The Government wants to jail me

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Originally Posted by Hazell B

The UK Government has just passed a law saying landowners can't add more than 170kg of manure per year, per hectare.

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You can't add it, but the horse can.

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Originally Posted by Hazell B

Stick with me on this. It's interesting .....

A horse needs about a half hectare of grass to feed itself all year round. I have one hectare for my two ponies. Each pony eats about 2-3.5% of it's bodyweight each day, depending on weather, workload, age, etc. It's a high fibre diet that produces about 50% (dry weight) of manure from the 100% eaten. Due to the high water content of the diet, real manure weight is often higher than what went in in the first place. Cattle eat roughly the same, about 2.5%.

Still with me? Good.

My pony Sovereign is 350kg. He poos out about 10kg of manure a day on his half of the hectare. That's 3650kg each year. Over 7000kg per hectare. Cattle weigh far more than Sovereign.

The UK Government has just passed a law saying landowners can't add more than 170kg of manure per year, per hectare. Even if I dry every last ball of crap straight out of the pony, he's still massively over that limit.

The law has just made all dairy farmers, horse owners, sheep farmers, pig farmers and chicken keepers criminals :( Even somebody walking their Jack Russell in a one acre back garden would go over that limit!

Is this government so stupid as to not think before passing a law? There simply isn't enough of the UK to spread all it's cattle muck on, given the number of cows we have here.

Maybe I've been told the new regulations wrong, but as they are from a DEFRA leaflet sent to all farmers that seems a long shot.

By the end of January next year, I'll be a law breaker.

Anyone know of any more impossible laws we live with here? If I'm going to jail at least let me be a repeat offender :p :

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I asked a friend of mine that has a farm and she said something about to 170kg of nitrogen from manure per hectare per year

if thats the case you should find how much of the 7000kg of horse manure is nitrogen. finding a way to calculate that should be interesting

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Originally Posted by Mark

You can't add it, but the horse can.

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True. The government must jail the horse instead of Hazell.

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Originally Posted by Mark

You can't add it, but the horse can.

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Can Hazell actually produce 170kg of poo per year? :s hock:

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Originally Posted by Mark

You can't add it, but the horse can.

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That's the entire point of the thread, as it happens. It's a matter of farmers who keep any livestock not being allowed to spread manure from sheds, other fields or cesspools at a rate of 170kg per hectare - yet they've worded the law so badly it actually means allowing muck to be spread on the land. So, as it's worded so badly, you can now get done for allowing any animal you own to to spread its own muck (as they do :p : ) in it's paddock. Typical of one person understanding how a law would help the world while another who doesn't understand writes the law from the first person's reports.

Chris, you're right I bet. It should be 'of nitrogen' but isn't in the leaflets they printed, is my best guess. It's about 4 to 6% nitrogen I think, by the way, after a rotting period with bacteria composting it. Fresh it's lower if I'm remembering right.

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Originally Posted by schmenke

Can Hazell actually produce 170kg of poo per year? :s hock:

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that's why everyone says she's full of it... :p

Take the horses into the road to do their business? Do they have a limit on how much can be produced on a public highway? ;)

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Originally Posted by Drew

Take the horses into the road to do their business? Do they have a limit on how much can be produced on a public highway? ;)

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No limit or legislation, but if a car skids on it you can get done. That's yet another way to break the law without any choice at all :up:

I'm racking up those jail terms ..... :p :