Dung for Fires

[Peanut]

I noticed something Monday afternoon when I burned off a pasture. The grass burned and ignited little piles of horse manure all over the field.

It turned cold that night, temps down in the 30's yet embers glowed for a couple hours. I could have started a nice fire from any of them.

I've read many times about pioneers and natives on the great plains gathering buffalo dung for cooking fires. No wood to burn for miles yet manure did the job.

Has anyone experimented with this? I haven't, was aware of the history but never tested it myself.

In these photos the grass has burned but piles of dried horse carp put up little columns of thick grey smoke.

 

[Grimm]

I don't think rabbit poop would be worth saving for fuel.

 

[Peanut]

Because humidity is so high here in the deep south I'd never considered the possibility. Monday taught me different. Even here in the sweaty south dung will burn.

 

[Tirediron]

My brother has a wood heater in the living quarter of his stock trailer, Her did a trip to Arizona, some where without any brush or wood. he gathered cow and horse manure, said it made longer, night fires.

 

[phideaux]

When we didn't want to go outside for wood to burn in the old homemade stove in the barn while working horse , we gathered horse biscuits to burn ( dry ones) .
Worked fine for us.

J8m

 

[Spikedriver]

There's stories of my grandfather burning corn cobs and cow chips in the stove in winter when the coal ran out. It was a 2 day trip by sleigh to the nearest coal mines and there weren't many trees around so they had to improvise. I kind of wonder how bad that smelled indoors, and what kind of ashes that left when it burned out...

 

[Morgan101]

I kind of wonder how bad that smelled indoors, and what kind of ashes that left when it burned out...

I was thinking the same thing. O.K. I know it will burn, but what will it smell like when it does?

 

[Neb]

Ezekiel 4:12

"
And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
"

Doesn't sound appetizing to me.

Ben

 

[SoJer]

@ Sir Peanut, well I think yer story Stinks.. jk.. Will post-up later an 'interesting idea' (I think? whence I've the time to post it..

kind of wonder ... what kind of ashes that left when it burned out...

..Betcha that 'ash' would be a Good-add to making 'Fertilizer'.. (for Some variants.. Would have to 'homework' to suss-out which..)

jd

 

[Cabin Fever]

When I was in Scouts, there was a specific fire building method that was normally used to burn dung. It is called a Dakota fire hole. One reason this was used is the wind does not blow the heat and flame away from what is being cooked. You can imagine being out in a grass covered prairie. There is no rocks to surround a fire, there is no wood fuel, it is windy all day, and a fire could get out of hand if it was built above ground.

 

[Neb]

When I was in Scouts, there was a specific fire building method that was normally used to burn dung. It is called a Dakota fire hole. One reason this was used is the wind does not blow the heat and flame away from what is being cooked. You can imagine being out in a grass covered prairie. There is no rocks to surround a fire, there is no wood fuel, it is windy all day, and a fire could get out of hand if it was built above ground.

View attachment 80639

Did 5hole also help with fire being seen from a distance?

Ben

 

[Weedygarden]

My grandparents used cow chips that my dad and his siblings gathered for fuel in the winter. Think of the Dirty Thirties. They struggled to have food, let alone fuel. There are few trees in South Dakota and they had few options. I've asked about my mother's family. Uncle told me they brought dead trees home from nearby creeks to burn for the winter.

There was a prairie museum out east of Aurora, CO and we took a field there. The presenter passed around a piece of a cow chip and asked the kids to look at it, smell it and then to guess what it was. It was a cow chip. It had no smell because it was dry and most of what they eat is grasses of one form or another.

I think burning cow chips have little smell, or mostly smell like burning grass.

 

[Cascadian]

I don't think rabbit poop would be worth saving for fuel.

I am thinking pellet stove.

 

[Pearl]

I'm glad we have endless wood

 

[Weedygarden]

I'm glad we have endless wood

What? No interest in gathering cow chips?

 

[SoJer]

What? No interest in gathering cow chips?

..it's just that there's Not Enough Guacamole in the World..

OK, so.. I'm wondering if it ever Might be worth trying something like this.. We've, for some time, been making what I coined 'Paper Cakes' (kind of like paper Logs, but 'cake-shaped', since they're formed in 5 Gal buckets..) ie:

..Essentially, Instead of tossing egg cartons / old kraft-wrapping / packing / statements / checks, etc, we make batches of these as 'backups for backups'.. Work great, chopped / sawed-up in chunks in a 'Rocket stove' / Dakota-hole (best where there's good air-flow..) and I can post more details (in a more Apt-thread, elsewhere, later..) but for any interested, 'Backstory' / technique / rationale, detailed here:

https://www.survivalistboards.com/threads/paper-fire-logs.762337/#post-18386226
Anyhoo, the Idea, here, would be to make... well.. 'Caca-cakes'. Why? Welp..

..Thinking that it would be easier, overall, to have them in a nice 'homologous shape / size', like these 'cakes', for Stoves / Dakota-holes, etc,, and would Also be more 'palatable' like this, for Trade / Barter, etc.. I mean.. Even If it was still, in the end, a 'Cow / Horse-pie' - something 'presentable' like these might be less-inclined to be Declined (as a Trade-item..)

Sure, it'd be Messy, Stinky and Arduous work, but.. Just my Alternative y-thought for the day.

jd

 

[Tootsie]

Ezekiel 4:12

"
And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
"

Doesn't sound appetizing to me.

Ben

I won’t even ask about Ezekiel bread…

 

[Weedygarden]

..it's just that there's Not Enough Guacamole in the World..

OK, so.. I'm wondering if it ever Might be worth trying something like this.. We've, for some time, been making what I coined 'Paper Cakes' (kind of like paper Logs, but 'cake-shaped', since they're formed in 5 Gal buckets..) ie:

..Essentially, Instead of tossing egg cartons / old kraft-wrapping / packing / statements / checks, etc, we make batches of these as 'backups for backups'.. Work great, chopped / sawed-up in chunks in a 'Rocket stove' / Dakota-hole (best where there's good air-flow..) and I can post more details (in a more Apt-thread, elsewhere, later..) but for any interested, 'Backstory' / technique / rationale, detailed here:

https://www.survivalistboards.com/threads/paper-fire-logs.762337/#post-18386226
Anyhoo, the Idea, here, would be to make... well.. 'Caca-cakes'. Why? Welp, thinking that it would be easier, overall, to have them in a nice 'homologous shape / size', like these 'cakes', and would Also be more 'palatable' like this, for Trade / Barter, etc.. I mean.. Even If it was still, in the end, a 'Cow / Horse-pie' - something 'presentable' like these might be less-inclined to be Declined (as a Trade-item..)

Sure, it'd be Messy, Stinky and Arduous work, but.. Just my Alternative oop:y-thought for the day.

jd

I remember that Grimm makes something like this. I think that having backups is always a great idea.

 

[Weedygarden]

I won’t even ask about Ezekiel bread…☺

Got a recipe?

 

[Pearl]

What? No interest in gathering cow chips?

Only donkey poo here, need it fo

 

[Pearl]

Only donkey poo here, need it fo

Dang it google, freeze up my world! Need it for my garden!

 

[Terri9630]

Hubby was burning weeds near our compost bin years ago. He caught it on fire, it burned/smoldered for months. It was a mix of horse and goat manure and garden scraps.

 

[Peanut]

@Pearl

At least donkey's poop on the same pile for days sometimes, a stack of fire wood! Makes it handy if I need a bucket of fertilizer.

 

[SheepDog]

After you burn manure there is very little ash. The nitrogen in the manure is used up or released in the burning.

 

[Caribou]

Hubby was burning weeds near our compost bin years ago. He caught it on fire, it burned/smoldered for months. It was a mix of horse and goat manure and garden scraps.

I know of hog fuel fires that have burned for decades. Hog fuel is the bark sawdust and other non marketable wood products left over from a sawmill.

 

[LadyLocust]

I know of hog fuel fires that have burned for decades. Hog fuel is the bark sawdust and other non marketable wood products left over from a sawmill.

This was used as insulation many years ago. In the town where I used to work, it was common practice. There were a lot of historical buildings and that was an issue because when they caught on fire, they really caught on fire! I never heard it called hog fuel though.

 

[Caribou]

This was used as insulation many years ago. In the town where I used to work, it was common practice. There were a lot of historical buildings and that was an issue because when they caught on fire, they really caught on fire! I never heard it called hog fuel though.

The sawdust was dried and used for insulation. Hog fuel is left in an enormous pile or is used to fill in a gulley. It is wet, left in the weather so it never dries, and spontaneous combustion eventually takes over.

 

[joel]

It is good for open grass land with little to no trees.
What I like about the South East USA, is the abundance of junk trees & shrubs for burning.
Sparkleberry, Sassafras, Scrub oak, Sweet gum, Wild Black Cherry, Jack pine, to name a few.
SO will compost the manure & burn the wood, until there is no wood left.

 

[joel]

When I was in Scouts, there was a specific fire building method that was normally used to burn dung. It is called a Dakota fire hole. One reason this was used is the wind does not blow the heat and flame away from what is being cooked. You can imagine being out in a grass covered prairie. There is no rocks to surround a fire, there is no wood fuel, it is windy all day, and a fire could get out of hand if it was built above ground.

View attachment 80639

It also makes it hard to spot from a distance, at night.

 

[Terri9630]

It also makes it hard to spot from a distance, at night.

You don't need to see it, you can smell it!