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Post by tenbusybees on Oct 15, 2015 14:38:41 GMT
With all our critters we just throw their poo (and hay bedding) into the compost pile. The exception is the rabbits which goes directly into the gardens. However pig poo is a bit more whifforous than I thought it would be. After a bit of goggling I'm finding everybody deals with piggy poo differently... 1) Let them wallow in it and compost it themselves. (eww! that doesn't sound healthy at all.) 2) Mix it in to the compost pile. 3) Put it on growing root vegetables. 4) DON'T compost it, get rid of it. Carries human-contractable disease. 5) Rinse it down hill. (make your problem someone else's problem??!?) What do YOU do with piggy poo?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2015 17:40:22 GMT
Yeah, just go ahead and compost. You can always do it in a two-year cycle (a'la Humanure guidelines) if it removes the squick factor for you.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2015 18:35:55 GMT
Squick. I have to remember that word! One of my all-time faves from high school, as in "That squicks me out."
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Post by tenbusybees on Oct 15, 2015 20:25:11 GMT
Thanks, y'all!! Compost we shall.
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Post by claytonpiano on Oct 15, 2015 22:58:50 GMT
Oh yuck! Now I've got to ask.......we turned ours into our pitiful new garden area and let them dig it up and poop on it. Can I still plant it next spring or do I need to get that poop out of there? ??
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Oct 16, 2015 3:29:18 GMT
Lol, whifforous, squicky, AND dookie....spellcheck is going crazy with this thread!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2015 4:21:35 GMT
ClaytonPiano, Last year we let our hogs till the garden for us. I have to say that nearby we had planted a Poplar Tree and there was a newly planted one where the hogs were. It is amazing how huge the one exposed to pig poo grew! We planted our garden this year and everything grew so well that the deer feasted It will be fine to garden, I would recommend tilling.
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Post by paquebot on Oct 23, 2015 4:36:09 GMT
With all our critters we just throw their poo (and hay bedding) into the compost pile. The exception is the rabbits which goes directly into the gardens. However pig poo is a bit more whifforous than I thought it would be. After a bit of goggling I'm finding everybody deals with piggy poo differently... 1) Let them wallow in it and compost it themselves. (eww! that doesn't sound healthy at all.) 2) Mix it in to the compost pile. 3) Put it on growing root vegetables. 4) DON'T compost it, get rid of it. Carries human-contractable disease. 5) Rinse it down hill. (make your problem someone else's problem??!?) What do YOU do with piggy poo? Haven't had to deal with that for many years but never ever saw it used on gardens on any farm. Also never gardened where hogs had been kept. Reason was No. 4. Times change and now composting hog manure is accepted but you're still not going to find it available at any garden center. If you maintain a hot compost pile, that's the only way that I'd consider using it in a garden. Might also add that of the common barnyard manures, it's the very lowest in NPK value. Martin
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Oct 23, 2015 12:20:45 GMT
Contrary to what some people think, Pigs, if given the choice are clean creatures. Their skin does not breathe like other mammals so they need wet to cool off when they get heated. If they are provided with water to wallow in, they choose that. If not, they will wallow in their own poo, but only as a last resort.
I used pig manure in my garden, but well composted and mixed with horse, cattle, chicken and turkey.
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Post by paquebot on Oct 23, 2015 13:36:02 GMT
The non-use of pig manure in gardens has been around for ages and still applies. University of Maine says: "Never use cat, dog, or pig manure in vegetable gardens or compost piles." For 25+ years I had at least one dog and not one ounce of their manure was removed from the property. Never used direct on the gardens but hot-composted. Also at least one cat for much longer with same disposition. Rodale's composting book says dog and hog manure are safe when composted. umaine.edu/publications/2510e/Martin
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2015 13:59:12 GMT
The non-use of pig manure in gardens has been around for ages and still applies. University of Maine says: "Never use cat, dog, or pig manure in vegetable gardens or compost piles." For 25+ years I had at least one dog and not one ounce of their manure was removed from the property. Never used direct on the gardens but hot-composted. Also at least one cat for much longer with same disposition. Rodale's composting book says dog and hog manure are safe when composted. umaine.edu/publications/2510e/Martin I think anyone would be hard-pressed to find a garden that has no cat manure in it. Cats will be cats, and that lovely, soft, diggable dirt is ever-so-nice as an outdoor litter box. We use corn cob cat litter, and it composts nicely.
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Post by tenbusybees on Oct 23, 2015 15:34:57 GMT
All good info. Thanks again. The whifforous dookie (haha!) did squick me out! Composting it we are but away --way away-- from my veggie gardens. It's slated for the flower beds.
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Post by Otter on Oct 25, 2015 19:22:20 GMT
My uncle always used to throw corn in the pigpen when the pig was gone (a cousin hunted wild hogs, so a pig was generally only in there a month or so to fatten) and WOW. It might not test out well for NPK, but we used to joke that he had to throw the corn in from a distance if he didn't want to be carried away by it coming up.
My pigs are nice and clean and generally kind enough to compost their own poo for me. When I give them fresh hay to make their beds they shove their old bed into the potty corner. I always get my healthiest volunteers from wherever I move that pile to.
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Post by paquebot on Nov 1, 2015 4:31:15 GMT
Otter, it's not the NPK value but the amount of it. If hog manure were used at the same rate as horse or cow manure, it would produce considerably less results. Generic garden fertilizer is 10-10-10. Application rate is easy to remember with all ones and zeros. One pound per 100 square feet or 100 feet of row. Horse manure is the one closest to that and it's 1 gallon per 10 square feet or 10 feet of row. Cow manure needs more and pig even more to present the same amount of nutrients to the plants. Of course, doubling the amount of pig manure will give more NPK than the normal amount of horse manure or 10-10-10. A bit of useless information is for those who might wonder why pig manure is so much lower in NPK than other barnyard manure despite eating the same basic food. What farm animal may produc the most weight per pound of food? It's a pig. That means that they take more NPK out of the food than the others so there's less left. Martin
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Post by Otter on Nov 1, 2015 14:47:16 GMT
paquebot, that makes perfect sense. I think it may also be due to the way in which they digest (pig manure breaks down very quickly) and their tendency to make a potty spot that they move their old beds to which also catches their urine, they've made a very nice compost by the time I get to it. Where horses, when I clean their pen, I have to turn around and compost it along with the high-carbon bedding and plenty of their flood of urine has gone, unless I keep them in a concrete floored stall long enough for them to pee in it (horses often don't like to pee in their stalls), losing all the nitrogen that is in urine. So, for a homesteader, using the manure or most beasts is manure, and using pig manure is actually pig manure and urine compost. And I've no doubt that also makes a world of difference. Of course, none of that is an issue for people who buy the bags of dried muck from the lagoon pits, but on our little homesteady scale it makes a big difference.
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Post by paquebot on Nov 1, 2015 16:10:14 GMT
Another thing to remember is that the NPK value of any manure is based on just that, the manure. Urine is not figured into it as it is the dry manure. In fact, dry manure is higher NPK than wet manure since the liquid is mostly neutral. Plants can not use the urine that is in fresh manure since urea is a nitrite. It must be converted to a nitrate before plants can use it.
Martin
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