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Managing muck without complaints

Horse Manure Management

A muck heap is the single most common reason a stable gets a neighbour complaint. Managing it properly is straightforward once the storage, the drainage and the turning are designed together.

Storage designed around the collection schedule, not the yard's spare corner
Covered or contained composting to eliminate leachate and odour
A market for the finished compost, from landscapers to retail bagged product

Get a Stable Waste Plan Turn It into Fertilizer

At a glance

Per horse: 15–25 kg/day including bedding
Annual volume: 5–9 t per horse
Bedding effect: Supplies the carbon needed for composting
Common problem: Leachate, odour, flies and weed seeds

The three failures of a badly managed muck heap

The first failure is position. A muck heap placed in a corner, on bare ground, next to a boundary or above a ditch guarantees leachate into groundwater and a complaint from the neighbour downwind. The correct position is on a concrete pad with a slope and a collection drain, as far from housing and watercourses as the site allows, and with access for the trailer or loader that removes it.

The second failure is management. A heap that is never turned goes anaerobic at the base within a week, produces a strong smell and attracts flies, and the material that finally comes out is not compost but a partially rotted mass that still contains viable weed seeds. Turning is what aerates the pile, kills the weed seeds and produces a genuinely useful product.

The third failure is that nothing is done with the material. A stable that composts properly has a saleable product: landscapers, nurseries, vineyards and gardeners all buy mature horse manure compost, and the volumes involved are small enough that bagging and retail sale are realistic. Managed well, muck stops being a cost line in the yard's accounts and becomes a small revenue line.

Bedding materials and their effect on composting

Bedding	Carbon to nitrogen ratio	Composting effect	Notes
Wheat or barley straw	60–80:1	Near ideal; composts readily	Chop it, or it forms air channels and mats unevenly
Wood shavings / sawdust	200–500:1	Very high carbon; slows decomposition	Blend with manure or a nitrogen source; shavings break down slowly
Hemp bedding	40–60:1	Excellent; absorbs well and composts	More expensive but produces consistently good compost
Paper or card bedding	150–300:1	Good absorption, moderate carbon	Ensure it is not glossy or plastic-coated
Peat or peat substitutes	High carbon	Slow to compost	Usually better kept out of a composting stream
Rubber or synthetic bedding	Not compostable	Contaminates the compost	Must be screened out before the product is sold

Practical muck heap management

Store on a concrete pad with a 1–2% slope and a collection drain leading to a covered lagoon. Leachate from a muck heap is a strong, high-nitrogen effluent.
Build the heap 1.5–1.8 m high. Horse manure and bedding is bulky and light; shallow heaps never reach temperature.
Turn on a schedule, not when someone remembers. Twice a week for the first three weeks, then weekly until mature.
Cover the heap or compost under a roof. Rain adds water to a material that is already often too wet, and it increases leachate volume.
Keep a clean apron around the pad and manage surface water so that runoff from the yard does not flow through the heap.
Screen the finished compost before selling. Stones, nails, wire and synthetic bedding fragments are common and are the fastest way to lose a customer.
If the yard is close to housing, plan for containment: a covered channel with a groove-type turner, or in-vessel fermentation, allows composting to continue without releasing odour.

Is there a machine to help compost horse manure and make organic fertilizer?

Yes, of course. Horse manure management can help you solve this problem. Obviously, nowadays it is the best way to effectively solve horse waste from your horse farm. Because this management way is not only good for our ecological environment, but also good for our economy which can make benefits for our businessmen. It means that it can help you make horse waste into organic fertilizer whether powder fertilizer or pellets fertilizer. According to different shape of fertilizer, we can help you solve this problem by our different horse manure managements. Meanwhile, we provide customized service for you. Please tell us your requirements, our sales manager can offer you best solutions.

How to make horse manure from horse farm to compost in horse manure management? 2 fermentation ways you can choose from our company.

As we known, when you use horse manure from horse farm as material of fertilizer, fermentation is a necessary process in fertilizer industry. At the same time,we can think that horse manure management is the process of making horse manure fermentation. Aiming to the system of horse manure management, our engineers offer you relative details and two suitable solutions below.

One: aerobic fermentation tank: new type to improve fermentation speed in a short time

Temperature is the key to succeed. When your manure fermented in the fermentation tank, the temperature sensor will monitor the tank in right time. And it regulates the temperature by starting on the industry electric blanket to make sure the best living temperature (60-70 degree) for beneficial bacteria. Finally, you can get best suitable horse manure compost with our horse manure management. What’s more, in the upper side of the fermentation tank, the heating device will also heating the oxygen. Then it pressures it into the tank to make sure our organic fertilizer fermentation get right temperature.

Oxygen can improve the speed of fermentation. Horse manure management makes use of aerobic fermentation technology to help you deal with horse manure completely. So oxygen plays an important role in the process of making compost. That means that our fertilizer equipment gets heated oxygen with the help of high pressure roots blower. It has enough oxygen for aerobic bacteria to work. It also monitors the oxygen sensor.

For making fertilizer from farm wastes, we can design plans for you!

Suitable humidity is good for you to making horse manure compost. Feeding raw materials moisture should be 50%-60%, it is applicable standard for you to begin the process. Then, after fermentation, the discharge product humidity will be about 30%.

Checking computerized control system before the beginning. You need to take it seriously for its fully automatic operation.

Two: using horse manure compost turner in horse manure management for your big horse farm

Horse manure compost turner plays an important role in horse manure management to solve horse manure problem. We can divide it into several types you can choose.

This kind machine uses special craft to compost horse manure, which has high efficiency and low cost. It is suitable for you to turn horse manure in big size groove with 30m width, 3m depth. In addition, you can do control it remotely.

The machine can make horse manure compost quickly for its fast move. We make high quality material on the turning teeth. It can turn manure completely. Moreover, the installation is very easy.

Crawler type compost turner belongs to the ground pile fermentation machine. It is the most economical type of saving soil and human resources at present. it can also save time and labor force to make the production efficiency. There is a front hydraulic push plat. Thus, you do not need to neaten the horse waste. So it is very convenient in composting horse manure.

How to prepare horse manure for compost before you begin to use our horse manure management system?

The feedback from our clients that what kind of preparation work they need to do is useful for them to make horse manure compost.aiming to the problem, there are two solutions to help you.

Adding some auxiliary materials to reduce moisture. This kind of auxiliary materials are from organic waste, for example crushed tree husk, corn, straw, saw dust, tree leaves etc., those can help you regulate water content in horse manure. By the way, we can go to the next step.

Using horse manure dewatering machine to dry horse manure. Obviously, it is available method to separate it into solid materials and liquid material. The requirements of water content from horse manure can be reached to 90%. It is widely used in fertilizer industry around the world. Then after dewatering, we can directly make horse manure compost.

How long for horse manure you will spend to compost in our company?

Actually speaking, there are two kinds of ways to make horse manure compost in our company. The first is that using manure compost turner costs about 20-25 days to make horse manure fermentation or make horse manure into organic fertilizer. However, compared with traditional method, it has big advantages for making horse manure compost. On the other way, you can use fermentation tank to solve this problem for shorter time. Obviously, the process from the beginning to the finished horse manure process it will cost about 10- 15 days. In addition, it can kill the germs completely. So as to shorten composting time, our engineers advice that you had better add some fermentation zymocyte or leavening agents to improve the fermentation speed. How do you think about it? Which way is better for you, please tell us quickly.

Where you can find economic horse manure composting systems?

Our factory is an expert fertilizer equipment supplier in China. We have been selling various of fertilizer machine at home and abroad. Therefore, our products have high reputations and quality.

We have established a high-quality fertilizer team composed of experts, professors, senior engineers and other technical personnel. At the same time, we maintains the long and extensive cooperation with many research institutes and universities. We also have professional sales team to offer your suitable solutions which make full use of main advantages of our products. This is difference from other companies.

Moreover, making you satisfied is our final goal. Horse manure management is the classic fertilizer equipment in our company. We also can offer other kinds until you are satisfied.

Machine gallery

Photographed in our Xingyang workshop and on customer sites. Watermark-free, no phone numbers.

Horse Manure Management — Shunxin Manure Management photo 1

Horse Manure Management — Shunxin Manure Management photo 2

Horse Manure Management — Shunxin Manure Management photo 3

Horse Manure Management — Shunxin Manure Management photo 4

Horse Manure Management — Shunxin Manure Management photo 5

Frequently asked questions

How do I stop my muck heap from smelling?

Turn it. Odour from a muck heap comes from anaerobic decomposition at the base, and the only reliable fix is to aerate the pile by turning it regularly, from the base upwards. If the pile is very wet, blend in dry shavings or finished compost to open it. If the yard is close to housing, covering the pile or moving to a contained fermentation channel removes the problem at source.

Can horse manure be spread directly on paddocks?

It can, but it is not good practice. Fresh horse manure carries weed seeds and parasite eggs, and spreading it on grazing land creates a reinfection risk. Composting above 55 °C destroys both, and it also stabilises the nutrients. Where manure must be spread, it should be composted first and applied within the nutrient limits for the land.

What is the best bedding material for composting?

Hemp bedding and chopped straw are the most composting-friendly because their carbon-to-nitrogen ratio is close to the ideal for the manure-and-bedding mixture. Wood shavings and sawdust have a very high carbon ratio and slow the process, so they should be blended with additional manure or a nitrogen source. Synthetic and rubber beddings must be kept out of the composting stream entirely, or screened out before the product is sold.

How much muck does a stable produce?

A horse produces 15–25 kg a day of manure and soiled bedding, or 5–9 tonnes a year. A 20-horse livery yard therefore produces 100–180 tonnes a year, which is enough to justify a small turner, a screener and a bagging scale for retail sale of the finished compost.

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