2. Canva - Manure Management

There are many benefits to living on a rural acreage or small farm.  The opportunity to raise livestock as a food source is one of those advantages.  Many times, we see these landowners have a small chicken flock, a few goats or maybe even a few beef or swine.
One of the challenges to this practice is what to do with the accumulated manure produced by the animals.  If the animals are raised in a pasture-based or grazing system, then natural distribution of the manure nutrient takes place.  Otherwise, manure accumulated in coops or pens needs to be removed and appropriately handled at some point in time.

The two biggest challenges in manure management on small farms are these:

  1. Ease of handling of manure and access to storage
  2. Appropriate use, application, or disposal of the manure. The easier it is to handle the manure and clean the pens and coops, the more frequently it will get done and prevent accumulation of manure from getting out of hand.  It is important when deciding to have animals on your acreage or small farm that you have access to equipment that fits your size of operation and also to have a way to deal with accumulated manure.

Based on the number of animals you have, access to a pitchfork and wheelbarrow may suffice, if you have a larger number of animals, it may be wise to consider a small garden tractor with a loader/bucket for mechanical cleaning of pens and stalls. Areas that accumulate manure and bedding should be cleaned frequently to provide animal comfort, and to prevent too much manure from accumulating as that make it a more difficult job to remove the manure.
Once manure is removed from the animal production area you have two choices, you can store the manure, or you can land-apply the manure. The capacity to store manure safely and effectively in Iowa is a necessity as our weather conditions are unsuitable at certain time of the year to appropriately land-apply the manure. Our goals should be to return the manure nutrient source to cropland, thereby completing the nutrient cycle of crops feeding our animals and animals fertilizing our crops. So, when the need to store manure exists, please keep these principles in mind, store manure until application is suitable for crop production; use storage to better match your time resources and labor supply; store manure in a manner to protect nearby water sources; manage storage to prevent flies, odors and vermin; locate storage near manure sources; and size storage for easy access with manure handling equipment.

If it is not possible to use the manure in your home garden or elsewhere on your acreage you can consider these options:

  • Work with neighboring crop farmer to distribute on local fields,
  • Work with neighbors for use on their gardens, or
  • Inquire with us for waste transfer stations or trash service as to the availability of waste disposal.