Manure heap

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hfaint

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Hi, this is my first time so bear with me. I have recently bought a 4.5 acre field and will find out in 4 days time if I have managed to get planning permission for my stables. I am not very experienced with horse management but get by. I am taking in 2 people so we can help each other. I am not what you call experienced at riding either but enjoy and am determined to own my own horse. There will be lots of questions I will be asking in the next few months so here is the first one. What do all you horsey people that own fields do with their muck, I may have it taken away but can you burn it and if so how.
 
Burning it is nasty and smelly. I'm fairly sure you're not allowed, the stud farm near me burns theirs next to a bridleway and it seems to be constantly smouldering. I wouldn't do it myself, you'd be far better to contact a local allottment society or the like and tell them they can have it
 
I have two horses, which are bedded on Equisorb (flax) which makes very good manure. Most of the droppings and some of the wet bedding are put on the muck heaps - we made 3 bins out of corrugated iron and rotate them. If you keep them tidy and pack them down well (usually by jumping on them on a cold morning!) they hold loads. After about 4-5 months it's ready to use on the garden, and people in the village come with their barrows or sacks and collect it - usually giving a donation to charity as well! Any surplus is put on an old trailer which a local farmer comes and empties as required charging £15. We used to burn it years ago, but that was when we lived in the middle of nowhere and were not going to offend anyone, it stinks!
 
A local farmer takes mine away and it gets spread on his fields and ploughed in. As for burning - you may find that the environmental health dept take a dim view, depending on how close you are to any neighbours.

When I applied for the planning for my stables, the planners wanted to know where my muck heap was going to be to ensure it didn't interfere with local water courses. I suppose every authority is different and will have different requirements.
 
I'm doing the same as you at the moment, but I'm still going through the land purchase. I have arranged to put mine straight onto a trailer & when that is full a local farmer has agreed I can put it on his muck heap.
 
if the planners know you want to use the stables for livery they will look on it in a whole different light.
they will prob say it cannot be used for this purpose and you would have to submit for buisness use.this leads on to rates,health and safety ,insurance.
any seepage from heaps must not get into watercourses or that is an environmenel(sp)issue.


dont want to put the mockers on it but the more you go into it the more complecated it gets.
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Hev - HI and Welcome to the forum!
Good luck with your new venture - fingers crossed for your planning permission for your stables!
We use flax straw as bedding as we have a farmer who will take away the manure for free if we use that as opposed to shavings.
I would have a word with any local farmers if you can then invest in a large tipping trailer that you can chuck the muck on ready for the farmer to hitch up to his tractor!
 
Hi Hev and welcome.
I'm sorry but CAHILL is right. It would be pretty risky to hide this from them and hope they never find out.
Hopefully you have revealed this and you get your Planning Permission.
Good Luck
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If Hev is not charging for the livery and is just allowing the horses to graze in exchange for the help and information then it is not deemed 'livery' as shuch and therefore excluded from business rates etc. So she wont have to notify council. Muck heaps must now have a solid/ specially prepared base. If i were you I would only have hemp/chopped straw base etc for your bedding as it is quick to degrade and the muck heap will be very small and therefore manageable. If it were me I would designate a corner of the field, put down a decent base and fence it off and use that to keep the maure on. If there are only three horses who are being stabled only 5 months of the year it should be perfectly manageable and can be removed once a year by a local farmer.
 
I use pelleted wood or hemp products only for my stables = and the muck heaps are spread on my fields every 6 months. it costs me about £50 every six months to have my fields spread with our own well rotted manure. We use our tractor and front loader to keep the muck heaps tight and well turned so we really have fantastic black manure.

I also advertised the muck heap on the Freecycle web site - and had one full heap taken away for an allotment. cost me nothing and the allotment owner was delighted. So well worth advertising on there and building up a network of eager users
 
we give ours away! put it in bags andlaeve it by the road and ask people to bring the sacks back! the are very good about it! it always goes and some nice people even bring us bags of home grown carrots and potatoes etc! we used to try burning but that didnt work and the tryed selling it but it was a huge ammount of effort to deliver it for not very much money!
smile.gif
 
Hi,

My husbands family own a farm and when I asked them if I could put / move my 2 horses onto their field there first reaction was "NO".

The reason being is planning permission. These days you need planning permission for everything, even stables, fencing etc.

We spoke to a lot of people and the only way around it was to put up a mobile stable. The stable is on skids so it can be easily moved and no planning permission was needed. The farm several years ago had horses so it was hard to understand.

It was going to cost extra heaps of money to change it back to business rates, even though its a working farm. Its crazy.

The best way to get rid off your muck is to contact your local farmer, perhaps he will take it away for nothing to spread on his crops.
 
I have five acres, 3 horses. We have made a muck heap in a far away corner which just rots down, occasionally the farmer will come and burn it off, which he can get away with as we are rural, but generally it is just left.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hi,

My husbands family own a farm and when I asked them if I could put / move my 2 horses onto their field there first reaction was "NO".

The reason being is planning permission. These days you need planning permission for everything, even stables, fencing etc.

We spoke to a lot of people and the only way around it was to put up a mobile stable. The stable is on skids so it can be easily moved and no planning permission was needed. The farm several years ago had horses so it was hard to understand.

It was going to cost extra heaps of money to change it back to business rates, even though its a working farm. Its crazy.

The best way to get rid off your muck is to contact your local farmer, perhaps he will take it away for nothing to spread on his crops.

[/ QUOTE ]


you do not need planning for grazing,only if you buy in food.
 
[ QUOTE ]
What do all you horsey people that own fields do with their muck, I may have it taken away but can you burn it and if so how.

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I'd assume it will be only 3-4 horses? Options:

1. Fence off a small area of a field and spread it on that - close the field for 3-6 months - depending on the weather (hot/dry is good for killing off worm larvae.) Don't listen to anyone who tells you horse manure will create weeds - weeds come because of weed seeds in the hay/haylage - if your forage is reasonably weed free, not a problem.

2. Do a deal with a local farmer to remove it at regular intervals.

3. Get in a mini digger to dig a pit - heap the soil to one side. Dump your muck in the pit and when it's full, put the soil back on top and grow veg.

4. Stack it for 6 months and use it on your garden! Or offer to allotment holders on a 'free manure - come and collect' basis.

I have two manure collection areas - concrete block walled - and a tractor with front loader so can stack ours very high to rot down before spreading. I have about 28 horses stabled through the winter so it's a lot of muck! But if I had just a few, I'd go for the pit method!
 
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