Financial value of FYM

[DrWazzock]

To make things more complicated, is there any value in spreading wood shavings horse muck on land? I know N is used to break down the shavings, but there is P & K in it and organic matter so after putting on a bit of extra bagged N to compensate, would it still be worth while? By the way it is all my own hay/Haylage which makes it , so very little risk of importing weeds Etc.

From personal experience I have found wood shavings based horse muck to be very effective at conditioning heavy land, making it more friable. I haven't seen any appreciable N lock up when I've used it. I don't plough it down for that would dilute it too much . I just work it into the surface. I generally compost it for 12 months so that it gets steaming hot. I haven't seen much weed seed carry over thereafter. The heap looks like a smoking volcano today. Bringing it from the stables gets some air into it and it reheats again greatly.

 

[Brisel]

To make things more complicated, is there any value in spreading wood shavings horse muck on land? I know N is used to break down the shavings, but there is P & K in it and organic matter so after putting on a bit of extra bagged N to compensate, would it still be worth while? By the way it is all my own hay/Haylage which makes it , so very little risk of importing weeds Etc.

I import a few hundred tonnes each year of horse yard muck. Mostly shavings based. Spread it thin so the shavings don't lock up nitrogen with their high carbon levels. Muck is good. No troubles with weeds, just contamination from a few bricks, lumps of concrete, combs and head collars.

 

[Farma Parma]

i do sum here & its doing the land no end of good
An Acre of Straw for a 14t trailer load of muck.
If the straw is thinner which is was in 2018 then poss 1.5acres.
i did knock a fair few off my 2018 total & straw lad was happy enuff.
You have to be fair, both want the materials.
no BG neither...
I use Henmuck also at much lesser rate per acre but it has its own set of benefits, dont treat the same ground every year tho.
It strips the ground so be carefull.
5th year in with cattle muck roughly 800/1000/1200t each year it varies.
but by the end of 2020 i'll have applied some to most of the arable ground
Then just target the poorer ground more so then after.
Whole place Zone Sampled every 4years & just redone in 2018, all things rising thankfully.

Just to add which i did forget its Barley Straw for Muck iam on about here.
Altho it wouldnt be much diff if it was wheat really.

 

[Billboy1]

why not sell tons of straw for ex amount of tons of fym back ?
just the ratio to work out

 

[Werzle]

why not sell tons of straw for ex amount of tons of fym back ?
just the ratio to work out

Because when standing straw is £25/acre every arable farmer wants to do a deal but whens its making £100/acre they stop wanting the muck. Interesting to read a few months ago in the fw that the top three yielding fields in the country all had a coating of either straw based pig muck or fym

 

[Billboy1]

So if your removing 2t of straw/acre do you replace it with 2ton of muck/acre or 10t

 

[Brisel]

Because when standing straw is £25/acre every arable farmer wants to do a deal but whens its making £100/acre they stop wanting the muck. Interesting to read a few months ago in the fw that the top three yielding fields in the country all had a coating of either straw based pig muck or fym

This is why both parties need a long term deal that takes the volatility out of the straw price. A delivered-to-field muck deal with straw in the swath in return could be pricey for the stock farmer especially if there's a lot of haulage involved. It's about a good relationship that lasts & neither side getting greedy.

 

[teslacoils]

Acre of straw for eight ton of muck. Straw left in swaths. Stock man bales, carts, delivers muck.

 

[milkloss]

Deals seem a bit off to me. Come get your own sh1t and I’ll bale and come get my own straw....
Too much haulage of dung makes it worthless to the livestock man imo

 

[teslacoils]

Deals seem a bit off to me. Come get your own sh1t and I’ll bale and come get my own straw....
Too much haulage of dung makes it worthless to the livestock man imo

The second I have to cart muck it becomes worthless. This is not a stock area. Plenty of digestate, sewage sludge available otherwise.

 

[7610 super q]

Yes. You can use a tremendous amount of diesel hauling and spreading muck. And a tremendous amount of time separating dung from netting / plastic / conco blocks / iron girders.
I'd be wanting it free.

 

[ollie989898]

Straw is very valuable so it has to be sold at reasonable value. If the arable farmer has the kit/staff all winter he could cart the muck in himself. Has to be fair on both parties. But not trying to get every last cent out of it.

 

[Hilly]

If a ton of straw is used for bedding cattle what’s it weigh after ?

 

[ollie989898]

If a ton of straw is used for bedding cattle what’s it weigh after ?

No good getting hung up on that sort of argy-bargy, just has to be a deal that suits both.

Arable farm usually has kit/staff available during winter, when the livestock man is busy as fudge. Their situations may swap slightly in summer so it is reasonable the livestock man might be able to get involved in the straw side.

 

[Hilly]

No good getting hung up on that sort of argy-bargy, just has to be a deal that suits both.

Arable farm usually has kit/staff available during winter, when the livestock man is busy as fudge. Their situations may swap slightly in summer so it is reasonable the livestock man might be able to get involved in the straw side.

I was just wondering, I’m to far away from straw to return muck .

 

[Brisel]

I pay £2.50/t for muck to be delivered from a contractor who hires out hookloader skips to horse livery yards. That's the NPK value minus my spreading costs as I have to get a contractor in to spread it. Roughly, that's £2-2.50/t. My profit is the organic matter and that pays for the compaction & mess when he tips in winter. He makes his money from the skip hire fees & he's built in the income from me into his business model.

There's nothing to stop anyone costing out the muck as @phil the cat did earlier, taking into account the haulage and spreading costs. Then sell the straw based on auction prices, agreeing to not charge the silly prices on years of shortage but asking a bit more when there's a glut. Maybe take the average of the last 5 years of local straw prices? Ultimately muck for straw is down to what you agree with your customer.

 

[Hilly]

I pay £2.50/t for muck to be delivered from a contractor who hires out hookloader skips to horse livery yards. That's the NPK value minus my spreading costs as I have to get a contractor in to spread it. Roughly, that's £2-2.50/t. My profit is the organic matter and that pays for the compaction & mess when he tips in winter. He makes his money from the skip hire fees & he's built in the income from me into his business model.

There's nothing to stop anyone costing out the muck as @phil the cat did earlier, taking into account the haulage and spreading costs. Then sell the straw based on auction prices, agreeing to not charge the silly prices on years of shortage but asking a bit more when there's a glut. Maybe take the average of the last 5 years of local straw prices? Ultimately muck for straw is down to what you agree with your customer.

Horse sh!t , I wouldn’t bother , I’d want them to pay me a tenner a ton to take it.

 

[Brisel]

Horse sh!t , I wouldn’t bother , I’d want them to pay me a tenner a ton to take it.

Why? As long as it's not contaminated with string, plastic and other debris it's good gear if spread thinly if shavings based. The stuff I get is quite well rotted as the stables don't want to be paying to shift barely used straw & in most cases the skips take a few months to be filled up. My main concern is that the dung is full of wormers where they stock paddocks tightly.

 

[tw15]

You can look at it always 1 acre of straw worth say £50 you get back say at best 2ton of muck to put on that acre that muck has cost you £25 a ton in lost sale of straw if you were just looking at the money side of things . But as I have seen here on a straw for muck deal some muck has brought in blackgrass as the straw was from blackgrass free fields so must of got in from his grass fields he was renting elsewhere . You could sell the straw and bank the cash and buy in lower risk stuff ie sludge or just chop straw where it is .
Yes you will be getting nutrients back in with the dung that some would of gone up the road anyway if you had just sold the straw plus the extra nutrients from the dung from the cow what it has been eating . If you want to reduce the risk to your farm you really want to be doing straw and also be the one that also grows the extra grass that the other party needs. You of course will have a lower risk of grass weeds coming onto your farm if the grass that the stock was fed on was from more permanent pastures . The big risk is when the other party has a field for silage of another arable boy who is using a 2 year ley to help clear their weed problem .It is the same with slurry as we all know the odd bit from the sides/top of clamps can get dumped in the slurry pit and could be full of weed seeds . Mostly when seeds of anything go through a animal they are killed of but not all .

Straw for muck has to be done with care with some people, always look to see how they grow and where their silage comes from before rushing in .
Soils around here really could eat a covering of dung a year it is the best thing for the soil that's why farms were mixed farms years ago .

 

[Fish]

Horse sh!t , I wouldn’t bother , I’d want them to pay me a tenner a ton to take it.

Does that tenner a ton muck come with bricks, concrete blocks, plastic, bits of gate and other assorted mom (matter other than muck).