How to age Cow Manure?

[Duh_Vinci]

I've had access to a cow manure, but it is very fresh

In the past, I've tried adding it to the compost pile, but ended up with clumps more than anything (and braking them apart is less than pleasant).

So to avoid it, recently, I've been mixing that fresh cow manure with water, to a thick soup like consistency in the 5 gal buckets, and watering with it each repeating layer of new compost. Seems to work fine, heats up well, and breaks down well.

I was offered to get get my pickup loaded with this "goodness", but my question is - once I get it home, how do I go about "aging" it? I figured that the winter is coming, I have good 5 months to have it to age, just not sure how to go about doing so.

Any advise is greatly appreciated!

Regards,
D

[top_dollar_bread]

add some/ a lot of browns
wood chips, maybe some saw dust, fall leaves even shredded paper
I recently got a lot of quality cow poop, this stuff wasent as clumpy like some the old stuff I use to get.
I had a recently harvest, empty plot of soil to use and I layered the bottom with hay mixed with the small amount of poop clumps & some coffee grounds,
then I layered a thin sheet of news paper, moistened and put the rest of the manure on top
then I mixed with leaves, shredded news paper and some wood shavings
I used a method similar to sheet composting 4-5 inches high layer spreaded , either way within 2 weeks the leaves and news paper were becoming unrecognizable and there were plenty of worms helping out
after around a month I started to shoveled off what I needed, moved most to the side to continue to compost and used ther rest as a top mulch for the next crop planted in that spot
p.s.
I used lots of left over diluted ACT to speed every thing up

[rot]

..

Haven't dealt with cow manure but it seems to be about the highest nitrogen material you can get your hands on.

I could only suggest, as previously from someone working with the same stuff, to bulk it up with a lot of dry woody or high carbon materials. Probably rough stuff like wood chips or sticks since I imagine cow manure rather sludge like.

Mix well.

List with carbon/nitrogen values here:
https://compost.css.cornell.edu/OnFarmHandbook/apa.taba1.html

..

[Duh_Vinci]

Thank you very much for the advise, appreciated indeed! I have an abundance of leafs and other goodness from forest floor of this lovely alley at the bottom of our lot:

[img]https://drphotography.smugmug.com/Other/Kit-Lens-DA-18-55mm/kitlens6/405264268_YE4Rb-L.jpg[/img]

It is a beautiful place to walk through, but also, full of anything and everything. And in the spring, this forest alley get completely carpeted with wild early yellow daffodils, following by late white wild daffodils.

Going gather some this coming Sunday!

Regards,
D

[huskie]

sounds like your making a compost or manure tea? I do this and use a small air pump to put oxygen in the tea. Just a simple small aquarium pump from walmart will do.