Mark Kopecky - Managing Manure: How to Store, Compost, and Use Organic Livestock Wastes. A Storey BASICS®Title

Manure is a combination of digested, partially digested, and undigested remains of the food that an animal eats, along with a broad mix of microorganisms.

For thousands of years, manure has been an integral part of agriculture. It is mentioned a number of times in the Bible. Many of the passages refer to human excrement and serve as admonitions or slurs against unholy practices, but at least two examples from the book of Luke refer to manure as a soil amendment. In the 1st century ad, a Roman soldier-turned-farmer and historian, Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, wrote extensively in 12 books about agricultural practices in De re rustica. The University of Wisconsin Extension publication Management of Wisconsin Soils provides the following quote from Columella:

And by plentiful dunging, which is owing to flocks and herds of cattle, the earth produces her fruit in great abundance.

That statement captures the value and benefits of manure beautifully.

Going back even further, traditional Chinese agriculture relied heavily on manure, not just from livestock, but also from people (more on this topic later in the book). F. H. King, in his classic treatise Farmers of Forty Centuries, describes in detail the way early farmers carried out these practices. Cornell University has collected numerous other examples of how ancient peoples used manure as a soil amendment (see ).

Wherever people have kept livestock, they have had to deal with the stuff that accumulates behind or underneath them. Early farmers must have noticed that putting manure back on the land not only disposed of it, but also dramatically improved the yield and quality of their crops or pastures. What started out as an exercise in waste disposal transformed into an agronomic practice.

In our modern age, with the advent of chemical-intensive, industrial-scale farming, some farmers seem to have reverted to disposing of manure as a waste product. In some cases, farms even dispose of manure by burning it.

If youre reading this book, I doubt you look at manure as a liability. For the past decade or two, the demographics of agriculture have been changing in the United States, and the number of small farms has increased dramatically. Many of these smaller operations embrace the concept of sustainability, and most organic farms are small farms, by todays measures of scale. We recognize the value of animal manure, not only as an economical soil amendment, but as an essential part of the cycle of life.

The Nature and Properties of Crap*

The physical, chemical, and biological properties of manure make it a truly amazing soil amendment. Depending on the species of animal, the type of bedding used, and how manure is stored and spread, some type of manure is an appropriate soil amendment for almost every crop grown in almost any type of soil, anywhere in the world.

To make the best use of manure, it helps to understand its properties, along with the requirements of the crops youre growing and the characteristics of your own soils.

* With apologies to Dr. Nyle C. Brady, original author of the excellent introductory textbook on soils with a very similar title.

Fresh manure is usually moist , its consistency ranging from firm and well formed to almost a slurry. Depending on the animal it comes from and what that animal eats, it may have a mild, earthy odor or a strong and unappealing smell as it is excreted.

How manure is collected and stored and whether or not bedding is included affect its physical characteristics as well as its nutrient value. Manure that has been composted doesnt even resemble the original material, being well mixed, mellow, and pleasant to the smell. Manure that is stored as a liquid in a lagoon or holding tank doesnt resemble the original material, either, but usually has a powerful odor and requires special equipment to deal with it.

Because small-scale farmers and gardeners most often will be working with solid manure, thats what most of this book will focus on.

Its handy to know how much manure you can expect to get from whatever kind of livestock you keep. If you consider the weight of the animal, theres a fairly narrow range of how much dry matter (the weight of the material without any water) different livestock species excrete in their manure. For each pound of live animal weight, cattle produce the least around 3 pounds (1.5 kg) per year; horses, sheep, and swine around 4 pounds per year; and poultry around 4 pounds (1.9 kg) per year.