Manure
Compost, Fertilizer, Dung, and other assorted and sordid names . . .Poop

Do you think this is a Strange Topic? Perhaps it is but it's funny to see the data showing exactly how many people click on this page regularly. (Don't worry, I don't know exactly who clicks on it) 

 
As shepherds and ranchers (depending on what you like to hear) we're always looking for things that can bring in an extra dollar or two to make the operation run a little better. One value-added product, if you care to take the time, is the sale and/or use of the manure collected from your sheep.
                                                                                             Yes, It's Fresh.
If you have a barn or common area, or,                        

perhaps you keep your sheep penned up and standing around a while, then you have a collection spot that you're currently needing to clean out on some sort of regular basis and another spot where you're putting all the waste. 
 
Not only is sheep manure excellent for your own yard as a soil ammendment, but there are a lot of other people that want a high grade organic manure for their own vegetable and flower beds -- and there are just as many or more fanatics about flowers as there are for Blackbelly sheep.


Composting Required

Manure, especially sheep manure, is an excellent soil amendment if treated properly. The main problem with manure from sheep or any other ruminant is the viability of weed seeds that remain unaffected by the digestive tract and pass through into the manure. But there is a way to treat and kill the seeds -- simple composting.

Allowing moist manure to compost to a temperature of at least 140oF will germinate and kill the seeds contained in the manure. One difficulty with composting is that if its done in the open air and under direct sunlight then a great deal of the available ammonia (Nitrogen) is lost due to evaporation (Actually, oxidation, then evaporation). But in a sealed container the composting is controlled and exposure to air and sunlight is minimized keeping the nutients intact for later use when applied.

A second difficulty with raw manure can also be contagiouns. Because the fecal mater contains contagions (Stuff that will make you sick if you inhale or eat it - either way, it makes its way to your stomach via your mucus) you really do NEED to compost the sheep manure to kill the various parasites. Using a sealed drum for composting should kill any parasite worm in the manure so long as it's keep hot and moist for month or more. Spreading untreated manure on vegetable gardens or near other animals and children may not be wise.

How to Collect & Compost

Composting is biological growth gone wild. Bacteria feed on the components of the manure and as a result heat develops from all of the biological activity. The heat from this adds to the rate of biological growth up until the point that the composting is so hot that it starts to kill the little bugs generating the heat. And when the usable energy/food is used up the self-heating action slows & stops and the composting is complete.
 
Most of us only have small flocks and unless you have a large number of sheep then your collection process is going to be rather slow and you may not see this heating action. Collection is very slow in the summer months as sheep will probably be sleeping outdoors on the grass but a rapid collection is more likely during the winter months and during the rainy season/s or days as your sheep seek shelter.
 
I collect manure only from my barn, sweeping the floor clean every several days in the winter and maybe weekly in the summer when it rains. The floor is hard packed dirt which makes sweeping and collecting easy using a floor broom and wide plastic shovel; placing the manure in a black drum with a lid that seals tightly. It would be nice to have the ability to collect a drum at a time, but my small flock simply doesn't generate enough at one sitting (no pun intended).
 
By the time I get a full drum of manure the  drum has already been composting the entire time. Even so, I add more time and heat to this process for the purpose of killing the bacteria and the parasites.
 
A black steel 55 gallon drum is an excellent container, cheap, durable, can be sealed from the environment yet still left in the sun to "BAKE" -- a dark plastic drum will work just as well. Once I collect about 3/4 of a drum I determine if the moisture level is too low simply by moving the top couple of inches of manure with a shovel and making a judgment call. If the manure looks dry I add about a quart of water to the drum, seal it, roll it around on it's side for about 10-15 minutes to mix, and sit it out in the sun for a few months until a few really HOT days have had a chance to heat the drum sufficiently and encourage seed germination and destruction of the parasites. To help aid the composting I opening the drum every week to allow fresh air into the drum.
 
Another option would be to make a mulch/manure mixture. This kind of mix adds much more organic matter is used as a lawn amendment for the heavy rain climates. To make this I would add twice as much thinly chipped softwood mulch, like pine, than sheep manure and compost either in the drum or on an open pile. Piling the two together on the ground I'd "lightly" spray it with water, and cover it with a black or dark colored tarp or plastic to promote decomposition. The pile should get hot on all its own but the additional plastic covering helps keep the wind from blowing away your compost pile and protects it from the elements.


Plant Nutrients in Sheep Manure

Commonly we seek out chemical fertilizers for both their nitrate and phosphorus content. Nitrates generally promote the growth of green leaves while the phosphates help with root and fruit production. During the fall you might typically treat your lawn with a high phosphate fertilizer and in the spring and summer switch over to the higher nitrates. During the cold months of winter the root system continues to grow and with that growth in preperation for spring, green leaves will need the nitrates.

I've looked too many tests results on manure and it appears that no one has the same results twice; some are so different that it's hard to beleive the data at all. I though that the best think I cold do was to put out a table for you to compare and then discuss what's being published and the reasons I think might be causing these vartiations. But nevertheless, these results are one valid test set. 

 
The results that you'll find published for the various sources of manures differ for several reasons  and once you think about it the variations will make sence. 

First off, how fresh is it? Urine contains a large amount of usable nitrates but over time the urine breaks down into Ammonia and something called NOx; people in L.A. would call this smog (Oxides of Nitrogen). Smog was reported in the LA basin in the early 1800's when there were no cars and the number of animals and plants greatly outnumbered people. We don't need cars and industry for smog to form and many people don't realize that. Both of these greenhouse gas byproducts (ammonia and NOx) are released as gases unless the urine is deposited under the soil fairly rapidly for plants to use. In fact, available nitrates from a fresh manure or chemcial fertilizers can be gone is as short as several weeks if applied improperly. And as for the test results, the fresher test samples will yield the higher test results - No surprise.
 
Secondly, the sample's moisture content can affect the test results. Assuming with me that a manure test sample contains 50% water and the measured nitrate level was 3% in this same sample. Again, assume that a portion of the same sample was taken and simultaneously dried before the nitrate content was measured. This dried sample, having had all of the water removed, will now be twice as concentrated because the water was removed and will now measure at 6% nitrate. The exact same concentrating affect would be seen in the test results for all of the other components in the manure. What needs to be reported are test results containing the same moisture content - or simply dried prior to testing and reported on a dry weight basis.

Thirdly, a sample that has sat for a short time and composted might affect the available nitrogen because the composting heat would help the decomposition and evaporation of ammonia. Since ammonia is gaseous and is released from the sample much faster when it's warm, higher losses would be expected because of composting by any degree. 
 
Lastly, the diet of the sheep may also affect the test values. Since varying vegetation and supplements are given to sheep the manure is also likely to vary. A diet rich in oats and grains would be far different than an animal that is fed hay or only free-range grasses.
 
Not to belabor these points any, if we simply look at the various comparisons we can see that sheep manure consistently ranks second only to chicken in commercial livestock manure. Once composting is completed and the manure is dry, there is very little oder, high organic levels, and the physical characteristics of the manure make it easy to spread on a lawn or garden. While I've read  many who say to never add sheep manure directly to your lawn, I've found that composted manure didn't hurt it a bit (St. Augustine grass). Additionally, if the people writing this would only look at their pasture they'd notice that there were no yellow spots where the sheep poop and pee. This is a simple indicator that sheep manure only slowly releases its nitrates - the leading cause of burnt grass.
 

Preparation & Packaging

A single composted 55 gallon drum yields about 150 lbs of usable manure (depending on how wet it is). I used the first composted batch on my home lawn without finding any new weed types or any more numbers than i might normally have found. After about 1-2 months from the manure application my lawn was the greenest on my street; and I have some real whack jobs on my street who love their lawns. What made this both funny and a pleasure was that it didn't cost me anything to do; the fertilizer was free. Since rain tends to wash and decompose most of the organic components of the soil, the added organic matter from the sheep manure helped the soil retain more moisture and revitalized my lawn with the additional nitrates and phosphates. 
 
After the collection of the manure, composting will be the first processing step you'll need to take. It's not necessary to do anything extra special to your collection, simply drum it up and do what's recommended above. But once composting is complete, I'd recommend that you screen the manure to make it more uniform and usable. Composting has killed the harmful parasites and decomposed most of the strange bacteria, the resulting manure is harmless and smells like clean healthy dirt; similar to high grade potting or gardening soil. 

Screening will remove all of the large rocks, roots, weed & tree stems that might have accidentally have been picked up in the collection. You'll also find that aftre composting that a small portion of pellets may not have broken apart. Pushing the pellet through the small openings in the screen not only creates a uniform texture but also makes the product less recognizable to your buyers; this is a value added process.
 
A seive for screening is simple and inexpensive to set up. Your garden or hardware store will sell a thick wire mesh that is approx. 1/8 - 3/16" in size. Making a square frame from 2x4's, the screen can be stretched and nailed to the outside of the frame. Supporting the screen above an empty trash can, you can use a square shovel to place the manure in the screen and sieve the manure, throwing away all of the unwanted contents in the screen. Unbroken pellets can be squished as they are rubbed accross the screen with the back side of the flat shovel.

The trash can, now containing the long sought after manure, can be bagged using the feed bags you've probably been burning or throwing away this entire time.

A well worded ad in your local neighborhood garage sale paper will probably yield you a few phone calls -- or else just use it yourself for your own garden or lawn. I recently spotted an ad in my local community internet yard sale pages for goat manure selling at $10 per 5 gal bucket if you supply the bucket.

For my 160 lbs (roughly 50 gal volume) I figure that would net about $100 if I could sell it all (Only 10 people needed). A nice offset for my feed bill. Unfortunately, this load made it to my lawn before I saw the ad -- Oh well, there's always the next barrel !

                                  160 lbs (Weighed)  >