How to Make Animal Dung Manure Compost

The livestock industry generates huge amounts of manures which contain significant nutrients, organics, heavy metals and pathogens. Applications of livestock manures to soil can recycle nutrients, increase soil organic matter, and improve soil physical conditions. On the other hand, hazardous materials such as heavy metals and pathogens potentially lead to environmental contamination.

China is one of the largest producers of animal manures in the world, with an annual output of more than 1.9 billion tons. Among all the manures from livestock and poultry in China, swine, cattle, and chicken are the greatest outputs, and thus the main sources of animal wastes.

What is Manure?

Most farmers think animal dung is manure. Animal dung is not manure, it is just dung. And it is not advisable to apply it directly into your crops. Why?

• The dung will start decomposing, and the process will produce heat, which can damage the roots and kill your crops.
• The crops cannot access the required nutrients in time, and this leads to poor development and yield.
• The dung can transmit diseases and introduce weeds.

So before you apply the dung in the field, you have to process it first to turn it into manure.

Figure 1. Demonstration of composting

Composting is an environmentally friendly and economical alternative to treating organic wastes and can convert animal manures to organic fertilizers. Whether composts are suitable for land applications depends on their maturity and stability, which can be evaluated by their physicochemical characteristics, and the disappearance of their phytotoxicity assessed by seed germination.

Manure is decomposed organic matter from both plants and animals. It contributes to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients such as nitrogen. There are three types of manure. These are:

1. Animal manure;
2. Compost manure; and,
3. Green/plant manure.

Manure is composed of animal faeces and urine and may contain livestock bedding, additional water and wasted feed. It is a valuable fertilizer that contains a broad range of nutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) as well as micronutrients such as copper (Cu), manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn).

Manures with added bedding are also an excellent source of organic matter which improves soil quality when applied to land. The water, nutrient and organic matter contents of manures, however, vary greatly making them more difficult to manage than synthetic fertilizers.

So How Do You Turn Cow Dung to Manure?

There are many ways of making manure. “I grew up at a Roman Catholic Diocese, where they kept a lot of cattle and having vast gardens, this is what they use to do. There was a pit about 6m by 6m.  All the dung collected from the stables was dumped in the pit and they would collect grass and dump it in the same pit, putting them in layers, add some soil and leave it there for a month then start applying it in the garden.” Mwinsa Kasosa - Zambia

“There is another way, you need to have 10kg of chemical fertilizer, 20kg of preferably pig droppings, but you can use any other. Bat droppings are also very good. And 20kg of maize husk (gaga) and 5kg of ash.

Mix these parts and add water until the mixture is wet such that if you form a lump in your hand it cannot be broken easily. Then put the wet mixture in a tight bag with plastic lining inside for 21 days. After 21 days drain them. Then you can apply into your crops about double the size of the recommended chemical fertilizer. If you used NPK fertilizer to make manure, you can use it as basal dressing, and if you used Urea to make it, you can use it as top dressing.” Uchindami Chawinga – Malawi

Benefits of Livestock Manure

Animal manure has been used for centuries as fertilizer for farming because it improves soil structure (aggregation) and holds nutrients and water. This improves soil fertility. Animal manure also encourages soil microbial activity, which promotes the soil's trace mineral supply, improving plant nutrition. It also contains some nitrogen and other nutrients that assist the growth of plants. Unlike chemical fertilizers, compost manure have proven useful in sustainable agriculture as a means of climate change adaptation.

Manure improves soil structure of the top soil through the supply of organic matter. This in turn:

1. Improves root penetration
2. Improves permeability
3. Improves water retention capacity
4. Improves resistance to erosion
5. Improves aeration
6. Reduces leaching of soil nutrients
7. Improves soil microbial activity

Deliberate Efforts to Improve Synergy

• It is important that there is a proper integration of crop and livestock by farmers so that either can benefit from the other in a sustainable way.
• The other important factor with compost manure is that they are low cost inputs in comparison to inorganic fertilizers and they supply nutrients even in subsequent years after application. As opposed to compost manure, chemical fertilizers only contribute to raising the total amount of nutrients in the soil without maintaining the organic matter content of the soil and eventually this leads to soil structure deterioration.