hey, there's a cow in your compost

infiniti · Oct 28, 2011

Being in the composting business, I've enjoyed the opportunity to aid the community in the disposal of certain commodities that would otherwise be costly, if not somewhat wasteful to dispose of by previously accepted means.
Dead livestock has to be at the top of the list.
I honestly don't remember exactly when that started, nor the details of how, but word got out fairly quick, and there is a steady, yet manageable flow of deceased critters that just appear around here, and we incorporate them into the hot piles as fast as they come.
Sometimes it will be half a dozen calves. We've had as many sheep show up with a few goats to boot. There are hog confinement operations around that bring the unlucky pigs. A couple horse traders come up with the occasional cull. Several larger cattle feeders bring us their dead. The local sale barn adds their assortment.
Years back..... oh, yeah.... that's how it began...
The local meat locker was owned by a friend, and I inquired about their offal.
He said he had a small market for the beef and hog waste, but needed a place to go with sheep, goat and deer..... so I told him to bring them out.
They brought me 600 and some odd deer carcasses the first season, and many more the second. Then, being a small operation, he went out of business about 5 years ago. But by then, word had gotten out.
Now we have literally hundreds of dead animals either rotting or finished and spread. My trash pickers round up the bones after the compost is on the field and we dry them in the sun to be ground to bone meal in a heavy old pto powered feed mill. The chickens get all they want for scratch and mineral, and the rest is spread on the fields.

Here is a brief pictorial......
Click to expand...

Now that particular dude was processed shortly after an extremely wet time when I was a little rich on nitrogen from the sale barn, and a little short on carbon due to not being able to get to it for the mud.
I buried him in the stall cleanings, anyway, and when carbon was forthcoming a few weeks later, I remixed that portion of the pile.
Any time I come across an animal that has stalled in it's decomposition, I add carbon and remix. Truth is, that doesn't happen often, and when the carbon ratio is right, a 1200 pound cow can go to rather odorless black gold and clean bones in 5-6 months....sometimes less.

I find it advantageous to stock up on carbons, preferably somewhat dry, and thereby always have a surplus for when that unexpected glut of nitrogen shows up. The piles here are almost always odor free. Carbon, i.e. sawdust, straw, wood chips, etc. is the key to that.
Always top the pile with a carbon shell.
That protects the interior from the detrimental effects of sun and wind, keeps the moisture level more stable, and prevents odors and fly/maggot infestations.
I also find the occasional load of used straw bedding or spoiled hay bales piled next to my compost mounds. A few wood workers bring out planer shavings and such. People bring road kills of all kinds, and I pick up road kill, including deer, when traveling between compost pickups.

The bones always make interesting conversation pieces for the occasional neighbor that shows up wanting a few loader buckets of compost placed in his/her truck or trailer.

I never charge for the loading, nor the material.
Click to expand...

THIS GUY IS GOD!
Extreme Composting - Homesteading Today

Meursault · Oct 28, 2011

infiniti said:

THIS GUY IS GOD!
Extreme Composting - Homesteading Today
Click to expand...

I understand the thread.

I understand the pictures.

I understand the importance of composting.

I do not understand why "THIS GUY IS GOD!"

infiniti · Oct 28, 2011

you sorta have to read his other accomplishments around his farm. like making his own power and food.

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