At the risk of raising a stink, I am going to bring up the topic of poop. It’s a crappy job, but someone has to do it! A constant in life, especially life on a ranch or farm, is how to manage manure. All too often, animal wastes are mismanaged in conventional agricultural systems, leading to health issues for livestock within the systems. Health concerns are not isolated within these animal confinements, and many times the pollution within the confinements lead to a number of far-reaching problems with both local and global implications.
Water quality often suffers, as the massive, concentrated amounts of manure leach their nutrients, pathogens, medications, and more into both ground and surface waters. This can negatively affect drinking water supplies, and additionally lead to loss of aquatic life and degradation of local ecosystems. Air quality is also often impacted, with the pollution effecting declines in both health and quality of life for all living creatures downwind from the poorly stewarded animal wastes. The off gassing of all the carbon and methane also is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, impacting global climate patterns. I could go on, but with a stink now sufficiently raised, we are going to apply the permaculture principle of turning problems into solutions.
At ABC acres, we have been working towards a variety of methods to effectively manage all our animal wastes as valuable resources. We truly treasure everything that comes out the back end of our critters, as we have come to understand what a pile of poop is really worth. One of main goals is to keep animals out on pasture as much as possible, where nature intended, and provide fresh grounds with frequent animal moves to fresh forages to further benefit livestock, land, and consumers. This also effectively spreads out the animal wastes throughout our pastures, giving us an effective nutrient and fertility cycle, and building up the amount of organic matter, or catching and storing carbon in our soils. In this way, we not only benefit on the farm, but we also do our part to keep our local groundwater and air quality intact.
We have also begun to play around with the poop a little. Well, not directly, as that would be downright disgusting! What I mean is we have been using the behaviors and preferences of some livestock to help aid us in managing another’s waste more effectively. For instance, we have found deep satisfaction witnessing our chickens scratching apart cow pies, helping to spread out the manure and its latent fertility through our pastures. These meaningful connections mimic what often occurs in natural ecosystems, and we are always seeking to develop more of these connections in our operations. While not yet masters of manure management, we look forward to continuing to apply creative ways to keep improving our land stewardship through proficient permaculture-inspired poop practices!
Blessings,
Grant
