Home Built Compost Windrow Turner

[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.