composting manure in Alaska

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Hi, There seem to be a few folks here from Alaska, and I'm sure countless others with composting experience, hopefully I can make something of what I have. I have 3 sheep and kept them in a barn all winter. They seem to make their own 'straw' of what they leave of the hay. What I ended up with this spring was a fluffy dry top layer of straw. I knew there was more to it, as animals had lived there all winter:) Peeling back the foot of dry straw, I found a soggy mess of straw, manure, and, by the smell, it was soggied by urine. I was told I could use sheep manure green, but I can't possibly put that stuff on my food! My question is how best to compost this stuff. It's probably 6" deep, a 10x20 area, so quite a bit. It looks like a good mix of 'green' and 'brown' though probably more of the latter. It is rotting, I don't think that's the same as composting? I'd really like to use it in the garden, as that is part of the value of sheep to me. An article in the current mag said they composted fresh goat manure for 8 weeks before applying it. If I could do something to this stuff for the balance of the summer and till it into the garden this fall I'd be thrilled. Given our winters, it will be the same product in May as I apply in September. Any suggestions? It's real warm here all summer. Today was the first heavy rain since mid-May. Otherwise been in the 70's since June 2ish, but dry. Garden's doing great! Thanks in advance, Jill

-- Jill Schreiber (schreiber@santanet.com), June 30, 2000

Answers

Jill, What you have there now is the result of anerobic bacteria, and composting uses aerobic bacteria. So, I would start with maybe coarse leaves like oak, second layer of some of your goat material(GM), small twigs, another layer of GM, grass clippings, GM, ashes from fireplace, GM and so forth. Make a compost pile alternating layers, fine-coarse alternating. This will convert the GM to a very fine additive for your garden and should become fluffy and have great tilt. You will also lose the very strong odor.

-- JerryR(La.) (jwr98@hotmail.com), June 30, 2000.

Here the habit is to muck out the barn once a year ....we'll be starting soon ....jeez does that stuff stink ....anyways what i do is layer it in a big heap with green stuff (grass ,weeds,etc). We have alot so I just do that with the stuff for the garden .When I have time I turn the pile - actually I sort of roll it down the garden - I have found by turning it oftenish and adding greenstuff it composts really quick, but then in Italy I imagine it is a bit hotter here!

-- kelly (kellytree@hotmail.com), June 30, 2000.

One of the tricks to getting things to compost relatively quickly in Alaska is to keep the heat inside your composting bins, what that means is that you should insulate your composting bins all the way around so the heat released by the bacteria stays in it and helps the whole process along. Also, the ground in Alaska is still fairly cold even in the middle of summer and can suck heat from anything pretty quickly. With that much sheep errrr...leftovers, you're gonna need to make either a lot of bins, or one really BIG one.....

Hope this helps a bit, by the way, what area of AK are you in?

-- Dave (Ak) (daveh@ecosse.net), July 01, 2000.


Jill, you WANT that urine. Granted it stinks, but that's your main nitrogen source. Anytime you're smelling ammonia, you're losing the most important, hardest to replace element of your compost. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), July 03, 2000.

Thanks for your help. I built a sort of bin from pallets, and have started moving the stuff. Do any of you have suggestions on how to make next years 'product' more readily used? I started this year by cleaning the pen daily, and it wasn't too hard until they made lots of straw. Short of teaching them to eat all the hay (have an idea for that) can I leave adequate bedding and still take the manure? Of course, that would waste all the urine, I had no idea it was valuable. Maybe that's why the potatoes always did so great when we planted them in the winter puppy yard! Jill Jill

-- Jill Schreiber (schreiber@santanet.com), July 04, 2000.


Several years ago I dated a woman who was a gardening fanatic. She came right to the point and said while I was visiting her if I needed to take a leak, to go out to the garden and do so at the base of a tomato plant or something. She even had me use a clorox bottle at night for the urine to be pored in the garden. Urine contains urea, which is a fertilizing agent. I'm told at one time train stations in France had urinals which fed into tanks. Farmers would bid on it to be placed on their crops.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), July 04, 2000.

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