I am super excited! Grinning from ear to ear…
Look what my neighbor brought me yesterday!
THREE DUMP TRUCK loads of aged cattle manure/hay. Awesome compost. It truly was an answer to prayer. I am so happy and grateful! We don’t confine feed any cattle, so we don’t have any large amount of compost on our place. While I know a lot of folks who do have nice piles, it takes a lot of time to go there, shovel it up, or get small loads and bring home. Then shovel it all off the trailer or pickup bed. That’s a lot of shoveling. My friend delivered it and dumped where I wanted it - perfect.
He wanted to get rid of it, and I needed it, so it is a win-win.
It will go on the garden, bramble rows, fruit trees, and be very helpful in creating my new nursery bed.
happy Kansas girl!!
awesome! black gold! i used to have a hard time getting compost but now with 35 chic, ducks and geese as well as my compost worms i have more than enough. chic. manure is pretty hot so it composts in 1 summer. by next spring its ready to use.
I know, isn’t it awesome!! I am almost too happy for words!
That’s great you make your own compost on site Moose! I don’t have chickens here. Used to, before we moved here. High predator numbers here, so I haven’t been real fired up to build the necessary structures to keep them safe. But… I love fresh eggs and the compost would be great!
Now, if I only had a little Bobcat to help me move all of this stuff…
About 2 years he said. You know how it goes… you start a pile and keep adding to it. So the age varies from the top down. He didn’t bring me anything fresh. I told him the older, the better. If it no longer smells like … “manure”, then it is usually far enough along to be safe for my purposes.
Thank you for the answer. Yes, my compost pile is growing all the time too
We do have cow manure, but never composted it this far. Could be interesting…
Ps: I read your original post again and see that you have cattle too! Having animals must be much different in Kansas than in Switzerland…Haven’t you any stables ( since you say you don’t confine feed)?
Good luck composting! If you have a tractor with a bucket loader, it makes for quicker work pushing up piles. Even if you are doing it by hand, it is worth the effort. Manure and old hay rotting together over enough time make a great compost. You can add your garden and orchard waste too, but you probably know that already.
No, we do not have any stables. We live in the tallgrass prairie region. Big pastures, lots of space. Our main cattle are yearling steers that we put out on pasture about May 1. They graze the lush spring/summer growth and then are pulled of sometime in July, depending on our weather situation. We keep a few cows and horses year-round, but they too are pasture grazers.
We have a little excavator, that should work too. Now we are mainly composting garden/ orchard and kitchen waste like carrot peel or similar things. Could be worth it to keep a bit of our manure and mix it with the finer branches of the orchard…
Ok, so you buy the yearlings, let them graze and then you sell them?
So you can graze all year round? That would never work here but it’s great hearing how other farmers do it!
Edit: I just googled Tallgrass Prairie. How stunning!
4 yrs ago i picked up a 2005 mahindra 22hp diesel tractor with a snowblower in back and front dump w/ 700hrs on it for $6000! man does it make a difference moving stuff! before that i moved stuff by shoveling into a small trailer then shoveling it out somewhere else. takes me 5 min. to turn my compost pile thats about the size of your load there.
That’s pretty much how it works. Here in the Flint Hills, we burn the native prairie annually, usually in early spring. March-April. The regrowth is very nutritious and abundant. Without annual burning, (or every few years), the invasive woody species will encroach and can eventually dominate if burning is excluded. This is bad. Grass is good! Eastern red cedar, rough-leaf dogwood, sumac, honey locust, etc are all invaders that can move in. This is just a “general” description, by all means not inclusive of the entire region or everyone’s particular management practices.
Anyway, this good spring grass and forb growth is great for putting pounds on yearly steers (known as stockers). There are plenty of folks who keep cow herds, but by and large, the Flint Hills is known for its stocker cattle.
The cows can graze year round. We give them supplemental protein when needed, but we don’t bring them in to a small space to feed.
Sorry this got off-topic for “What’s happening today”. On the other-hand, we are gearing up for burning season, so I will try remember to post some pictures here when we do that. Here are a few pictures from April and May a few years ago, after green-up.
Nice! I bet you don’t regret that purchase at all!! The time savings is amazing. We sold our tractor with loader before we moved here a long time ago. Still haven’t replaced it… hopefully we will one day (soon)!
Thank you for the pictures and explanation. It looks just like an ignorant European like me would imagine the US. One last question (I know we’re off topic, last question I promise): Are these Simmental, Angus, Hereford - crosses?
before buying this one i was looking for similar used tractors. most were asking over $10000 for the same age and hours. they really hold their value. this one i got, a widow was selling it and moving out of the area so she just wanted to get rid of it quickly. i got lucky!
Eastern red cedar, rough-leaf dogwood, sumac, honey locust, etc are all invaders that can move in. This is just a “general” description, by all means not inclusive of the entire region or everyone’s particular management practices.
