Manure management big focus at farm show

Moving all that waste out of the barns at Manitoba Ag Ex takes a lot of time and money, but it’s a job that must be done 

BRANDON — Tens of thousands of times last week, cows plopped, splatted and splashed patties in the barns, hallways and rings of the Keystone Centre in Brandon.

And thousands of times cattle producers, especially young ones with little family rank, shoveled and forked up the brown pies, carrying them to manure carts that would be emptied onto piles behind the centre.

That’s all just sweat equity.

Manitoba Ag Ex got to handle the other details, like hauling in the wood chips and straw for the pens and tie-out areas and hauling out the piles of poop after the show was done.

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“It’s our biggest expense, by far,” Dallas Johnston, the Ag Ex show boss and long-time cattle producer from Brookdale, said in an interview in the show office.

After the show wrapped up, Johnston expected to see 120 tandem loads of manure hauled to the Brandon dump, where it will be composted.

That’s a lot of manure, but it doesn’t weigh a lot, being mostly straw and wood chips.

Bringing in that straw and wood chips had been another special delight this year.

Johnston had just ordered in another 40 round bales of straw after the first fall snow storm hit overnight and saw the show’s 60 bale stockpile fall to just six left by early in the morning of Oct. 26.

Some of the costs are significant. The wood chips this year cost about $6,800. Hauling away the manure was expected to cost about $10,000.

“If people look after their stall properly, that initial bedding can last about five days,” said Johnston, who has had to manage this manure issue for many years.

Cattle-showing families might grumble and gripe about shovelling and forking manure and carrying it to the carts in the barn. Pre-teen and teenage family members might whine and wail about being ordered to scrape and haul out the crap.

But there are some rare angels who actually volunteer to shovel stuff. The show relies upon well-intentioned people to volunteer to scrape, shovel and haul the manure from the hallways and show rings.

Are these sort of people easy to find?

“No, but it’s a necessity,” said Johnston.

Sometimes a volunteer will realize it’s just too much.

“A couple of years ago a guy said, ‘I’m not doing this,’ and he left.”

But fortunately, there tend to be enough people who will give in to earnest entreaties to help out, and the mess gets cleared every day.

This year was bad for straw because of all the snow. It’s also getting harder to find the stuff because Western Canada’s drought-ridden conditions of the last few years have made straw too valuable to donate to the show.

However cattle shows evolve in the future, and whatever happens with the climate, cattle will need bedding, people will need to haul manure and the people running cattle shows will need to find people willing to donate some time to shovel, fork and wheel the kind of stuff others would just rather walk past.