permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Charles de Matas wrote:

> > There are millions of tons of useful livestock waste created each year.
> > Look at all the different methods of composting this material that are 
> > used:

>    I agree, I think we should use animal manure when it is easily available. 
>   My land is close to a chicken farm, and I would like to make better use of 
> the manure that I could get there. Unfortunately my pickup has been having 
> all kinds of mechanical problems this year and I haven't been able to 
> transport much manure. The few bags I bring up in my car I use in compost 
> piles.  But I'm interested in ideas for using larger amounts.

Hire a local trucker to haul it for you; the farm will probably have a loader.
Make sure no arsenic has been added to the chicken feed; otherwise forget 
using that manure
and start loking for another source. Find a rock quarry local to you and hire 
a trucker to haul
some pond fines (very fine rock dust) to your farm. They usually give this 
material away. You
can get a MSDS on their fines if you're concerned about the chemical makeup 
of them.
Hire someone with a loader or rent one for a day and mix the fines with the manure. Let it compost for a while, until 
the mix smells sweet, then put it on your gardens.

LL