Home Built Compost Windrow Turner

[Greg_Phillips]

Has anyone on here built their own compost windrow turner? We are going to try and start composting the manure from our cattle herd and two horses but I don't want to have to use the bucket on our front end loader or a pitch fork to turn the piles. Been wondering if anyone has built a turner similar to the Brown Bear auger type turners seen and the website Brown Bear Corporation only smaller.

I would really like to hear from anyone who has built their own or has ideas about building something similar.

Thanks
Greg

 

[SPIKER]

we built a few devices that were similar to these. one was a grinder that the raw new material was dumped into and it wind rowed and ground the manure the 2nd was a turner that rotated and fluffed up the older rows. not complicated but also not something the regular home farm would need. ones we built were for high production dairy and horse manure to be composted and we built a bagger than then weighed and bagged the compost for re-sale.

I think we put 35~40K into all the machinery/systems for my bosses brother and his partner, they sold the up-start business for 175K with a 35HP tractor/loader the equipment we built and the suppliers names. The manure was hauled in by semi dump truck loads. they used a 20 acre hay field to do the composting in..

For small time stuff I would buy a Roto tiller and modify it, a chain drive type. Cut the side plates and lengthen them adding more chain, remove 1/2 the tines and replace with long straight blades. build a surround (think box blade) that would go around the modified tiller and leave the back open or squish the sides in some to force the turned over material into a row.

run the tiller at lower RPM than normal so that instead of chopping a lot it is only tossing the material.... change to sharpened blades when the material needs more finer parts..

Mark M

 

[Greg_Phillips]

Thanks for the ideas. I have a question, what about modifying a snowblower? What I have considering doing is to make all the flighting on the auger run to the right to discharge the compost. Another idea was to take the rear auger off of a manure spreader and use that along with a homebuilt frame to turn the material over, similar to how the Brown Bear operates.

 

[jda1961]

just pile the cow crap up and leave it alone, it will compost just fine by itself.

 

[Just2quickz28]

How about a set up with a rototiller? I use some clamp on debris forks that I made to turn over the compost pile usually 1-2 times a week.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Te newfarm forms has a few pics and plans to the one they built. I t could be upscled to a bigger or smaller unit. I plan on making a smaller one from an old mower conditioner I found. Or making a purpose built unit out of an old cotton picker.

 

[bx24]

For a low cost solution, I second the idea of modifying a 3 point snow-blower. Another option would be to use some sort of snow type front plow that could "roll" the manure.

Letting it sit would be the easiest, but if you are in a hurry, I would modify an existing implement

Good luck

 

[easygo]

How about this one? It seems the tractor running it can't be more then 25-30hp.
YouTube - Mighty Mike small tow behind compost turner

Edit: How many animals do you have on the farm?

 

[Greg_Phillips]

Right now we have about 40 head of cattle and 2 belgian horses, but if this project goes well on a small scale, I have family who has about another 80 head of cattle and 10-15 horses and mules. Our are is also a very large poultry producing area so have manure of some type should not be a problem. I am leaning towards building a turner so that we can see if composting is even a worthwhile activity in our area. If it is and it takes off I will probably invest in a commercially produced unit in the future.

My current plan is to find a single stage snow blower so that it turns all the material over and moves it off to one side, or to modify a tiller and build a hitch so that it will straddle the windrow and the tractor will travel beside the material.

 

[bobodu]

Just use the beaters from an old manure spreader.

 

[JohninCT]

I have a question, what about modifying a snowblower? What I have considering doing is to make all the flighting on the auger run to the right to discharge the compost. Another idea was to take the rear auger off of a manure spreader and use that along with a homebuilt frame to turn the material over, similar to how the Brown Bear operates.

When I saw the brown bear video I was thinking the same thing... snowblower or manure spreader beater. Here is another thought. Could you just run a two bottom plow over the area to turn it over? Then you wouldn't have to build a special machine. If the composting doesn't work out you could sell the plow.

 

[charlz]

I have a guy down the way that will bring me dump trailer loads of horse manure when I request it. I have him dump it in a windrow. I wet it down, back into/over it from both long sides with my 3pt tiller, wet again, restack the windrow with the loader. I do this a few times and it is 'done enough' in about 2 months to move it to a 'round pile' and start over with a new windrow. Still somewhat hot at this point though. The tiller does a great job of incorporating the water evenly and introducing oxygen. This makes for a nice hot pile which helps it breakdown fast and sterilize any weed seeds etc.

This method might be good enough to let you make a few test runs and see how it goes, space required, water needs, etc. Sounds like maybe you are going to do this a business venture though. In that case the windrow turner save a ton of 'restack' time.

Have you researched who your customers might be? Any environmental concerns from runoff etc?

 

[charlz]

As for actually building a windrow turner I think the few I have seen have one or two rows of 'beaters' running across the middle. Using some off old manure spreaders would likely fit the bill as others have mentioned.

I like the 'in row' concept as you are not shifting rows from one side to the other. Otherwise when you have multiple windrows (and you will) you would have to drive all the way back around to hit the next row.

Also I think most commercial compost operations screen their finished product so might be something else to look into building

 

[Greg_Phillips]

To begin with I am only going to composting to get rid of some cow/horse manure on our farm and possibly a family members farm for our own use on gardens and possibly yard, pastures/hay ground. If the experiment works and there is a demand I may eventually work into commercial compost production.

Thanks for the idea about the tiller, I hadn't thought of that and we do have a 3PT tiller.

 

[easygo]

In that commercial turner the steel blades seem to be straight. It chops and turns the compost. No reason why you could not do that. It sounds like you have plenty of manure to work with. If you have a lot of pastures you may not even have enough stuff to sell in the end.
Whatever you end up doing post some pictures.

I make compost too on a much smaller scale. The horse farm down the road from me welcomes anyone who shows up to haul away a few trailer loads of the manure. I pile up about 6-8 yards of different stuff and it cooks down to roughly half the volume.

 

[hddnis]

So, after six years, did you build a windrow turner?

 

[roadhunter]

I've worked with a company over in Western Kentucky that makes boilers that burn manure and generate heat as well as a product called biochar if you need another option for utilizing your manure. They also make equipment that you can heat the manure up and sterilize it for a soil amendment.