For those muck heap composters out there

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Moobucket

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How many horses do you have, and how many acres to you spread the muck over?

I'm looking for a solution to my collosal muck heap, and I'm interested in composting it and using it as a natural fertiliser. I don't want to over fertilise though, especially as my grazing is already quite rich (x cattle) and the horses balloon up on it.
 
I'm interested to see replies, but not much to contribute as no horses and no land.
I'd assume that composting isn't a problem (shavings take a long time to decompose, though - what bedding, if any, do you use?) and if you can't use it on your land, someone else might be interested.
When we had some spare topsoil, we put it on freecycle and had quite a few people in taking it away.
 
We have two horses and use rubber mats and a sprinkling of shavings. this keeps the muck heap to a minimum. I build it up square, treading it down and flattening the top each weekend. It is left for a year before we use it on the garden. One year I planted courgettes and pumpkins on the muck heap instead of taking the muck to the veggy plot.:rolleyes:
I have used garottta which speeds up the compost.
Do you have a lot of muck?
 
Do you have allotments nearby? They would be glad to have it for free. We have charged £25 for delivering a full trailer load of well rotted stuff before now to allotment holders, so if they could come and take for free they would be delighted I'm sure
 
So I have a small livery yard of between 7 and 8 horses so we generate a pretty enormous quantity of muck. I've looked into taking it away but we have some areas we could sacrifice for composting. I just wouldn't then want to over fertilize the 16 acres of grazing, considering the input would be nitrogen not just from the horse waste but also external straw, hay and feed?

Its a technical one but I'd be super interested in peoples thoughts.
 
I only have 3 horses at the minute, from 6 in the autumn, and normally I would have had the muck spread on the hay crop part (the centre, I use a track system) in autumn after the crop had been taken so that it would have all winter to get taken in by the worms, rain etc. But this year the land was just too wet, so it is still growing. Because last winter was so dry (oh, happy memories) it didn't rot all that well, depite a good population of dendro worms trying to munch their way through it.
I won't have wood based bedding because soft wood is acid, and my land already needs liming now and again. And now that I am back to using straw, the volume is pretty daunting. But it does rot down in the end, you just need to work out a system of areas in use and areas gently composting.
It does make the grass better, but not as much as nitrogen based chemicals and it is a slower process. I guess you might need some good doer areas where none is spread and some poor doer areas which you can feed as much as you like. I don't know how long you would leave it - as I say, mine is for the hay crop, which can be as good quality as possible.
 
Thanks JillA! Do you have a concrete area to store it or do you put it in a field corner? I'm just worried about leaching etc? What sort of area do you have for each heap, and in total?

Sorry for the quick fire questions.
 
No, no concrete, my yard is largely soil/grass over hardcore apart from the parking areas which have had planings added. The heap is in an area between the stables and the field - close enough to wheel barrows to on a daily basis and accessible from the field for the tractor with the bucket and spreader (local contractor does it for me). That was the part I worried about this year - to-ing and fro-ing with a tractor loading the spreader would have made a huge mess of part of the field that is a section of the track. It used to be part of the field - old grass ley so there is some run off, but not a lot really - there would be more off a solid surface I reckon.
I acquired several heras panels and have two bays made of them, so that gives you an idea of the size. Both bays are pretty much full to a depth of about 4ft - more than that and the panels wouldn't support it. It stays in the bays until it goes in the spreader - some farms take thiers and make a heap in the field they are going to use it in, but that is largely arable and my grazing is too precious. Hope this helps - it works for me, except this year I could have done with a bit more capacity, but then I could have added another bay if necessary.
 
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