There's a new smell in the air

[pickapeppa]

Blech. The smell. I think it's humanure. They started spreading this black, compost-like pile trucked into the field across the road. Then they loaded it in another truck that drove around the field sprewing it out all over in a thin layer.

It smells like the muck at the bottom of our old creek in which the neighbor's septic emptied in.

It doesn't smell like any kind of manure ever witnessed in my old growing up in the farm field days.

Actually, pig poo smells better than this stuff.

[barnyardfun]

You poor thing!! That has to be miserable! I live in the middle of my FIL's cow pasture that gets fertilized with chicken poo! There are a couple days when I really don't want to go outside!

[Jan Doling]

Try using the trick homicide investigators use: dab a little Vick's Vaporub above your upper lip.

[fordson major]

humanure usually does not smell bad. just returning to the land that which was taken and which is needed for new growth. better than landfilling it . many animal wastes smell bad in liquid or semi solid form ,ease and quickness of spread lesseness the window of oder too, once they cultivate it in you should not smell a thing. may be tankage from a slaughter house, worst stuff i have spread was corn steep and gluten meal. vicks works , flowery sprays just make u sick to your stomache!

[mama2littleman]

Back in my EMT days we used to keep a bottle of vicks in the ambulance and a cigar in our shirt pocket for those dead bodies we rolled up on.

The vicks works better then the cigar,.

Nikki

[Justaplain]

Are you from WILMINGTON Vt by any chance??

[dcross]

Could be just about anything that was broken down anaerobically.

[Michael W. Smith]

I have on our property 4 trailer truck loads of chicken manure. I'm just waiting for the farmer to come and spread it - there will be a smell in the air then!!!!

And if our farmer doesn't use the chicken manure, he hauls cow manure from the lagoon. That liquid stuff is potent!!!!!!

Hopefully you get some rain to get it into the ground. If not, the sun will sanitize it for you.

At least they are using actual organic stuff, and not the chemical stuff in a bag!

[khowellrn]

Theres a turkey farm over yonder that spreads something that smells so strong it gets in your car when you drive by and stays with it. You can smell it again when you get back in the car later! One morning about 0700 I drove by and there was the smell and about 25 turkey buzzards picking around the field. I think they grind up the dead turkeybirds and manure and liquify it and spread it. Quite an aroma!

[pickapeppa]

Originally Posted by Michael W. Smith

I have on our property 4 trailer truck loads of chicken manure. I'm just waiting for the farmer to come and spread it - there will be a smell in the air then!!!!

And if our farmer doesn't use the chicken manure, he hauls cow manure from the lagoon. That liquid stuff is potent!!!!!!

Hopefully you get some rain to get it into the ground. If not, the sun will sanitize it for you.

At least they are using actual organic stuff, and not the chemical stuff in a bag!

True. There's always a trade off. I'll take the smell over polluted ground water or runoff. It only lasts for a couple of potent days.

[pickapeppa]

Originally Posted by khowellrn

Theres a turkey farm over yonder that spreads something that smells so strong it gets in your car when you drive by and stays with it. You can smell it again when you get back in the car later! One morning about 0700 I drove by and there was the smell and about 25 turkey buzzards picking around the field. I think they grind up the dead turkeybirds and manure and liquify it and spread it. Quite an aroma!

We passed a turkey farm on our way down south to go mushrooming. What you're describing here brings back a memory of the aroma, with an imagined potency 10x what we experienced, in conjunction with an immediate tightening of the throat and churning of the stomach as if something were making it's way up the pipe.

Lol. We have a turkey farm a few miles down the road. And just to the west and south of them is a composting company with enormous hills of composting yard waste hauled in from around the area. Generally speaking, year round the prevailing wind is a from a south, west, or any combination of the two. Northeast of them, they are building an enormous (10 sq. miles) subdivision not even a half mile across the highway from these two facilities right in line with the prevailing winds.

Any bets on how long the turkey farm and composting facility last after the thousands of newly relocated home-owners spend a summer breathing in their bubbling boiling hot stinking aroma?

[dale]

at our city sewer plant after the solids have been areoated and the bacteria that break down the solids is done the water goes thru a sand filter then thru UV lights to kill any other bacteria.
The Solids are then pumped into a tank that the other bugs (bacteria) will eat and break down the solids some.

After we get alot of solids in the tank, It is put on what we call our honey truck. It is then taken to a field that is ok with a farmer.
It is then spread ..
And it is the stinkiest stuff you can ever imagine

[MoonShine]

I've seen humanure mentioned on here a few times and I wondered about the smell. I'm not bothered much by cow manure and the like...it's one of those things you don't like,but you just have to deal with. Humanure,it just sounds like it would be far worse. I don't really know,though,because I don't think anyone around here uses it.

[agmantoo]

I am into manure more ways than most. I have a cow herd and I am constantly attempting to keep the pies in the pasture distributed. A relative has a layer house and we spread that litter on the pastures. The neighbor has a LARGE dairy with a lagoon. Previously I was in the hog business commercially. I have timber land that gets municipal human waste at replanting. The dairy lagoon is the worst of the smells IMO! Hog smell runs a close 2nd.

[pcdreams]

well if the smell is downwind from washington you can bet on what it is.

[Jillis]

I don't really mind the smell of the bovine manure pits...much...but there is one farmer around here who's manure pit is beyond belief...I found out it is because he doesn't compost his dead animals according to the law---he puts the carcasses into the manure pit. It is a highly disgusting aroma and makes you want to barf.

[Dec429]

Growing up on the farm, if one of us kids said the manure stunk, Grandpa told us it was the smell of money!!

[fordson major]

Originally Posted by Jillis

I don't really mind the smell of the bovine manure pits...much...but there is one farmer around here who's manure pit is beyond belief...I found out it is because he doesn't compost his dead animals according to the law---he puts the carcasses into the manure pit. It is a highly disgusting aroma and makes you want to barf.

most farmer do not do this! placenta and mortalitys as well as plastic, can plug a manure pump up fast! when its a custom guy they do not stop the clock, at $600. an hour it can cost the farmer plenty! up too two hours too unplug a pump. and the yuck factor . second time the farmer unplugs the pump with the clock running ,third strike yer out!

whey pits and dumped milk in pits is also mega gross! good fertilizer and weight reduction for the pump crew though!

[Junkman]

Regardless of how safe your city filtration plant tells you "biosolids" or humanure is, here are a couple of things you should know. Our neighbor put it on his fields and the grass was thick and dark black/green. He got twice the hay as anyone else in the area. It was even hard for his tractor to mow through. His cows ate the hay, and he spread the manure from them on his garden and it FRIED his corn and dwarfed the other plants. Also, another friend had their neighbor put it on his farm and and their horses got Ecoli from the contaminated water in the stream run off from the neigbor's farm. The family broke out in skin lesions and had respitatory problems! The stench from both farms was unbelievable and even clung to your clothes. Of course the city made the deal sweeter by providing free lime and gravel to his farm. When asked if it was so great why not put it on parks and roadsides or bag it and sell it, they said they were not allowed??? Personally, it will never be put on our farm!

[pcdreams]

almost all problems arrising from humanure is lack of composting.. you should compost for at least 2 and preferabally 3 years.. If you do this (and provided the pile is hot enough) then you won't have stink or bacteria problems