Home›Manure Management›How to Compost Goat Manure

The easiest manure to compost — and a great starting point

How to Compost Goat Manure

Goat droppings are already a stackable solid, dry enough to compost without dewatering and quick to reach temperature. For a small producer, this is the most forgiving project you can start.

A goat produces only 1.5–3 kg of manure a day — ideal for small on-farm plants
Droppings are naturally pelleted, so the material is already uniform
Compost in 15–20 days with a small turner, then bag as powder or granulate

Plan a Small Goat Manure Plant Small Scale Production

At a glance

Manure per goat: 1.5–3 kg/day
Moisture: 40–55%
Composting time: 15–20 days plus maturation
Typical plant: 0.5–2 t/h powder or pellet line

Why goat manure is the easiest manure to work with

Goat and sheep droppings have three advantages over every other common farm manure. They come out as small, firm pellets, which means the material is already uniform and needs no crushing to make it handleable. They are relatively dry at 40–55% moisture, which is close to the ideal range for composting without any dewatering equipment. And they are usually collected with bedding and feed residues, which supply some of the carbon the manure needs.

The practical consequence is that a goat operation can start producing fertilizer with a much smaller investment than a dairy or poultry farm. There is no separator, no dryer, and often no need for a mixer: a shredder, a small turner, a screener and a bagging scale will produce a clean bagged organic fertilizer from goat manure compost. Where the herd is small, a forklift-mounted turner and a concrete pad are enough to start.

Goat manure fertilizer also has a good market position. It is naturally pellet-shaped, low in odour, and well regarded by gardeners and horticultural growers, particularly for container plants and nurseries. Bagged goat manure compost sells at retail prices that compare favourably with cattle manure compost, and the volumes involved suit small-scale direct selling.

Composting goat manure

1. Collect and check moisture

Collect droppings with the bedding. If the mixture is very dry — under 35% moisture — sprinkle water while building the pile. If it is above 60%, blend in dry bedding or finished compost.

2. Add a carbon source if needed

Goat droppings are usually close to the right carbon-to-nitrogen ratio on their own, especially when collected with straw bedding. If the pile heats poorly, add chopped straw at about 4:1.

3. Build the windrow

Piles of 1.0–1.5 m high and 2–2.5 m wide are adequate because goat manure is denser than horse or poultry muck. On a concrete pad with drainage.

4. Turn on schedule

Once a day for the first week — goat manure heaps are less prone to compaction than cattle or pig manure, so twice daily is usually unnecessary. Then every two to three days.

5. Monitor temperature

Target 55–65 °C. Goat manure typically reaches temperature within two to three days and holds it for a week. Add water if the pile dries below 45% moisture.

6. Mature

After 15–20 days the pile stops re-heating. Move it to a maturation bay for two to three weeks to complete stabilisation.

7. Shred, screen and bag

Shred to break down any lumps of bedding, screen at 3–10 mm depending on the product, and bag as powder. Granulate to 3–4 mm pellets if your market pays a premium for them.

Equipment for a goat manure fertilizer line

A shredder or semi-wet crusher, because goat manure often arrives with straw bedding that has not broken down. This is the one machine you cannot omit.
A small turner — self-propelled for 1–3 tonnes a day, a crawler machine above that. Goat manure piles are compact, so thorough mixing matters more than raw turning capacity.
A rotary drum screen with 3–10 mm mesh. Goat manure compost screens easily because the droppings are already small; the screen mainly removes stones and screening out unbroken bedding lumps.
A horizontal mixer if you intend to blend in humic acid, trace elements or a formulation, or to add binder for granulation.
A disc granulator with a small dryer and cooler if you are producing pellets. The naturally pelleted form of the raw material makes goat manure one of the easier organic materials to granulate.
A single-head packing scale and a bag-sewing machine for 25 kg or 40 kg bags — the appropriate scale for a small producer selling locally.

The market for goat manure fertilizer

Goat manure fertilizer sells best in three channels: direct to gardeners and smallholders in bags, to nurseries and horticultural growers who value its low odour and even texture, and to tea, coffee and fruit growers as part of an organic programme. Because the volumes from a single goat herd are modest, direct selling and small-bag retail usually capture a much better price than bulk wholesale.

The product characteristics that matter to those buyers are very specific: the compost must be fully mature, it must be dry enough to handle and store, and it must not contain unbroken bedding that looks untidy in the bag. A shredder and a good screen therefore matter more in this business than the scale of the production line, and it is worth spending on both.

Where several goat farms are within a reasonable distance, a shared processing plant is often the most efficient arrangement. One plant with a shredder, turner, screener and bagging line can serve several herds, and the combined volume is enough to supply nurseries and garden centres consistently — which a single farm's output cannot.

In order to fully utilize goat manure, people often compost goat manure to get harmless compost and apply it to soil and plants. As one of the best animal manures, goat manure can supply nutrients to plants and improve soil structure. Compared with chicken manure and cow dung, the content of nitrogen in goat manure is higher than that in chicken and cow manure. Therefore, you can deal with goat manure by composting. As an organic fertilizer equipment supplier, Shunxin can provide you professional composting methods and equipment.

This article provides the following information to you:

How to make goat manure compost (composting process and useful composting equipment)?

Process and machines to make commercial goat manure fertilizer powder and fertilizer pellets.

Composting— A good method for you to use goat manure as fertilizer

Generally speaking, we cannot directly apply goat manure. On the one hand, fresh goat droppings contain much pathogens, parasite and its eggs and other harmful substance. On the other hand, fresh goat droppings may ferment in the soil, and the heat released will burn the roots of plants. However, if you compost goat manure before application, microorganisms will digest organic matters and convert them into nutrients. At the same time, the heat produced during composting can achieve 60 to 70℃, which can kill above mentioned harmful substance. After composting, you can get harmless and valuable goat manure compost.

This methods is also suitable for other animal manures, such as horse manure disposal, cow dung management and so on. But how to compost goat manure and what should be paid attention to, you will find answers in the following part.

How to compost goat manure?

In terms of composting goat manure, you should focus on moisture (50%-60% is suitable), temperature and oxygen content. To be honest, composting process is microorganism activities. These microorganisms will consume oxygen and water, when they convert organic matters into nutrients. In addition, if the heat they produced is too higher, it will do harm to microorganisms themselves. Therefore, you should strictly control these three factors.

Specific steps for making compost from goat manure

Firstly, you should prepare raw materials for composting. In addition to goat manure, you can add some auxiliaries, such as saw dust, straw, rice hull for adjusting moisture, air permeability and C/N ratio, maize flour to provide carbohydrate for microorganisms and fermented culture. Then you need to mix them evenly. Secondly, you can stack goat manure and auxiliary materials together. You can pile them up in long rows or place them in fermentation grooves. The height, width and length of windrow compost pile are usually 0.8 to 1.5 m, 1.5 to 2 m， and 2 m or more.

For composting in grooves, the height of organic waste should be lower than that of groove. Finally, you should regularly turn the compost pile, until the fermentation finishes. 2-4 times per day in the first week and 1 time for each two days in the following weeks is enough.

Efficient and economical compost turner for fermentation

Goat dung windrow compost turner: Windrow compost turner includes self-propelled compost turner and crawler type compost turner. Both of them just need one person to operate and use diesel oil. The former adopts four wheels, which is flexible and easy for operation. It is very suitable for goat farm manure treatment.

The latter adopts rubber track chassis, which is steady during working. What’s more, their stirring shaft and blades not only can turn compost pile thoroughly, but also crush large caking into pieces.

Do you want to know more details? Please send your requirements to us!

Groove type compost turner: It moves on the paralleled walls of groove, while its stirring apparatus turns the goat manure. It is controlled by the electric control cabinet, so one person is enough to monitor its operation. In addition, there is a transfer machine, which can realize one machine for multiple grooves.

Last but not least, it can be equipped with spray device, which can add water in time during turning goat manure.

What should you do to make commercial compost fertilizer with goat manure powder making machines?

Goat manure compost is loose, black and without odor, which is good organic fertilizer. Except for personal use, you can produce bagged goat manure compost for commercial purpose. Here, you may need do the following works and use following goat manure powder making machines.

Crushing goat manure compost with compost crusher for making fine powder: Due to stack, there must be some caking in fermented goat manure, so you need to eliminate the caking and produce fine powder. Here, Shunxin can provide you new type vertical crusher, which can make caking into pieces efficiently.

Screening goat manure compost with compost screen: In order to guarantee the purity of compost fertilizer and improve its quality, compost screen is necessary. It has different screening levels, so it can guarantee the quality of final fertilizer products.

Packing goat manure powder with T ongda fertilizer bagging machine: It can automatically finish filling, sewing and packaging.

If you have no idea about production line, we can provide you professional proposal!

How to make goat manure fertilizer pellets?

Compost goat manure is just the preliminary process of goat manure management. In addition to make goat manure powder, you can also make goat manure compost into goat dung fertilizer pellets. Fertilizer pellets is more convenient for application, transportation and storage. The complete production process includes crushing process, screening process, granulating process, drying and cooling process, screening process (select out unqualified pellets), coating process and packaging process. Among them, the first two and last processes are same with those of powdery fertilizer production. So, we mainly introduce the following processes:

Goat manure compost crushing process

Before granulating, crushing process of goat manure compost is necessary. With the help of the fertilizer crusher, it can completely make the manure compost into powder materials so that we can make a good preparation for mixing process. Through this process, you not only can get high quality compost, but also make full use of making granules. Here, we recommend new type vertical crusher, semi-wet material crusher, hammer crushing machine to you. All of them can help you achieve your purpose.

Goat manure granulating process

After screening, the conveyor belt will send goat manure compost to Shunxin granulator. With the help of manure pellet making machines and water, fertilizer powder gradually becomes fertilizer pellets. Here, we recommend new type organic fertilizer granulator to you. It utilizes mechanical stirring force, frictional force and water to make pellets. Therefore, the pellets made by it is harder. Besides new type organic fertilizer granulator, pan granulator, rotary drum stirring granulator are also suitable.

The drying and cooling process

As mentioned above, the wet compost granulation method will increase the moisture of fertilizer pellets. Therefore, you need to remove extra water content of goat manure pellets by rotary drum drying and cooling machine for later screening and packing.（Drier let the goat manure pellet compost ‘s moisture content in a proper rate; cooler will cool the dried compost pellets in a certain temperature for packing and bagging.）The rotary drum drying machine utilizes heat produced by hot blast furnace to dry pellets. The heat usually can achieve 80℃. Then you need to adopt machine to cool the temperature of pellets to ambient temperature and bring vapor on the surface of manure pellets. If you have requirements on the gas released from rotary cooling machine, you can adopt dust collector to deal with it.

Coating manure pellets with rotary coating machine

The purpose of coating goat manure pellets is to inhibit agglomeration among pellets during transportation. What’s more, you can also coat manure pellets with microbial agents to make bio organic fertilizer.

What is the price of the process for making sheep manure compost in our company?

Nowadays how to convert goat manure into organic fertilizer is the biggest problem in eco-fertilizer industry. As we mentioned above, sheep manure composting will be the best method to make fertilizer from goat manure. For sheep agricultural waste managment system, it is very useful for improving our eco-environment and fertilizer industry advance. Meanwhile, in terms of price, compared with other goat manure machine suppliers, it is very reasonable. We can understand the price from 3 aspects.

The first one is that we are manufacturer, not an agent. Therefore, it is required that our origin material is very low with high quality. To some extent, our compost machine can bring good advantages to you. The second reason is that 30 years import and export experience can reduce your time and cost to make a choice. In addition, our professional skills and technology can guarantee our fertilizer equipment be in good condition for a long time. Finally, we can provide special offers which is different in discount time every year, especially on festivals, holidays.

Based on three points, our company will be your best choice whether the price or quality.

How to compost goat manure with windrow composting technology?

Machine gallery

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

How to Compost Goat Manure — Shunxin Manure Management photo 1

How to Compost Goat Manure — Shunxin Manure Management photo 2

How to Compost Goat Manure — Shunxin Manure Management photo 3

How to Compost Goat Manure — Shunxin Manure Management photo 4

How to Compost Goat Manure — Shunxin Manure Management photo 5

Frequently asked questions

Does goat manure need to be composted before use?

Yes, for the same reasons as any other manure. Fresh goat droppings carry weed seeds and pathogens, have a high ammonia and salt content, and can burn plant roots. Composting above 55 °C for several days destroys the pathogens and weed seeds and converts the nutrients into slower-release forms. Goat manure compost is also far easier to spread and to sell.

How long does goat manure take to compost?

About 15–20 days of thermophilic fermentation followed by two to three weeks of maturation, giving usable compost in roughly five to six weeks. Goat manure is a little slower than poultry manure but easier to manage, because it is already dry and arrives in a uniform, pelleted form that resists compaction.

What is the best fertilizer equipment for a small goat farm?

A shredder, a small self-propelled turner, a rotary drum screen and a single-head packing scale will produce bagged powder goat manure fertilizer — the complete line for a herd of a few hundred animals. Add a mixer if you want to blend additives, and a disc granulator with a dryer and cooler if your market pays a premium for pellets. A forklift-mounted turner can substitute for the self-propelled machine at very small volumes.

Is goat manure better than cow manure for fertilizer?

Neither is strictly better; they suit different markets. Goat manure has a higher nitrogen and potassium content than cow manure and comes in a naturally pelleted form, which makes it convenient for retail garden products. Cow manure produces a larger volume of humus-rich compost and is easier to scale to commercial tonnages. Goat manure is easier to process at small scale, which makes it a better entry point for a new producer.

Inquiry

Tell us about your project

Send your raw material, target capacity and country. Our engineers reply within one working day with a process route, equipment list and budget.

Ready to turn your waste into fertilizer?

Send us your raw material and target capacity — we will propose the process, the machines and the budget.

Get a Free Quote WhatsApp