Black Gold

Are you throwing it away or giving it away?

Black gold is the organic material manufactured by our horses several times a day which when composted is the essential ingredient to mix with soil.  It is magic that turns dirt into a healthy growing substance. It gives life to an overgrazed field and mixed into the vegetable garden produces wonderful veg.  It will never cease to amaze me that in a day of recycling and green living riding stables heap up mounds of muck and let it sit.

The run off from these mounds of soggy manure can contaminate into our ground water and also breeds flies.

Lets use this stuff to our advantage.  Manure and shaving put directly onto fields have not gone through the transformation of breaking down, killing pathogens or inviting the microbes that transform the shavings , straw and feces to usable compost.

It is a simple process.  A cement slab with 3 wooden side is a perfect container.  It is nice to have two of these containers so that one can rest and heat up while the other is being added to.  If possible turn the collection to allow the bottom to get oxygen.  But, if a tractor is not available, just put horizontal PVC pipes with whole drilled into them on the bottom of the heap.  This will bring in air. Cover this pile with a porous compost cover that allows rain and air to enter the muck heap and also prevents flies from laying eggs.

It is not impossible to achieve the same result by making small pile of manure around a farm about 3 feet high.  That size is easy to turn with a shovel and also can be covered with a CompostCover™ that has grommets for anchoring to the ground. Allowing these small piles to rest and heat will also give good results.  It is wonderful to use in amending soil around trees and flower gardens.

manure wagon with compost cover atttached

Five Steps to Composting

1. Select a location for your compost bins
2. Decide how many bins you need
3. Build your bins
4. Cover your compost pile
5. Get air into the pile

3 Ft. pile of horse manure that has been turned, heated and is ready to use in the garden or field

Leaving a collection of manure which is at least 3 feet high for 6-8 months, should allow the entire pile to heat to 140′ F. even without a bin constructed. This will kills worm eggs, fly larvae, pathogens and weeds.  The light pleasant smelling results will be bonus to any of your green,  growing farm.  It will reduce you manure pile by 50% and is a rich product.  And, we call it Black Gold.

Karleen

I would like to thank Alayne Renee Blickle from Horses for Clean Water for much of our information .