Horse manure as fuel

OK, OK, stop laughing. Our horse farm keeps getting larger and the manure pile keeps getting larger too. I recycle the stuff as we store it for about 5yrs plus add a little lime, mix it with the Cat and the local nursery grabs it for free and makes top soil that is then reused. Good for the environment, not so good for me as we give away tons of manure/shavings for free. Soooo.. ideas please.

Modern wood stoves use secondary heating for efficiency so how about a small coal/wood burner primary chamber feeding a large secondary chamber of compressed shavings/manure. I bet if it's hot enough it would burn super clean and hot and a 2000F anthracite fire would be a hell of a start. If I could only make it a simple process????? I need to find a cheap off the shelf burner that I could adapt. My initial idea is a scoop from the Cat 955h or the smaller Bobcat as the feeder, into a hopper, auger feed to a coal fired unit and then what???

I know it's raining and I'm bored but it just may work and if any person knows how to do this I am betting it's a board member. If it's not simple I know I won't do it. No compacting or drying as that would mean it's too much trouble. So I have tons (and tons) of this potential fuel, farm heavy equipment to load it and a powerful need to save money. I suspect anthracite is the catalyst I need. Here hydronics is a must of course as it needs to be way away from the house and piped in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWvoTzLzLwU

in viet nam we used to burn poop just mix diesel fuel in it light it and stir...what a fun job, after all night guard duty..

Don't know if it would work as well as cow poo but my local electric co-op & a local dairy farmer has had a poo digester on line for a few years now (250k) if there are enough farms willing to supply & a power Co. willing there were a lot of Gov. grants around. I have read where other countries are producing electric power in digesters using human waste, would most likely never see that here, too disgusting for Americans. But on a lighter note we all seem to be able to spread enough cyber poo on here, too bad it can't be used.

I just can't comment.......Washington, DC would be the richest source of fuel, as you all know.....then......great idea, and used for centuries around the world.
Can't you just 'savor the flavor' of a huge 'Texas-Burger' grilled at the Bistro Grill over a fire fueled by Black Angus dung.....
or the city folks driving the Prius to the zoo for an 'exotic blend' to fuel the 'Eco-Friendly Dung-Boiler' for hot water....Elephant Pellet Stoker Boilers......Rhino Pellets for the toughest cases.......it never stops.

As Freetown Fred would say: You haven't been to Vietnam if you haven't been fired on by the little guys opening up from behind the Honey-Wagon!!! It wasn't all jungle, folks!

Yes to the strawberry field.....yummmmm!

There's a guy down the road from me who makes $ from the type of composting operation you describe. If your topsoil is good enough that a nursery would use it, maybe you could sell it for a few bucks and buy more coal with the proceeds.

When we had horses, they stayed out most of the time, and we made liberal use of a field drag to control the "buildup", which basically became free fertilizer. IIRC the horses went out on the main hay field from 2nd cutting through the beginning of mud season in the spring, so we didn't need to even move the stuff.

Mike

You have plenty of time to make some poo bricks this summer and let then dry for next season
http://ihdg.proboards.com/index.cgi?boa ... ead=110237

I assume you guys read about a father and two sons who were overcome in a liquid manure operation on the Maryland border two weeks ago. Confined space takes no prisoners, and toxic O2 levels are just like CO2 in coal gas. The family lived in PA and worked in Maryland I think. Screw auger was bound up or a motor fried, and we have all read about NOT going into a confined space EVEN if there are more than one persons available. Sad to read about, easy to happen to any of us.

Be careful out there.....

I would investigate composting heat.

http://www.google.com/search?site=skipi ... ing%20heat

http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-h ... jzraw.aspx

http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/horsecompost.htm

http://downloads.cas.psu.edu/RenewableE ... gy0808.pdf

Just stick your arm in a pile of horse manure and see how hot it gets.

I would say look for government facts but they are expert in bullshit and not horse. Your friend Obummer might even give you a grant.

I'm glad I'm not the person who figured it out, but manure has little, if any, value as a fuel for combustion because the heat content of the "dry matter" tends to be consumed in the evaporation of the high moisture content "as received" - http://www.extension.org/pages/43862/wh ... -livestock .

Mike

this might be what your looking to do, let us know how it works. It might be more work than the heating btu's.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/hooker87.html

whistlenut wrote:I assume you guys read about a father and two sons who were overcome in a liquid manure operation on the Maryland border two weeks ago. Confined space takes no prisoners, and toxic O2 levels are just like CO2 in coal gas. The family lived in PA and worked in Maryland I think. Screw auger was bound up or a motor fried, and we have all read about NOT going into a confined space EVEN if there are more than one persons available. Sad to read about, easy to happen to any of us.

Be careful out there.....

Here's the link to the newspaper article on the deaths:

http://lancasteronline.com/article/loca ... e-pit.html

It's a 2-million-gallon septic 20 ft deep pond filled with manure, with steep sloping sides. Apparently open on top.

There is an amish guy who bought a pelletizer and is running duck manure through it. He brought me some to try in my Enviro M55 Muti fuel stove. They burned good other than they were alittle to long and kept jamming the auger. He is going to try and sell it in 40 lbs bags to the pellet stove people. Once he gets the machine dialed in, he just might have something.