aquaponic organic

If the newest member of your family has four legs and neighs it probably is an equine. Finally a horse to beautify the property. But it's amazing isn't it? The tremendous amount of organic matter a horse can generate. Here are ideas of what to do with all that poop.

Horse manure is one substance perfectly suitable for making compost. Left in piles as it drops, the apples, as they are affectionately deemed, dry up and return to earth. However, that option isn't available for most horse owners due to the volume produced in the small pasture area. Allowing the manure to accumulate in the barn area encourages pests like flies that use the manure as home and disease such as thrush in the hooves or internal parasites picked up from eating grass contaminated with the eggs or larvae of the parasite. Thus the need to make organic fertilizer from the readily available and plentiful supply of horse apples.

If fresh manure is applied directly around most plant types as fertilizer apply the fresh manure at 45 pounds per 1000 square feet in fall or winter. The composted manure can be applied at any time one to two inches deep and tilled into the soil. It requires 8 times as much horse manure to equal a 5 -10-10 fertilizer for nitrogen. But it is an excellent source of the secondary elements sulfur, calcium, and magnesium and micro elements zinc, boron, iron and copper. I feel manure is better than commercial fertilizer because it holds nutrients in the soil. It conditions soil to become like it has thousands of tiny sponges which retain moisture. It can loosen and aerate clay or compacted soil. The microbes it contains create a crumbliness to the soil.

You can pick a place that gets enough sun for warmth but is not in direct eyesight of neighbors and dump stall waste continuously. This becomes the infamous compost pile. You might be surprised how popular you become with local gardeners who ask for the natural very nutrient rich humus created.

You can use it as green material in garden composting bins. Horse manure returns nitrogen, phosphates, potash, sulfur, magnesium, calcium, copper, iron, boron, and zinc to the soil. One ton yields 4 pounds nitrogen and 5 pounds phosphorus and 72 pounds potassium.Therefore it is a good soil conditioner but has one drawback. If not composted to temperatures of at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit, called hot composting, weed seeds are planted rather than killed. Hot composting also destroys parasites mentioned previously, such as roundworm and tapeworm as well as killing fly larvae. You can make batch compost in a tumbler compost bin, sometimes called a drum or composter barrel. I will be experimenting with this method during cold weather. Manure is very green and nitrogen rich. To provide the balance needed for optimum decomposition, whether pile or garden composting bin, add browns such as sawdust, straw, wood chips, dried leaves that are carbon rich. This is already accomplished if you have bedding in the stalls.

If the equine eats it will poop. However this will not become a mountain or an expense to dispose of if you practice any of the ideas presented. I use a compost pile to dispose of the manure from my barn stalls. And as I am fond of saying enrich the earth, enjoy composting today.