The Accidental Agrarian

Elsewhere¹ I have written much about the primary currency of the domesticated dairy cow–milk. I may have, in passing, even mentioned her gift of the occasional calf. Now, that is a dividend not to be sniffed at.²  But to date, I am pretty sure, I have never mentioned one of the chief payments a cow can make–cow pies.

Dung³, Manure, Merde, call it what you will, it can be pure gold. Gold, in terms of profit. Profit, as in money not needed to be spent on bought in fertilizers. Now, I am not taking about shit here. I am not speaking of endless lagoons of fecal soup waste. The sort of blight which ruins the landscape, air quality and classifies as toxic. That sort of concentrated excrement is a bio-hazard created by the industrialized mal-treatment of livestock and consumers. Whether left to fester in barely adequate “holding” ponds, leaking down the Black River, or spewed out endlessly over fields during the winter where it runs off the frozen ground, industrialized manure is something to be avoided at all cost. About the only thing it may be good for is generating electricity or powering vehicles.

No, the valuable commodity I am talking about is true dung. The semi-solid waste by product of the grass-grazing cow. It is neither liquid–as it can be in the spring when the grass first greens and has so much energy the cow cannot process it, and so shoots it out the back end–nor solid. Each cow pat is a balance of moisture and dry matter, nutrients and minerals. The perfect sort of dung can be picked up individually with a pitch fork without running through the tines. It can be gently flung into a cart, but breaks down upon impact. If composted in this state it tends to break down easily, heating up quickly. If tilled into the land directly it will disintegrate and fertilize immediately. There is no run-off with this sort of manure. There is very little odor.

Of course, the best method of application for such a versatile and useful fertilizer as this is by direct deposit. As the cattle graze forward, they fertilize behind. This perfect systems is completely sustainable and whether intensive grazing is practiced or not, keeps nutrients in the ground and working. The next best method is to store the manure and spread it over the fields during the spring and summer when the ground is open and receptive to fertilizing. Because good quality manure from healthy, grass-fed animals is its own biome it lends itself to collection and distribution by human means in ways that collectivized, saturated, fecal soup from lagoons does not.

And so today found me on a sunny, south facing hillside, pitchfork in hand, rusty wheelbarrow by my side, forking manure piles up to bring to our main garden. Because it is winter and I don’t want to waste the vital power of this gift from my cow, I have been picking up all Bridget’s pats and splats and piles to keep her paddock clean. Not only does this help the quality of her milk–by not trodding in manure herself, she doesn’t brush her udder with manure caked hoof, nor tread it into the shed, so the whole process can be a bit cleaner–but also it keeps the ground in one small area from becoming saturated and slick during the wettest part of the year. It is the simplest practice of age old animal husbandry.

During the week I pile the manure and soiled hay outside the paddock and then as I find time I wheel it down to the garden to improve the soil and provide long-lasting and powerful fertilization for this year’s corn crop. It’s not a pretty job. It’s not something to boast about–although the garden is a 1/2 mile away and all the exercise can’t be that bad–but neither is it messy, smelly or disgusting in any way. When viewed in the proper light one can see it as a form of payment for keeping the cow so well and looking after her. And down in the garden as the piles build up and I look forward to spreading them out and tilling them in I can notice my previous year’s efforts starting to pay off in the depth and condition of the soil, its water retention, and its overall rich appearance. In the dollars and sense of livestock keeping, manure–one of the currencies of the cow–is one of the things my garden is banking on.

Technorati Tags: manure, dung, soil, cows, dairy, cow currency, farming, agriculture, animal husbandry, gardening

1. Gastrocast Blog, Kitchen Garden Network, Accidental Agrarian [↩]
2. This all depends on whether the calf is a heifer, or a bull calf. A pure bred dairy heifer is a prize. A pure bred dairy bull calf is surplus to needs, and arguably not good enough for veal or beef. Most smallholders, like myself, choose to breed a dairy cow to a beef bull to get a passable beef cross for meat. In my experience a Highland Bull crossed with a Jersey cow makes good meat, albeit on a small carcass. [↩]
3. Definition [↩]

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This entry was posted by Podchef on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 7:34 pm and is filed under Commentary, Dairy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.