Muck removal cost?

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Sandstone1

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Due to the increase in fertiliser costs I am wondering if our muck heaps could not become valuable? I normally pay to get my muck removed and I know it gets spread on farmers fields. Maybe the tables should turn and they pay us for our muck?
I get the farmer has costs to remove but even so maybe they could at least take away for free!
 
Farmers can only muck spread at specific times of the year so you'd need to store your own muck rather than expect regular removals. It needs to be well rotted down in order to spread, it needs to have roughly the right proportion on muck:bedding and the right kind of bedding (some rot down too slowly) Muck is nowhere near as good as fertilizer to add in what the soil actually needs.
It's usually quite an inconvenience for farmers to take horse people's muck away, hence the small charge
And regulations are tightening all the time https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/environm...try-reacts-to-new-autumn-muck-spreading-rules
 
Sandstone1 said:
Due to the increase in fertiliser costs I am wondering if our muck heaps could not become valuable? I normally pay to get my muck removed and I know it gets spread on farmers fields. Maybe the tables should turn and they pay us for our muck?
I get the farmer has costs to remove but even so maybe they could at least take away for free!
Click to expand...
We are farmers and we run a livery yard, but I can assure you horse muck is the very last thing we would be spreading as fertiliser. As previous poster says, the length of time it would need to be left on the muck heap to enable it to rot down enough to be of any use, kind of defeats the object. If I were you, I would be expecting an increase in the cost of removal and that’s if you’re lucky enough to find a farmer who’ll do it. Now if you happen to have any chicken muck lying around, that’s a different matter?
 
If you have the facilities and space, mainly space I guess.
My OH’s boss has a sideline in wood free compost. So he collects everyone locals straw only heaps. In my case for free and I get the straw to use free aswell!
He then rots it for ages and is doing a storming trade in weekend compost deliveries!
 
I had a few people who took the muck regularly. I bagged it straight from the stable. They kept it until it was rotted.
I don’t have any now Finan is at livery.
A 2 horse owner in the village does not have enough keep up with demand. She bags the muck when rotted. The comments on her Facebook post asking to collect run to hundreds.
 
Quite the reverse here. With the new regulations, it has almost doubled in cost to remove my muck. He will have to register it, store it and account for where it goes.
 
There seems to be a communal muck heap in our village. Several horse owners bring their trailers to empty onto it. Every so often the farmer will send someone to heap it up a bit. Anyone can go with sacks or trailers and collect for their gardens.

How this gets round regulations I do not have a clue but it has been operating for nearly 40 years that I know about.
 
I was quoted over £600 to remove my muck heap a couple of years ago ?. I declined that offer and left it to rot down to next to nothing instead ?
 
I spread well composted poo on the fields, it seems to work brilliantly as both a fertiliser and a soil conditioner, the natural soil here is quite light and poor, and it has certainly improved not only the grass growth but the soil structure, there are far fewer bare patches after the winter. The horses have regular FEC's, the fields are well rested after the poo goes on. There is a very useful Facebook group Land management for horse with Dr Lisa Schofield, and the Equicentral system is also brilliant.
 
I ‘think’ that the last regulations I read which was a while ago, 5 years?, said that it was impossible to regulate the historic collection of horse muck by gardeners so it would be more or less ignored.
All the muck we have had for nearly 40 years has been taken this way ready bagged straight from the stables.
 
Regulations have tightened but afaik you are allowed to spread it on growing crops. Some farmers are now growing a winter crop specifically to get rid of some muck, or so I'm told.

I only use chopped rape & straw pellets as it rots very quickly (have limited space for muck).
 
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