Build Yourself A Barnyard Burner

Build Yourself A Barnyard Burner ENERGY Miscellaneous Bill Mayes Brevard N Car is convinced that his sheep thrive on water warmed to about body temperature After reading several articles on the subject he decided to try heating water for his own flock But he s a confirmed ecologist and didn t want to spend a lot of money heating water So he made do with what he had to build a Barnyard Burner Mayes says he took a tip from Mother Earth News and now lets his sheep heat their own water Or more specifically water is heated by composting sheep manure He didn t have running water at his sheep barn so he collects water from the barn roof and stores it in a used 500 gallon steel tank He then coiled 75 ft of 1-in plastic tubing around the tank with one end attached to the tank and the other end to a valve which controls water flow to the sheep waterer Twice a week he scraped up manure straw and wasted feed from the sheep feeding area and piled it all on top of the tank and coiled tubing Salvage 1 by 2 in welded wire mesh was used to make an 8 ft dia ring around the tank to hold the composting material in place Once the pile starts composting says Mayes it settles almost as fast as he adds new material In fact almost half the tank was still exposed into January of last winter but water in the tank never froze at all He then piled on some cow manure and old straw to cover the tank and increase heating So in spite of several nights when the temperature dipped below zero and never got above 30? all day the water stayed warm and he had no freezing Mayes did however have to shove the valve back into the pile a short distance to keep it from freezing He took about 100 gal of water from the tank daily and says most of it was from 85 to 95? Sheep seem to like a water temperature of about 90? or slightly below body temperature If it s much warmer they ll wait till it cools some says Mayes I don t have any records to show that they ate less feed when I gave my sheep heated water But it makes sense to me that they eat less or gain more if they don t have to burn energy to warm water after they drink it Mayes hasn t tried warming water for his cows but says he would if he gets the time and can find enough materials to build another compost heater for them Mayes runs a summer camp for boys ù about 112 at a time from all over the country who spend four weeks working playing and learning together When FARM SHOW interviewed Mayes in late July some of the boys were spreading compost from the water heater and were anxious to start a new pile to see how the system operates Everything here is recycled says Mayes We compost grass clippings dining hall scraps garden residue anything that will compost goes into a pile that s about 11 feet wide and up to 100 feet long We also save and recycle paper glass cans and whatever else can be reused It teaches the boys some lessons Composting experts say a mixture of about 25-30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen provides the best quickest compost But like Mayes most composters use whatever materials they have on hand For instance grass clippings and rotted manure have carbon-nitrogen ratios of about 20 to one; leaves range 40 to 80 to one with an average of 50-60; and straw has an 80 to one ratio Wood and sawdust have several hundred parts carbon to one part nitrogen and are quite slow to compost But too much nitrogen may cause the pile to give off ammonia and too little nitrogen cause slow composting The first pile I tried heated quickly and then went out says Mayes But the second pile worked better providing hot water for about 15 weeks There is no real convenient means of controlling temperature after a pile starts composting except to increase or decrease moisture content of the pile It should be about 40% Water can be added if material is too dry or turning the pile will encourage drying it if it s too wet Some compost piles tested by Mother Earth News reportedly reached and sustained internal temperatures of 156? for several months So the amount of water w

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