why, in part, that some horse owners choose to keep the bedding down to a minimum.
Just to give a basic idea of how much manure will be generated, if the horse is about 1000 lbs and is bedded with wood chips or with sawdust then you will likely find that about 25 cubic yards of manure will be produced a year. To stop harm being done to the environment from any runoff, you’ll need the manure to be stored a minimum of 50 feet away from drainage or any place where water will run. The Department of Agriculture can you give tips on ways of doing this.
Directly Applying Manure As Fertilizer
Manure and horse urine have different nutrients and can, therefore, be used as fertilizer. The plants need the nutrients found in these things for them to grow well. When you add this into your basic fertilizer it will increase the number of nutrients that it has and help your plants grow. The thing to be cautious about is using too much. The other concern is the fact that horse manure can contain parasites or pathogens that can get onto farm food and into the water system. The way to effectively manage this is to make certain that you’re using the right amount without using too much. Thus, you had better consider to use another method for horse manure recycling.
Should You Make Compost?
Horse manure can be used raw when applying it to crops as fertilizer. To do so does require some care and you have to know how much to use and make certain not to use too much but it is suitable for the purpose. At the same time, it is reasonably easy to compost. This will increase the different options you have with disposing of it.
It’s important to note that if you mix the manure with wood chips it could damage crops. Therefore, that is not something that you would want to do if you plan on using it as fertilizer. This is why some farmers use composting.
There are some advantages to choosing to compost the fresh horse manure. The process creates its own heat which in turn kills parasites and bacteria. It can also kill the eggs of insects. When the manure is composted it won’t any longer attract flies.
The biggest thing to remember is that you take proper care of it and use it appropriately. It can be a great fertilizer because it adds nutrients as long as it is not overdone. There needs to be some care to make certain that the manure does not run off into any water systems because it can contaminate them. Composting animal manure is a simple way to treat it.
