Stupid Manure Question

[Tango]

Just how much manure does a Jersey cow put out? Is it comparable to a horse (for those of you with horses). In terms of a 1.25 acre pasture (we'll have four of those to rotate her and my horse - if I get her) how quickly will she fill it up and how long for it to decompose on its own? I dont need the manure to garden with. Thanks.

[Christina R.]

I don't really know the answer to your question, I have a holstein. However, I do know you could always put an ad in the paper that says, free manure, you haul. That may help you not quite fear the amount of manure.

[Tango]

Hi Christina, I'm surrounded by dairy and cattle ranches. I'm sure the potential manure market is saturated but when I get neighbors I will offer

[Jena]

"A well fed dairy cow creates 120 pounds of manure a day"

I once figured up the accumulation of manure around here, but I can't remember what it was. ALOT.

I hate this time of year. Warm enough for everything to mostly melt, but not warm enough to pick it up and spread it. Mucky, nasty mess around the barns until clean-up day.

Jena

[dosthouhavemilk]

120 pounds times 21 well fed dairy cattle....2,520 pounds of manure a day....lol
One more reason we like fewer cows milking in the winter time. The ditch cleaner is broken so dad shovels that all by hand to the manure spreader, which appears to have finally given up on us.
That does even take into account the 20 odd goats in the barn right now, with their berries and straw bedding adding up. Spring cleaning should arrive soon.

[OD]

It will decompose pretty fast if you have several chickens or guineas to scrarch around in it.

[willow_girl]

120 lbs for a Holstein maybe ... a Jersey should be considerably less.

I'd think you will have more than enough pasture at 5 acres, especially if you can rotate.

You can always do what I do, which is to clean up after the cows with a pitchfork and wheelbarrow!

And gardening friends BEG me for manure.

[dosthouhavemilk]

With the majority of our current milking cows being these *huge* crosses I wouldn't put it past them to be producing closer to a Holstein load. lol

[Paula]

I don't know where you live in Fla, but when we lived in South Fla we had dung beetles. Gigantic ones. They kept things cleaned up nicely. You had to watch out though, they weren't very good at flying. They'd fly right into you and could give you a good thunk. If you have them they should increase to handle the increased amt of manure. In any case, I wouldn't remove the manure from the pastures, it's better than any chemical fertilizer. You could drag them when you rotate out.
Here (TN) we have some dung beetles, but the free range chickens and guineas really do most of the clean up by spreading the piles.

[JeffNY]

This is a $h1tty topic! .

Jerseys Holsteins
Urine excretion, lb/d 37.28 49.87
Feces excretion, lb/d wet 73.39 113.8
Fecel excretion, lb/d dry 12.35 17.88
Total excreta (feces + urine), lb/d 110.7 163.7
Urinary N, lb/d 0.356 0.4688
Fecal N, lb/d 0.3587 0.534
Total N, lb/d 0.7147 1.003

Converted it all to a lb.

I found that here.

http://www.usjersey.com/Programs/env...talanswer.html

Appropriate place, just happened to come up on google's little engine. But that is interesting info!


Jeff

[Tango]

Thanks for everyone's input on the Jersey output and for those conversions Jeff - might pass on a Jersey heifer. We have had dung beetles Paula - not sure if my free range turkeys ate them (or the guineas) or the hurricanes decimated their numbers but I haven't seen them in a while.

[Mark T]

I intensively graze holstein steers (and an Ayrshire heifer and four sheep and a goat) on 21 quarter acre paddocks, moving the lads each afternoon.

I'm told that moving them in the afternoon will avoid the slim possibility of bloat on my legume-rich pasture - they won't gorge as much all at once.

At any rate, here is how I handle my manure:

After moving the boys to a new paddock and moving the waterers, I walk the field they have just grazed. As I walk back and forth over the quarter acre, I kick all manure patties, spreading them all over the pasture. I also carry a shovel at the same time and chop out any undesirable weeds, which are particularly obvious since they haven't been grazed. By the time the cattle return to the paddock in three weeks, the manure has essentially broken down. Fertility is spread around the pasture, there are no big-patty grass kills, and my total time for all work is under an hour.

This also has the benefit of dramatically reducing the fly load - they have no place for their larva to hatch (though I still do get flies from the neighboring farm - but my numbers are much lower). Supposedly this is also a good way to reduce internal parasites; they cannot stand exposure to sunlight.

One drawback of the sh_tkicking method is that it may reduce the number of dung beetles my farm can support. I do still have some - I occasionally see them with the smaller kicked particles, but I might have more if I didn't kick the cowpies. But, all in all, I think the benefits outweigh this drawback.

My method would not work on a larger operation - the labor requirement would become too high. But in your situation, I think it could be easily manageable.

[Tango]

Hy Mark , interesting to read about your sh_t kicking method I can't rotate her that much right now but that's a quick decomposition time. the manure from my horse lasts and lasts If I get the young Jersey and two little Holstein bull calves- it should make for some intensive dung beetle labor. I wonder if my guineas ate the dung beetles? Anyone try to add DE to the feed to reduce fly load?

[moopups]

To cure the manure build up just drag the field with a piece of chain link fence pulled from a ATV or lawn tractor. The piece should be about 6 feet long and the mounting be up off the ground so the patties will be pulled under when you ride across the field. The tumbleing action disenergrates the patties and spreads them evenly.