sheep shit, the other brown poo?

[Jigalow]

Wanted to know what ya' all think about using
Sheep poo compared to Horse, Donkey or Cow.
I've searched but can not find any grow logs with it in use...

Thanks, much respect!

[Irishlion]

Originally Posted by Jigalow

Wanted to know what ya' all think about using
Sheep poo compared to Horse, Donkey or Cow.
I've searched but can not find any grow logs with it in use...

Thanks, much respect!

Ya know I have wondered the same thing man. Perhaps if it was dried then shredded up and added to some straw or coir I would imagine it would do rather nicely. As sheep feed on alot of vegatation.

[assmonkey75]

Funny thread title.

According to this article, the N-P-K is similar to horsepoo except for more potassium. It's described as a "hot poo" like equine excrement. Sheep are ruminant and horses are nonruminant so the poo may be a lot more like cow poo.

If it's free, give it a whack. Why not.

[golly]

If it's of fiberous texture, then it should do very well with minimal amendments ..
Still should be aged or composted though..

[Jigalow]

Thanks Guys!

Yeah I was asking my buddy if he wanted to go
hop some fences and scrape up some Cow Patties with me.

He was like dumbass, my Pop runs a Sheep Farm remember?
I've known this for years but it just didn't click...doh!

It's a far drive so I don't know if I should just go get a
bag full for now and test it out, or load a truck down.

[Joe Balls]

Originally Posted by Jigalow

Thanks Guys!

Yeah I was asking my buddy if he wanted to go
hop some fences and scrape up some Cow Patties with me.

He was like dumbass, my Pop runs a Sheep Farm remember?
I've known this for years but it just didn't click...doh!

It's a far drive so I don't know if I should just go get a
bag full for now and test it out, or load a truck down.

If you go to the farm you may find a nice pile composting already but beware if it has the straw from the barns as it may contain a high % of PISS (technical term).

[Jigalow]

Thanks Joe,

He stated there some nicely aged stuff ready to go.
They are mostly range grazed. But if need be I am
down to leach the poo to pull out the ammonia.

[oakchild]

Originally Posted by Jigalow

Yeah I was asking my buddy if he wanted to go
hop some fences and scrape up some Cow Patties with me.

He was like dumbass, my Pop runs a Sheep Farm remember?
I've known this for years but it just didn't click...doh!

Congrats on the score Brother!

Blessings,
Oakchild

8-)

[Joe Balls]

Originally Posted by Jigalow

Thanks Joe,

He stated there some nicely aged stuff ready to go.
They are mostly range grazed. But if need be I am
down to leach the poo to pull out the ammonia.

You had to go and get all technical on me.

Sounds like a good score. Good luck.

[Skatterman420]

Oh boy, you lucky dog.


I have a horse place close to where I live, I just don't know how to explain picking up shit, when its winter time.

[Jigalow]

Skat,

just tell them you want to get it mixed in the garden before
winter fully hits... yeah tryin' to get a hold of my Buddy to go
today.... Popcorn will be done in a week!!

[oakchild]

Originally Posted by Jigalow

Skat,

just tell them you want to get it mixed in the garden before
winter fully hits... yeah tryin' to get a hold of my Buddy to go
today.... Popcorn will be done in a week!!

Or tell em you use it for fuel to heat your barn.

[Skatterman420]

Haha, I suppose that would work.

[Jigalow]

Well, I got all excited so ran down and got a pile of cow dung
From a cornfield. A litte fresher then I wanted but what the hell.
Broke it up and letting fully dry out. Maybe this will keep me
busy till I can get some of the sheep shit. or maybe I'll wait
and mix 50/50 Cow/sheep what you think?

[Skatterman420]

Haha, antsy antsy


Looks like some nice shit!


I bet your popcorn will take that over nicely

[Irishlion]

Originally Posted by Jigalow

Well, I got all excited so ran down and got a pile of cow dung
From a cornfield. A litte fresher then I wanted but what the hell.
Broke it up and letting fully dry out. Maybe this will keep me
busy till I can get some of the sheep shit. or maybe I'll wait
and mix 50/50 Cow/sheep what you think?

The cow will do you nicely but, mixing it 50/50 with the sheep I am quite sure would yeild alot better results, although I have seen very good results with cow, I would however suggest you add verm and straw to it as cow tend to end up like mud when you hydrate it. Can't wait to see the results of it.

[Jigalow]

Irish,

I was thinking verm for sure, maybe mixed with coir?
Don't know about straw, as I've heard it drys out quick.
and I have nooooo RH.... Tell me what ya think.
Keeping things humid has been my primary battle.
This will be my 1st 'shitty' experience so please by all means interject!

[oakchild]

Straw dries out quick when exposed to air, but if you have it mixed in with your poo it should be fine. Especially if you case! I suggest the following mixture (Assuming you only have cow poo):

2:2:1:1 (Cow Poo:Straw:Coir:Verm) add in a dash of gypsum for extra nutrients.

Hydrate to field capacity (Should only have a few drops fall when you squeeze really hard), then add dry verm a very small amount at a time until squeezing no longer gives drops. I have noticed that over-hydrated poo subs tend to be very slow to colonize. Since durring colonization you will have 0 FAE, you will have no problem keeping RH up.

Case in 1:1 (Coir:Verm)

One other thing that has worked well for me when doing trays or monotubs has been to add a nice thick layer of hydrated 1:1 (Coir:Verm) at the bottom of the tray/tub then layering substrate and spawn. Then once fully colonized case with 1:1 (Coir:Verm) on top and you get some nice big flushes cause there is plenty of water from the psudo DEC.

Good luck!

Blessings,
Oakchild

8-)

[oakchild]

Also, considering your RH problem, I think I have a good idea to solve that.

You are doing mono-tubs right?

My idea will require a little bit of design work to fit to your particular situation, in which case I need a little more info about your setup. Send me a PM. I will post the design when I am done.

Blessings,
Oakchild

8-)

[CoyoteMesc]

I think any herbivore's poo will doo

[Jigalow]

Originally Posted by oakchild

Also, considering your RH problem, I think I have a good idea to solve that.

You are doing mono-tubs right?

My idea will require a little bit of design work to fit to your particular situation, in which case I need a little more info about your setup. Send me a PM. I will post the design when I am done.

Blessings,
Oakchild

8-)

Thanks Oak for taking the time. My tube setup is a ultrasonic on a
timer running 1 min every 4 hours and I still end up misting in the morning.
The tub is a 60ish Gal. I have pooled water in the bottom of the tub
which I try to soak up weekly and the RH is still like 80 max% isn't that whacked? The small tubs with perlite will stay about 80-90% with an added daily misting by hand no problem.
I just hate messing with perlite in the big tubes. Also using a ronco temp switch to a heating mat user the tank for at night. I figured would help to evaporate the pooling water. I just need to find the sweat spot
with the ultrasonic settings....

PS. posted here, figured might be helpful for others

[oakchild]

Only 1 tub, okay that makes it easy (Relatively).

1. plug up all of your holes in the tub (black electrical tape works well and comes off easy later).
2. Get a 5 gallon bucket with a lid.
3. Get an aquarium air pump and put it in a box with a filter. See the attached pictures (Polyfill holes are okay, you don't need a HEPA for this).
4. For each airline coming from your filtered air pump (FAP) drill 2 holes for airlines in the lid for your 5 gallon bucket.
5. Run the airlines from your FAP thru holes in the bucket lid, all the way down to the bottom of the bucket. Attach airstones to the ends of the airlines in the bottom of the bucket.
6. Run air lines from the top of the remain holes in the bucket lid to some holes near the top of your Fruiting Tub (Preferably evenly spaced around your tub). Optionally you can run additional lines from the bucket to the tub to more evenly distribute the incoming air.
7. Seal all of the airline holes with silicon or RTV. If your tub lid doesn't sit tightly, you should concider making a RTV gasket around the lip of the tub.
8. Now make exhaust holes (evenly distributed around your tub) just above your casing line. The area of these holes added up should be approximately 2-2.5 times the total cross sectional area of all the airlines running from the FAP to the bucket.
9. Cover all of your exhaust holes with __TYVEK__ (Tyvek will not let the moister pass readily, don't use polyfil or micropore tape)
10. Put a submersible aquarium heater or submersible hydroponic heater (Hint: These are cheaper and you can get them at your neiboorhood hydroponic store. they typically also have an external temperature control which is nice). Put the heater at the bottom of the bucket.
11. Optional: If you want different (Day/Night) temperature settings you can hook the submersible heater up to a Ranco Temperature Controler, or have 2 submersible heaters with different temperature settings hooked up to seperate timers with opposite time settings.
12. Optional: Fill the bottom of the bucket with about 4-5 inches of pumice. This will help the air from the airstone saturate the water better. If you do this and you are using an aquarium heater without external temperature controls make sure you set the temperature first or it will be a PITA to do later!
13. Put 1-2 cups of salt in the bucket. This will prevent bacteria from being able to live.
14. Put about 4-5 inches of perlite in the bucket. The perlite will prevent bubbles from directly making it to the surface promoting instead rapid evaporation of oxygenated water from the surface of the perlite.
15. Fill the bucket with water so it is 3/4 full when the perilite is pushed under water. Give it a good stir to mix the salt in. You will probably want to put something heavy on the perlite to push it under for a while to soak. Remove the heavy object when you are satisfied.
16. Let the submersible heater equilibrate to the water temperature (usually about 6 hours).
17. Plug in the aquarium heater. The RH in the Bucket should soon reach 100% .
18. We need to determine the Airflow of the system. Burn a bunch of insense or Sage or something similar in the tub then turn on the FAP and record the amount of time it takes to clear the tub of the smoke. Now you know how often you need to run it, and for how long, to get the correct number of FAE/hr.
19. Plug the FAP into a timer configured with the correct settings as determined by the previous step.
20. IMPORTANT: Make sure to store your FAP above the water line in the bucket. If your FAP is below the water line you risk the FAP getting filled with water if the bucket gets knocked over. You don't want that to happen. This is something that is typically seen as a warning in the aquarium pump documentation as well.
21. Optional: if you want to be really fancy and go for compleate neglect, you can put a float valve (from the tank of a toilet) in the bucket to automatically fill the bucket when the water level drops.

You can of course still use the Ultrasonic Humidifier as well. But the bucket design should ensure that all incoming air already has the proper humidity, and the tub should have no holes which will allow dry air in, and vapor should be greatly limited from escaping by the tyvek.

Questions? Comments?

Blessings,
Oakchild

8-)

[seedlessstinky1]

Damn Oakchild! Thats a hell of a set-up! Way sweet. Thx for the info. Jigalow, good luck man.

[oakchild]

Originally Posted by seedlessstinky1

Damn Oakchild! Thats a hell of a set-up! Way sweet. Thx for the info. Jigalow, good luck man.

Bare in mind that this is way more complex than it needs to be (i.e. totally overkill) if you don't live in a desert. Most people can keep 100% RH with Perlite alone. Along the same lines, if you don't live in a desert you can get 100% RH with a Ultrasonic Humidifier without having to battle water pooling at the bottom of your tub.

What I am trying to say is don't go to all of the trouble to build this thing if you don't need it.

But for those of you who do need it: I am glad to contribute back to such an awesome community! Mechanical engineering (McGuiver Style) is one of my strengths.

Blessings,
Oakchild

8-)

[Jigalow]

Originally Posted by oakchild

2:2:1:1 (Cow Poo:Straw:Coir:Verm) add in a dash of gypsum for extra nutrients.

8-)

Oak your the man reading over everything.

So I can sub Drywall chalk for gypsum correct?

[oakchild]

Originally Posted by Jigalow

Oak your the man reading over everything.

So I can sub Drywall chalk for gypsum correct?

Some do it successfully, but I wouldn't touch that shit! there are other additives in sheetrock that I wouldn't want the shrooms to "mycoremediate" and transfer to myself or my friends.

Best to get gypsum from a garden shop. I think Home Depot has it. They sell it as a soil conditioner (For breaking down tough clay soil). It isn't very expensive and they sell it by the gigantic sack. It lasts a really long time.

Blessings,
Oakchild

8-)