Manure & Compost Planning
Estimate how much manure and bedding the herd makes, track piles from collecting to applied, and send finished compost to the fields whose soil tests actually need it.
01Why plan manure
A 1,000-pound horse produces roughly 50 pounds of manure a day, around nine tons a year, before bedding. For a stalled horse, bedding can double or triple the volume. Handled well, it is a soil amendment. Handled poorly, it is runoff, flies, parasites, and a pile that never goes away.
The Manure tab sizes the job, tracks each pile, and matches finished compost to soil need so nutrients go where they help.
02Waste volume by housing
Manure tab · Waste volume by housing
The card shows estimated annual manure plus bedding in cubic yards. Volume is driven by each horse's housing type, set on the Farm tab or in the list on this card. A stalled horse's bedding dwarfs a dry-lot horse's, so getting housing right matters more than anything else here.
Size your storage pad or bins, plan spreader trips, and judge whether you can use the compost on your own ground or need an outlet for the surplus.
03Compost and handling records
Manure tab · Compost & handling
Add a record for each pile or batch:
| Field | Enter |
|---|---|
| Date | When the pile was started or the status changed |
| Volume (yd³) | Estimated size of the pile |
| Status | Collecting → composting → cured → applied |
| Apply to field | Optional; the field it went to |
| Rate (tons/ac) | Optional; the rate you spread |
- Active composting runs roughly 130–150°F in the core. Sustained heat in that range reduces weed seeds, fly larvae, and parasite eggs.
- Turn or aerate when the temperature falls, and keep the pile about as moist as a wrung-out sponge.
- Cured compost no longer reheats after turning, smells earthy, and you can't pick out the bedding.
04Importing an analysis
Send a sample of cured compost or stored manure to a lab, then use Import compost / manure analysis (XML / PDF) on the record. An analyzed pile is what the planner needs. Without an analysis, compost nutrient content can vary severalfold between farms and even between piles.
Take the sample from several spots and depths in the pile, mix them in a clean bucket, and fill the lab's container from the mix.
05The compost application planner
Manure tab · Compost application planner — match compost to soil need
- Pick an analyzed compost record.
- Pick a soil-tested field. Import soil tests on the Fields & paddocks card.
- Read the rate. The planner sizes it to the most limiting nutrient, phosphorus first, and shows what nitrogen and potassium the compost supplies at that rate.
Why phosphorus first: compost usually carries more phosphorus relative to nitrogen than crops use. Rates set by nitrogen need tend to overload phosphorus, which builds in soil and moves to water with runoff. Sizing to phosphorus is the environmental cap; make up any remaining nitrogen or potassium another way.
06Where to send compost
Manure tab · Where to send compost by soil need
Fields are ranked by the P₂O₅ and K₂O they need per acre. The top of the list is where compost does the most good. Fields testing high in phosphorus and potassium drop to the bottom as hold; spreading there builds soil phosphorus with no agronomic benefit.
Use this list each time a pile cures to decide where it goes, then record the field and rate on the compost record.
07Good practice on the ground
- Site piles on a pad or high ground, away from wells, streams, ditches, and drainage paths, and divert clean water around them.
- Don't spread on frozen, snow-covered, or saturated ground, or ahead of heavy rain.
- Prefer spreading on hayfields and on pastures that horses won't graze for several weeks, to break parasite cycles.
- Keep the records. They support Agricultural Environmental Management (AEM) planning and any nutrient management plan your farm follows.
- Follow your nutrient management plan and any state or local setbacks that apply.