how mucb manure are we talking about? Could you just build a simple low wall somewhere and put the manure on the side that doesn't get the majority of wind?

You definitely need some kind of enclosure for your compost pile. You could even use chicken wire and some stakes.

Now, as to what to use for brown materials...have you see lists and can't figure out where to get any of the materials, or you are not sure what to use?

Jeremy,
Thanks. I thought the whole thing had to be tallish, since it seems like everything is geared for about 4 feet tall?

Toxcrusadr,
Thanks. We have been considering trying pallets again. And **yes!!!** to your second question. Well, obviously I have one problem, which is I thought I had to put in green stuff and not brown (our manure is pretty brown...), but in addition, I have no idea how I would get enough of just about anything that's supposed to go on! Because we'd need a fair amount...

Thanks very much, both of you :D

Are there any sawmills or cabinet shops around your area? If you could get sawdust or wood shavings, that's a super-brown - the C:N ratio is like 400 to 1.

philothea, as others have mentioned, manure is a "green" (in spite of its color), so you'll need to add "browns."

Browns can include leaves, straw (but not hay), and various types of dried plant material. It also includes sawdust, twigs, and other wood products, though those (with the possible exception of the sawdust) can take a while to break down.

Perhaps some of your manure is mixed in with bedding that is a type of brown? I know that I have a local source of rabbit manure that's mixed in with wood stove pellets (which are made from compressed sawdust, as I undertand it). If so, perhaps your situation isn't quite as dire as you initially suspect.

Thanks, both of you.

OK, since I was under the mis-impression that I had to find grass cuttings and the like, I was looking in the wrong direction.

I could get straw, but it would cost me $3 or $4 a bale and it's 40 miles away :(

What do you think about this: about 10 miles away, there's a cotton processing plant which puts all the left-over stuff in the back. It sits there and eventually turns into dirt which they give away for free.

When they first put it back there, it's like crummy cotton. Do you think that would be a brown thing I could add?

Thanks so very much for all your help!!!!

Can't comment for sure on the cotton processing material without knowing for sure what it is. Hulls possibly? It could be either - carbon or nitrogen - so need details.

So back to the basics on composting. You have a large amount of readily available "greens" (nitrogens) in the manure. As leira said, "browns" (carbons) include whatever you use for bedding for all that livestock? Also straw, fall leaves (got trees for this fall?), shredded newspapers, shredded cardboard, sawdust, woodchips, paper towels and paper plates, brown grocery paper bags, etc.

The link below is to one of the many discussions here on "what can I use for browns" with lots of things listed in it. You will need at least an equal amount of browns as you have manure.

You could also advertise to give it away or sell it cheaply as there are always gardeners looking for manure to compost. ;)

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Need source of browns discussions

Ahhh, maybe giving it away is the way to go, esp since I can get thoroughly composted stuff for free.

We don't have a lot of bedding because the animals are pasture animals except in very severe weather, which is only a few days each year. We just like to keep the pasture clean :)

The cotton stuff from the plant is hulls, possibly twigs, and a lot of the cotton which comes out with the hulls. You know what cotton looks like? Like a cotton ball attached very firmly to the opened up husk. Apparently not all the cotton comes off in the processing, so the newer part of their compost mountain is definitely a whitish grey color. I probably should have explained that at first...

Thanks so much for all your help. The link was very useful too, except for that we don't have access to a lot of the suggestions, as we don't have a lot of that stuff here, and the wind blows away all the leaves, which I *used* to think was a great thing

I'm pretty sure the cotton hull counts as a strong nitrogen source. As far as the composting enclosure is concerned just about anything that keeps it protected somewhat from the wind will work. Maybe you could give trench composting a shot.

Thanks Jeremy. That would be bad, right? About the nitrogen?

Trench composting wouldn't work as the water table comes up to above the level of our land fairly frequently.

Wow, maybe this isn't just me, but the land!

Have you thought about vermicomposting (worms). They love manure and you might not even need the "browns". Good luck.

Hmmm, the 30 t0 40 gusting to 60 mph winds we had the other day did not move the unshredded leaves piled up 15 feet from my compost bins, except for maybe a few leaves, however if that is a problem some relatively inexpensive snow fencing would help.

That would be bad, right? About the nitrogen?

Uhh, yeah you already have all the nitrogen (greens) you need so collecting more isn't going to help in any way.

I'm curious then - because the animals are pasture animals except in very severe weather, which is only a few days each year. We just like to keep the pasture clean :)

- why aren't you just spreading or raking the manure out over the pasture to fertilize the pasture grass as most do with pastured livestock? No tractor or manure spreader?

Great fertilizer for pastures. Grows great hay for winter feed. Why collect and stockpile it?

Dave

Check with your local newspaper office to see if they give away their leftover newspapers. We have picked up a lot of newspapers over the years (had one editor that refused to give them to my husband but he's gone now).

Since you have lots of wind, don't shred the paper. Put the papers in a tub and add water then layer these with the manure. Wet newspaper does not blow around while you are adding it and manure will hold it down while it composts.

You might consider putting a tarp over the pile to hold in moisture and prevent the contents from blowing away.

I also put all junk mail, paper sacks, cardboard boxes, used paper towels, paper napkins, cereal boxes, etc. in my compost piles. I keep a paper grocery sack by my kitchen trash can so it is easy to sort then take sack and all to the compost pile when it is full. Don't forget to put the contents of your vacuum cleaner, hairbrush (my long hair generates lots for the pile). Just look around...you will find LOTS of things once you get started.

How I envy your free manure! I have one rabbit so not much manure.

Good luck!
Peggy

If it were me, I'd make a couple of pallet bins, heap up the manure in one of them and see if the smell is too much for you to stand. If it bearable, then there ya go. If it is gawd-awful-stinky, then I'd add some of the cotton hulls.

With cotton processing, the cotton seed cake, after the oil is removed, is the highest in N - and the smell of trying to compost that, by itself, will kill buzzards at 4,000 feet altitude. Ask me how I know.

The hulls and twigs are about the perfect blend to compost, and for a while there, much of the compost sold commercially around here was that stuff, from cotton mills in Texas.

Just wondering if treed windbreaks are out of fashion? I hear about a lot of problems with wind but many people I know on the prairie plant windbreaks with different species of trees and shrubs. Otherwise a fence windbreak seems to be the answer.

Are there any sawmills in your area? When we had livestock we always used tons of sawdust as bedding in the barn and a big pile in the calving pens for the calves to rest on. Sawdust absorbs a lot of water and mixed with manure makes a good soil additive.

If your pens are wet you will have problems with foot rot so you may think about doing an underground drainage system unless you can find enough dry bedding material (browns).

Just a thought, maybe you could put an ad somewhere to trade some of your manure for bags of leaves. Other gardeners who are over run with leaves and do not have green materials to compost with them would most likely be happy to drop off leaves if they could pick up manure. I would if it was close to me.

Good luck and good gardening, Mary

No one mentioned a tumbler make one out of a large old tank
Browns try craigslist put an add asking for leaves I got more than I could handle that way

In my area, many people who have manure post on craigslist. It's free for this kind of posting.

The Rodale Book of Composting lists Cotton wastes as a good C (or brown) source.

Stop right now........go back to Dave's last post. You need to learn how to maintain a pasture. The whole idea is to use the animal's manure to fertilize. You move the animals around to allow the grass to grow or they will leave the weeds and destroy the grass by keeping it eaten to the ground. There's way more science to maintaining land and animals than just what you see on the surface.

Go to your ag people and learn from them. That's what your tax dollars paid for.