Extreme Composting

Taylor, you've definitely got the material to rot deer carcasses, and any other kind, while yer at it. A 100 pound carcass will disappear, save clean bones, in a month..... in a good, hot pile. I lay my carcasses on three or four feet of a high carbon mix, and cover with about the same. No problem for even a smaller skidsteer.
Have you got your bone grinder picked out ?

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Forerunner I spent a good part of yesterday with the D5 at work mixing dry and damp saw dust powder together. Its goes through a heat and mellowes out the dust and makes a good winter road bed and cover. There was many hot spots in it. Im estimating 1200 to 2000 yards are piled at work. I ll catch a truck running this way a once a week and sent 20 yards per trip. Ive seen the pic of your mill is it a feed mixer mill? There naot many here just a few light Arts way units. I have a friend at a bigger town that works the municipal sewage plant. THey have one of those indusrtial turd choppers that will grind blocks and bricks and lumber that gets in the sewer. Its in the junk pile Im bidding on it now lots of good junk in the pile with it. I get lots of deer bones drug in by the dogs to lol.


I m being tortured now the Tigercat dealer a half mile away has a pair of new Morbark grinders one a tub and the other a horizontal. Both big red beauties on stainless wheels on super single tires.

I was reading about comfrey's role as a fertilizer when I found a quote attributed to Bette Midler. Thought it was appropriate in this thread:

"My whole life has been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that let's you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap."

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THE BEGINNING IS NEAR
5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

I picked about a half a bushel of assorted hot peppers the other day and processed them.


As I was putting the Habernero/Hungarian Wax/Jalapeno scraps in the pile,I could almost hear them lil bacteria sweating

I'm pretty sure there's a strain of southwestern bacteria that will be weeping tears of joy.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

This summer I have focused my efforts on the construction of our timber frame straw bale house. It's been a lot of work with a lot more to do. However, in spite of spending most of my time in house construction, I've still been able to bring in some composting materials.

Since the beginning of July, I've taken all of the dead cows from the local sale barn. The guy who runs the place has been very good about providing materials to go along with the cows, although there's not been a lot cleaned out this summer. He saves what he cleans out of the pens in the barn and aisle-ways for me which has a lot of sawdust. That material along with some wood chips that the tree trimming crew gave me and some weeds I mowed down have provided most of the carbon material I've needed for composting the cows.

The average number of dead bovines I pick up is one per week. This week, they had three dead cows, the most I've received at one time. The weather has been quite warm (90s). So, after sitting at the sale barn (in the shade) for just over a day, they were a little bloated. Since I had three cows at one time to bury in a compost pile, I hauled three loads of 'dirty' saw dust from the saw mill yesterday, also.

Here are the cows and material laying where I dumped them before I pushed things into a neat pile:



Another view which shows some of the sawdust I hauled and the end of the ridge of compost to which the three were added:



Generally, I'm not able to lift the cows with the loader unless I get them just right so they fit into the bucket. But, I am able to push them up on the pile fairly well. For building the new section of the pile, I put a base of dried weeds (lots of stems) and wood chips at least two feet thick. I then piled the cows on top of that and covered them with sawdust and wood chips. Some of the saw dust came from the sale barn and had some manure in it.

Here's a photo after the job was done, including piling up the extra carbon material (the pile on the right):



And from another angle:



When composting large animals, I let me nose guide me: if I can smell them, they're not covered well enough. I have to go back and check on the pile after a few days because as the carcass begins to break down, things will settle quite a bit. I've had coyotes dig into the piles a few times, but that problem is easily taken care of by making sure things are covered properly. Once they discover the 'richness' that is buried within, they come back in hopeful anticipation, but if the carcass is buried properly, they can't get to it.

So far, I have 14 cows buried in the pile with the prospect of more every week. I have to figure out what to do when wet weather gets here, cause I won't be able to get to where the pile is when it's muddy. I'm figuring options.

mudburn

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The greatest waste in life is life itself.
H. L. Roush, Sr. (Henry and the Great Society)

I find that a little bloating in the dead livestock is good, and, if the thing is already somewhat maggot-ridden, decomposition happens fast and thorough.
Using slightly manury sawdust to bury carcasses in also expedites the process for the higher bacterial content of the carbon.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

this thread is fascinating, but I really shouldn't have been eating when I read mud's last entry...

hmm, the "composting diet"?

I like to use sawdust that has some manure/urine in it, too. It just feels right, like it will facilitate the composting better than raw sawdust. I really want some of the OLD sawdust from the mill. What they gave me yesterday wasn't that old, although on the third load he dug down to some much darker and wetter stuff, with which I was quite happy. I'll be making regular trips down there for carbon material since they have their loader working again.

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The greatest waste in life is life itself.
H. L. Roush, Sr. (Henry and the Great Society)

I've been getting sawdust mixed with horse urine and manure and it is amazing. It heats up immediatley and seems to break down everything I toss in the piles pretty quick.

I've been coaching some of my sources in the art of mixing and piling the material, themselves, thus saving space and expediting the composting process during those brief periods when I can't get there.
It's amazing how much less bulk and more weight I can get on a trailer after the stuff sits just a few weeks. Then, when dry weather returns, I resume hauling.

It still boggles my mind that folks take all this in and are still delighted to have me come and haul that gold away.....

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

After a lot of thought and searching we finally bought a skid steer. It is getting to the point where it was just a bit too much for the old tractor. With the heavier hydraulics the skid steer will take a lot of the heavy workload off of the Case. The tractor will still do the light duty stuff but the skid steer will be the work horse of the compost. As one gets older one begins to appreciate hydraulics more and more.

Lloyd

I went deep sea fishing this past weekend, and we had around 100 lbs of fish parts that would have made phenominal compost but no way to get them home. If someone lived near the docks they could probably get an unlimited supply of fish scraps. My fishing buddy is also a die hard composter and we were both resenting the fact we had to throw the scraps in the dumpster...

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http://www.lindsayfarmonsilvercreek.blogspot.com/

Well, at least you had the decency to feel bad about it.....

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

How much carbon material....say grass clippings or sawdust would need to be added to say a 30 gallon drum of raw fish parts to decompose properly.

I need to read this whole post again. Im still alittle confused about the amount of earth to add to food and animal scraps.

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“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Anyone have any new pictures/updates? I am forced to live vicariously (spelling?) through you all until I get home/closer to Missouri.

A thirty gallon drum of fish offal would be enough nitrogen to inoculate up to ten times that much sawdust..... say, up to a pickup bed full.
I wouldn't add much earth to food and animal scraps....just carbon.
A small addition of earth does help to up the bacteria content of more benign compost ingredients.
Fish offal is not benign.

Silverback..... I'll be sure to take a few pics when I spread the two mountains up in the top field with the bulldozer..... as well as of some of these anaconda/watermelon-sized sweet potatoes we're finding in this awful, residual herbicide-ridden waste land we call black dirt around here.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Sweet! Thanks.

SB

Hey guys I have acess to all the free (all be it kilndried) saw dust/wood shavings. it has small chuncks of wood in it. Wood chunks would be good for fire starting QUESTION is best and fastest way to seperate. I can have them load it with their bobcat but to sit and pick out the wood would be too time consuming. I was thinking a screening method BUT would hardwear cloth be strong enough? Need Ideas and would this be productive. this would be more for a compost toilet, working up to the compost pile. Thanks

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I'm so done here.