IM not a snob,but it stinks!!!

rox · Feb 20, 2006

escavader,
An idea would be to find some chicken farms and stop over (better than phone calling) and ask what the laws are about chicken manure. Surley they will know. There can be some state laws that yu may not be aware of. I'm curious if the retired airline pilot lives on the farm? Then wouldn't he be experiencing the same odors you are experiencing?

I know it is hard but try an keep an open mind. My husband and I are new farmers and there are times we would like to do something but we don't know how. I could be that the new farmer would also like to get that manure on the fields but he is having an equipment problem that is preventing him form getting the job done. I don't believe you have talked to him or you would have mentioned it in your post, so you might jsut make a call and ask him if he needs any help getting the manure tilled into the fields.

Probably your best support can come from the orginal farmer. You said the the orginal farmer and the wanna be farmer are getting along, could you enlist his support on your behalf?

Good Luck to you and don't think about moving. Give the wanna be farmer the benefit of the doubt, he never had chicken manure delivered before and probably it was as much a shock to him as it is to you.

escavader · Feb 20, 2006

Thanks everyone,I DONT REALLY WANT TO RAISE A STINK ABOUT IT. ooohhhh that was bbbbbaaaadddddddd /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gifyou minds well keep your humourright.
My wife thinks we ought to ride it out and wait and see what happens.It cant get tilled in its hay fields.Some of the other neighbors are closer than us,im gonna talk to them,i really dont think ill go it alone,they are complaining too.
Now heres the stickey: Should i go to the new farmer about dumping it in the feilds or the retired one whom is letting him do it?It aint gonna do no good to go to the town,because the retired farmer is the head selectman in our tiny town and he pretty much runs the show.I really dont think its wise in life to go over someones head,until you give someone a chance.
Next question: How long will the real intense smell last if we try to ride it out? Do any of the MAINE people on the forum know if dep has any regulations,you see them decoster egg farm trucks hauling all over the state.
What really ticks me off is if the guy was gonna use all that hay for his animals We might be more understanding,but i bet 90% will get sold for his profit,at our expense.
I agree with every one of you about dangerous fertilizers.I also agree the egg farms need to dispose of their waste,and farmland sure can use it.I wish it were somewhere else though.Im dragging my feet i really dont want to take any action,but why should my house inside have to smell bad because of what someone else is doing?I might live with the outside for a few weeks but not the inside too it is wrong in my book.I think even farmers should have mabey a little consideration,its a two way street.SORRY IF I RUFFLED ANY OF MY FRIENDS FEATHERS HERE ON TBN
ALAN

cowboydoc · Feb 20, 2006

You don't even know if he knows that he's causing you problems yet. Go talk to him. Not as a pseudo vigilante group but a good neighbor. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Very few people want to purposely be jerks about something. I'm sure if he realizes he is causing all of you undue grief with the pile he will take care of it.

Freds · Feb 20, 2006

I kind of see your point. Something should be done with it, but then, Rox made some good points, too. Maybe he just doesn't know any better. Maybe it was "take it now for free or next month I'll have to charge you". Who knows without talking to the individual?
I also want to ask if you are sure the smell is everywhere? Don't take this the wrong way, but I know when I give a dog a skunk bath the smell hangs out inside my sinuses for a couple days. If you go outside and catch a whiff, you just might have the smell etched into your brain and sinuses no matter where you're at. It might not take much to set off your olafactory glands.

On another note, but kind of along the same lines.... There's some "talking" going on at the zoning board in my community about whether a farmer who has typically grape farmed can start a small pig farm. Prices are falling out of grape farming and he wants to raise pigs to make ends meet. He is zoned for it already, but enough neighbors have "raised a stink" to have zoning taking a closer look at it.

Granted, the pig farm wasn't there all along, but the farmer was. Something doesn't seem right here to me.

DLMaine01 · Feb 21, 2006

Maine has a "Right to Farm Law" that does give farmers some rights in this type of situation.
I agree you should try the direct approach and talk reasonably with both farmers involved.
Involve the DEP only as a last resort.
Good Luck
Dave

dmccarty · Feb 21, 2006

Freds,

There is raising pigs and then there is raising pigs.

If the guy just wanted a few pigs for his family and friends that is one thing. Or even if he was going to sell via a co-op that is another. But when I hear pig farm I think of the industrial farms in eastern NC which have lagoons full of pig poop and pee. That would be my concern. My father in law had a pig factory put in a few miles from his place. When they spray the fields from the gunk in the lagoon and the window blows towards his house you stay inside. Its aweful. There have been lawsuits about the impact this has on people but the factories have won everytime. The industry paid for research into the smell and waste disposal. This bought them a few years of peace since they could say they were waiting on the results of the research. Well the research is in and the cost to fix the problem is more than the factories want to pay. But since they are farmers they get away with it. There is no way a city/town or a industrial factory could have a lagoon full of pee and poop but the factory farms get away with it. The smell is worse than a chicken house. And the chicken houses don't seem to stink except when they clean them out every so often.

Later,
Dan

scott_vt · Feb 21, 2006

Hi Alan,
I sympathize with you on the chicken manure issue! Just like you I grew up next to a dairy operation, and got quite accustomed to cow manure. Really didnt bother me at all. Occassionally they would spread chicken manure, wow, in a league by itself /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif The good news was, just as Jerry stated the smell dissapated within a day or two, especially if they disced it into the soil.

Good luck with your problem, as someone else stated, I would go talk to the person first!

scotty

Freds · Feb 21, 2006

I'm sure there's a lot I don't know about it, Dan. I remember reading something like 90 pigs, killing them off every year and starting with new ones (piglets?) the following year. There was something about an environmental impact, too, as there is a nearby trout stream that dumps into Lake Erie, but he had conducted the study already and was told how to do things.

I guess I'm just feeling for the guy trying to "keep the farm". According to him this is the most feasible option to make extra money, to make up for the low prices of late running a vineyard.... and trust me, when you see a guy on a tractor wearing white coveralls and a mask, you kind of wonder what the environmental impact of whatever they are spraying has on the area. My property is the width of a country road from a large vineyard and my house 100 feet from that. Directly downwind. Nobody warns me of what the heck they are spraying a few times a year, but I keep the dogs inside, the windows shut, wait til the dust settles and carry on with life without raising a stink. (cough, cough /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif)

Robert_in_NY · Feb 24, 2006

I agree with Doc. Just go talk to the guy and ask him about his operation and what his plans are and go at it from there. But don't walk up and say "your place stinks, fix it or else" as that won't do any good. We were burning some brush piles a few years back. There is one idiot neighbor who's house was down wind about a half mile from the fire. It wasn't a strong wind but was just something that I didn't think about ahead of time. Anyway, the guy comes over to my house. Jumps out of his van and proceeds to call me every name in the book and orders me to put the fire out or he will call the fire department. Well, there is only one path that leads to where the fire is and I parked the dozer there and let the fire burn. If he would have come over and just talked to me I would have spread the fire out and put it out as best as I could but he was vulgar and just made me mad. Now if this was about chicken litter at the time I would have had as many more truckloads brought in as I could to teach this guy a lesson about manners. Just approach the farmer politely and talk to him as a neighbor. It will go a lot farther then having a notice delivered to his door or a mob yelling at him in a public hearing (like what happens to a dairy farmer in a town a few miles over).

On this topic though, I would love to be close to a chicken farm to be able to get the litter. It would save a lot of money on fertilizer for my hay fields. Good luck to you.