Developing a Horse or Barn Animal Manure Management Plan for the Hobby Farmer

Ginger Davis, Conservation Administrator 

No one knows how many horses there are currently in Hamilton County (1,074 in 2017) but most enthusiasts would agree that the popularity of horses continues to rise. At the same time, new residents keep arriving. Forecasters estimate 180,000 more people will live in Hamilton County by 2050. As a result of these trends, recreational horse owners in our area increasingly find themselves in the middle of rapidly growing suburban areas, where they often receive more scrutiny from their neighbors than do their counterparts in rural areas. To maintain good relationships, it is critical to know and practice proper manure and pasture management.  Manure handling is viewed as a necessary evil of stall management with horse owners naturally preferring to ride rather than clean stalls.  Did you know that one horse can call for the removal of about 12 tons of manure and soiled bedding from its stall annually? The good news is that manure can be a tool to improve soils.  The burden of manure can be turned into a benefit to help improve your soil resources.

Often, suburban horse facilities have limited or no acreage for disposal of manure and soiled bedding. Several alternatives for handling manure include land spreading on pasture or crop ground, removal from stable site to storage area for private or commercial hauling, stockpiling, and composting. Some stables have developed markets to distribute or sell the stall waste as a fertilizer resource to gardeners and landowners. Whether in a suburban or rural setting, proper manure management is based on simple principles that virtually eliminate environmental pollution impacts and nuisances such as odor and flies.

Developing a horse manure management plan may seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be. Most plans can be developed and implemented using an integrated holistic approach.  A holistic approach means thinking about the big picture.  An integrated approach means to work with your current needs and issues to find solutions that could benefit other aspects of your land or neighbors and fit it into the environment piece by piece (i.e. manure as a fertilizer source for poor soils). If you look at the big picture first then deal with each component keeping the big picture in mind, it allows you to see how each part of the system can work together. Departmentalizing the components of a manure management systems plan allows you to evaluate what is feasible, what options may be available, as well as, determining how the components may work together in order to develop a sustainable plan into the future. Because no two farms are exactly alike, each plan must be developed individually considering the land, water, soil, air, and neighborhoods in the area.

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​Developing the Plan

Need a Manure Management Plan Checklist - Click here

Before anything else, it is a good idea to think about, write down, and draw a map of what encompasses your respective horse farm. Key points to consider here include:

• Describe your horse or animal farm – goals, objectives, partnerships, business opportunities, and recreation
• Land based resources – Identify how many acres you own or lease and how many of these acres are “usable”. Usable acres refer to acres that are appropriate for specifically managing and/or taking care of your horse or animal or land that could be used to spread manure. Acres to exclude from this calculation would be any area where manure should not be spread, or acres where it is not feasible to spread manure including: wetland and/or wooded areas; areas close to surface water, drains, or water wells; acres that encompass where your home, barn, riding arena, etc.; land adjacent to public roads, property lines,  residences, or businesses. Setbacks from these areas are a good practice to eliminate environmental pollution impacts or nuisances like odor.
• Number of horses or animals that currently reside on your farm and plans for expansion.
• Manure expectations– Include volume produced and collected, storage, composting, transfer and application, nutrient utilization, and records or calculations of your manure expectations

Spreading raw horse manure in combination with soiled bedding (stall waste) on your horse pasture is not an advisable practice. The reasons for this include the following: A) if you are spreading raw horse manure on your pasture or crop fields, you could  potentially be spreading parasites and weed seeds, and B) stall waste with wood products such as sawdust or wood shavings can actually deplete the soil of nitrogen (needed for grass/plants to grow) due to the breakdown of carbon. This can result in an undesired outcome when attempting to grow forage.

The 4Rs of nutrient management serve as a guide for environmental concerns prevention planning:

• Right Source (type of manure or fertilizer; composted vs raw, etc.)
• Right Rate (application rate of manure to fields)
• Right Time (time of year, weather forecast, neighbor relations)
• Right Place (topography of the field, proximity to surface waters and wells)

Lastly, prevention is the most important way to avoid a possible manure spill.  See our guidance below or in the checklist for an example emergency spill response.
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By doing this initial exercise, you get an unbiased perspective as a starting point rather than a reactive attempt at a solution. By approaching your manure management plan one step at a time, you can organize your resources to make the process more efficient and less overwhelming. The Hamilton County Soil and Water Conservation District has prepared a Manure Management Plan Check List with resources that may help in this planning.  Manure & Nutrient Management may be eligible for assistance through the Natural Conservation Resource Service offices.  Contact us for more information soil.water@hamiltoncounty.in.gov Happy Trails!  ​

Emergency Spill Response

 Should a spill occur, here are the spill response steps that should be followed:

• Human safety first – always the number one priority. Make sure that everyone involved in the situation is safe and has received medical attention if needed,
• Control the spill – the source of the spill,
• Contain the spill – It is best to keep the manure in one area if possible and prevent it from flowing into nearby surface waters. Ideas or considerations for this may include damming up an area using dirt or utilizing straw/hay bales as a buffer to absorb manure,
• Contact the appropriate authorities – Specifically in Indiana, The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM)        (888) 233-7745 or (317) 233-7745; Regulated Drains or Stormwater Drain impacts: 317-776-8495
• Clean-up the spill,
• Document the spill – this serves to protect you as it is proof that you made a concerted effort to minimize any associated environmental risk.