The Scoop on Poop

With four permanent dogs, a few visiting dogs, two horses and one pony, we have our fair share of poop to deal with around here. Much to the horror of relatives and acquaintances, poop is a common topic of discussion at our farm. I think it is a completely appropriate topic, however, eating utensils are often placed back down on the table during family dinners when the topic surfaces. We now carefully choose the time and place to discuss it, for fear of further ostracizing ourselves!

So, I'll discuss it here and maybe the folks who are bothered by poop-talk will begin to understand why it's so important. Poop is our barometer of animal health in a lot of ways. And, with so much of it being produced here, we have to find creative and environmentally friendly ways to deal with it that won't anger the neighbors.

The dog poop is easy to deal with. We feed our dogs a home-made, raw diet. Consequently, their poop is much smaller than that from kibble fed dogs and it turns chalky-white within a day. It crumbles to nothing after a quick rain shower. I spend some time picking it up, especially when we have visiting dogs, but since the dogs have their own "yard," I mostly let nature take care of it. I do take a short trip around the dog yard daily to make sure the poop looks normal. Sometimes it doesn't, which is cause for further observation, but not necessarily concern.

The equine poop is another story entirely. As mentioned in an earlier blog, our horses each produce upwards of fifty pounds of manure per day. The pony produces much less, but still enough to matter. The business end of the offending parties is pictured above.

When our horses first arrived, I rented a two-yard dumpster, which was removed weekly by a refuse company. The dumpster was brown and hideous, and very much detracted from the look of our property. After it arrived, one of my favorite sayings to visitors was, "Welcome to our dumpster," because it was the first thing a person saw when entering our driveway.

By the end of most weeks the dumpster was completely full and I had to compact it with the tractor's loader bucket in order to fit the last day's manure and other horse-related refuse. Initially I pushed the wheelbarrow up a narrow ramp to dump the manure into the dumpster. I quickly graduated to the use of the tractor, which made life easier but also used fuel and produced exhaust. The refuse company picked up the manure every Tuesday and burned it in an incinerator. At least it wasn't going to a landfill, but on top of the fuel and exhaust from the tractor, our daily manure removal efforts were an environmental nightmare. You can see the dumpster in the photo above. It is located next to the driveway on the far right of the photo.

Desperate for a better solution, I feverishly researched manure composting methods in order to provide a more environmentally friendly end to the poop.

After a winter of paying $100 per month for the manure removal via dumpster (and hundreds more in fuel for the tractor), I'd had enough. This past spring I constructed a cryptic manure composting area adjacent to the paddock. I chose the location carefully. Rainfall run-off circumvented this area, yet it was close to the paddock so I didn't have to push the wheelbarrow too far. Pushing a hundred pounds of manure around is not easy! I used field stones from our property to outline the area. I decided on a two-pile system. One pile would be the active fill pile where we would dump manure daily. The other pile would be the composting pile, which we would turn often. Once completely composted, the turned pile would be spread on our pastures and lawns, or used for mulch in our landscaping.

Although I read every on-line article I could find, I still was unsure of the process. I did find good information on-line, but a lot of it was very general. I still had questions. How large would I let the pile get before I stopped adding to it and stopped turning it? How would we know if the pile was too wet or too dry? What if the two pile system was too small? What if we became overrun with poop and had nowhere to dispose of it? What if it smelled really horrible?

By then it was too late, I already cancelled the dumpster service, so we forged ahead into the unknown. Initially, the manure seemed to accumulate rapidly. I started to get nervous. After we filled the first pile, we started to turn it almost daily. We then began to fill the area for the second pile.

Amazingly, the first pile quickly started to resemble dirt. There was no bad smell. We kept the piles covered with a tarp, so they seemed to retain the ideal level of moisture while not becoming a breeding ground for pesky biting flies. As we turned the pile, the pieces of manure broke apart and the pile got smaller and smaller. Turning the pile resulted in clouds of steam and waves of heat, which were indicative of the biological activity at work. As the pile darkened in color and changed in texture, the heat and steam diminished. The process was over - from poop to dirt in a mere four weeks. The second pile was ready to be turned, and the process could start anew. The picture above shows the unturned, fresh manure on the left and the finished compost on the right.

My dad and I loaded that first pile into the manure spreader, and within two trips had the entire pile spread on our pasture. Another four weeks have gone by, and I used the second pile for "mulch" in our landscaping. It is a surprisingly pretty mulch with a slight sparkle to it from the granite stone dust in our paddock.

Composting the manure makes me feel good. With every turn of the pile, I feel content knowing our horses' manure is being recycled instead of ending up in an incinerator or landfill. Although I'll continue to read up on composting options and we'll continue to improve our system, I feel like we have a handle on the situation. Winter and snowfall will be the real test, but I have faith in our creativity and ingenuity.

And that's the scoop on our poop.