Oh, yes, the dung farmer has a solution for that..

What usualy happens is, come winter, the cattle and other animals are brought indoors to a barn, or shed, and the farmers muck out the stalls, spread the muck on frozen fields,(or pile the manure someplace, on frozen ground) and come the spring rains and melt off, the manure (too cold to have composted,) and still raw, flows into the water.. bad, bad..

the dung farmer doesn't muck out the stalls. he puts down a layers of straw.(every week or so) and about half way into the winter he layers corn seed in with the straw.. the stuff builds up (he has his cattle feeds bins adjustable, so he can make them higher..)

2 thing happen. 1, the layers build up, and anarobic bacterial action is taking place.. this generates heat and keeps the cattle warmer.. which means few of the calories are going to keep warm, and more are going to fatten up and grow the cows (saves money)
2, the corn, layered in the manure/straw gets heated and starts to malt.. (the starches turn to sugars, and sugars ferment.. )
end of winter (this is Virginia, so the coldest part of winter is about 60 to 80 days). he take out the cows. the muck is about 2.3 to 3 feet deep (almost a meter) and brings in the pigs.. they root, (looking for the corn that they can smell!) and turn the whole "compost" pile over! now you get arobic action. and in a week, the stuff is great fertilizer, and by now, the feilds are beginning to thaw, so the manure can be worked in, and not just sit on top of frozen ground, and be washed off with the next rain fall! and all the composting action has killed the weed seeds, and most (but not all) of the harmfull bacteria!and the rotting straw has elements besids the nitrogen that the manure is so rich in (it's still not perfect fertilizer, but it is more balanced than manure by itself..)

oh, and by the way, the pigs enjoyed all the corn..

so again, he get the animals to do some work (the pigs don't turn the piles of manure and straw over as work, but as their nature, they are hunting for foods, just as the chickens spread the manure in the summer because chickens naturally scratch at the ground for bugs and worms, and since the cow pie is so full of them, and so easy to scratch apart, that is were the chickens naturally spend the effort.

the farmer focus is Managing the sh*t, and by doing so, by seeing it as part of the cycle, (and not as waste) he better manages his farm. Obviously i only have a small amount of info, i need to wait and read the article to learn more details.. (after all, this was only


my other obsession