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Ok, I know some about composting, but I usually did the worm been for getting rid of stuff from me and my son (when he was living w/ me. But I'm now looking at doing enough compost for a few acres. So I want to know can I still compost if its almost (if not all) just manures and some bedding in the piles. I have access to tons of horse and chicken manure and sometimes some cow manure. I may put some crop residue in there also but probably that would mostly be just tilled back into the beds.

So my questions iare
1) Will almost 50-75% of the pile being manure compost ?
1a) If its 75-90% manure and mostly chicken should I add rotten hay I can get free to the pile?
2) How can you tell if you need green (Nitrogen) or brown (carbon) to the pile to get it to heat up?
3) And finally should I make piles smaller so more O2 get in em (along with pvc w/ holes to aerate em) or make 1 huge pile made from 5-10 tons of manure and flip it with front end loader periodicly?)

I have never done composting on this scale, but here's my understanding:

1) Will almost 50-75% of the pile being manure compost ? Well, yes, but probably slower, and creating a less balanced final product.

1a) If its 75-90% manure and mostly chicken should I add rotten hay I can get free to the pile? Yes, you always want a mix of "browns" and "greens." That has nothing to do with color actually. The manure is a "green," I.e. soft, wet, high Nitrogen. Hay is still pretty green and has lots of seeds in it. Straw is a better "brown," I.e. hard, dry, high Carbon.

Ideally a good mixed compost pile is not much more than 10% any one item. That doesn't mean it won't work otherwise. But you can cut down the % of your pile that is manure by adding other stuff. You need more "browns," so straw, shredded paper, fall leaves, cardboard, small amounts (relative to the size of your pile) of sawdust and wood ash, the browned out tops of last year's perennials, twigs, wood chips, etc. Save your paper towel cores, used paper towels, junk mail, etc. It can all go in the compost.

2) How can you tell if you need green (Nitrogen) or brown (carbon) to the pile to get it to heat up? If it is too "brown," it won't heat up. If it is too "green," it will tend to get slimy and smelly.

3) And finally should I make piles smaller so more O2 get in em (along with pvc w/ holes to aerate em) or make 1 huge pile made from 5-10 tons of manure and flip it with front end loader periodicly?) Smaller piles seem more manageable and more able to be aerated. A huge pile would have trouble getting oxygen into the interior.

Hopefully someone who has actually done large scale composting will come by and check me on all this...

I applaud your desire to treat your acres of soil with compost!!

Thanks Rainbowgardener, though I can't call it true organic because the horse n cow manures are not certified, I'm still trying to go as organic as possible (and getting this for FREE vs paying for chemical ferts sounds better to me too ). And you have gave me some Ideas of things to add to compost pile...... ty again....

I can add some leaf mold, from my wooded areas along with just leaves in the fall, some vermicompost (though atm its just me so it will be relatively small amount per year) and I can get some sawdust from my same neighbor who has the chicken houses, Along with rotten hay. And of course I'll be adding wood ash from the potbelly stove I use for heat in the winter here. Along with things like soft rock phosphate and/or feather meal or cotton seed meal or soy meal, depending on soil analysis each year to supplement things I need most (ATM I'm high to very high in all BUT Nitrogen). Also I'll keep all the NON-shiny (colored) paper stuff I can to add to pile too... But only problem is like I said. 10+ tons of manure vs 100's to even 1000 lbs of things I scrape up to add is not percentage wise much. Try hand raking tons of leaf mold by hand in the woods and dragging it out... (or finding the time to do that along with all the other farming chores).... LOL

If your manure is already mixed with bedding and straw then, it may be all you need. If the pile smells bad then you need to add more browns. Horse manure is not usually recommended because it would have a lot of weed seeds. You would have to make sure your compost heats up properly to kill the seeds. Horses are usually wormed and ATTRA

The pile can be as large as you like as long as it is at least 3x3x3 to heat up. The commercial composters make windrows instead. When piles get too high especially in a hot climate they can spontaneously combust.

Compost should have a C:N ratio of around 25-30: 1 to be ideal. Unfortunately, carbon are not created equal. It depends on the type and form you have. Getting the ratio right is important. It is not rocket science but you have to figure out how much of each nitrogen source and how much of the kind of browns that you have. It is like a recipe, if you want to bake a cake you have to get the ratios right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y69lLc ... e=youtu.be
https://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/ ... our-garden
https://www.homecompostingmadeeasy.com/c ... ratio.html

I might be wrong, but I think it’s best not to remove the leaf mold from the woods since they serve their own purpose... but if you have wooded area you take care of, then you probably need to thin and prune, and those can be ground up into chips to add to your -what I’m picturing to be- front loader size piles (or windrows as imafan commented).

You could also consider intentionally inoculating with mushrooms to speed the process of woody material breakdown.

While I think you probably could simply till in the manures and straws, etc. materials in the fallow fields and grow covercrops and/or green manure as one option, I like that you are thinking of managing the paper wastes yourself by composting.

Are you also looking into no-till covercrop with crimper/roller methods? I was fascinated and tried to think of ways for trying it in my tiny postage stamp size garden, but realized you need the weight of the heavy machinery to do a lot of that kind of work. I even tried to think of a way to manage it with lawn rollers, but I think you need at least ATV or tractor pulled level of powered application....

applestar wrote:I might be wrong, but I think it’s best not to remove the leaf mold from the woods since they serve their own purpose... but if you have wooded area you take care of, then you probably need to thin and prune, and those can be ground up into chips to add to your -what I’m picturing to be- front loader size piles (or windrows as imafan commented).

You could also consider intentionally inoculating with mushrooms to speed the process of woody material breakdown.

While I think you probably could simply till in the manures and straws, etc. materials in the fallow fields and grow covercrops and/or green manure as one option, I like that you are thinking of managing the paper wastes yourself by composting.

Are you also looking into no-till covercrop with crimper/roller methods? I was fascinated and tried to think of ways for trying it in my tiny postage stamp size garden, but realized you need the weight of the heavy machinery to do a lot of that kind of work. I even tried to think of a way to manage it with lawn rollers, but I think you need at least ATV or tractor pulled level of powered application....

1) on the leaf mold, I'm eventually going to clear most of the trees in that area as I plan on building a damn and having a pond in that area of my land so removing some of the top layers of soil there is ok as it has many feet of topsoil before you get to the hard pan red clay. I'll keep at least 1-2 feet of good soil there for aquaculture plants but parts I can use on rest I'll remove to use. Also once I rent or buy a sawmill and cut down 80-90% of them I'll also add the sawdust to compost piles or keep to add to the next years pile.

2) mushrooms, I have also thought about that and may use that same pile of sawdust to grow mushrooms as most of the trees are oak and make good bedding for the mushrooms I wanted to grow.

3) my cow manure I would just till in the soil, but the rotten hay, chicken manure and horse manure all have risks if I just tilled them in without composting and the pile going through a heat. Seed, salmonella, e-coli and other pathogens may infect crops if I don't compost and they don't get hot enough from composting, so I must make sure the pile does get hot enough to kill all these to be sure I can use em in crops intended to eat myself and to sell to others.

4) no-till, I wish I had the money to buy that type of equipment but just some of what I would need would cost more than all the equipment I own now. I'm doing all this on a shoe string budget atm and own things like an ole' farmall Super A I restored, used equipment like a 1950 2 bottom turning plow and a disc I got that was so worn out before I fixed it it was only worth the scrap metal price I payed to buy it. Also only doing 2 acres most of the "NEW" equipment is designed for large farms and large equipment. I'm planing on making raised beds and getting a Super AV (hi-crop) or the newer version of it (100,130,140-hi-crop's) and trying not to disturb the beds as much as possible. but I am looking into cover crops (legumes) and then light disking them into the beds and adding compost to them yearly along with vermicompost.