Cows provide more than milk and beef for our tables.
They supply farmers and gardeners with a valuable resource -- manure.
Cows are incredible producers of manure and cow urine.
A healthy cow in a grazing field can produce about 100 pounds of cow poop daily.
As you can image properly disposing that much waste is no easy task.
However, farmers have been using a method of manure disposal for hundreds of years.
So, what have these farmers done with all that cow waste? The manure has been turned into compost and fed to plants and vegetable crops with impressive results.
To make use of the cow manure it must first be removed through a pressure washing from where the cows are kept.
At this point it has turn into sludge, and directed into holding ponds for its final disposal, which can be carried out through the following methods.
The sludge can be spread across a large field with the use of a truck, resulting in a thin layer of compost.
Or, the cow manure sludge may be diluted with water and used feed the plants.
Both methods provide plants, crops and grasses easily absorbed, nutrient packed fertilizer.
The manure is a food plants love.
This is prime example of recycling, using the cow manure to feed the grasses which then the cows depend on as a food source.
The manure is also used to make "cow pots", which are a biodegradable seed starting growing container.
Using cow manure is a common practice among home gardeners, organic farmers, vineyard owners, golf courses and gardening nurseries.