When I begin working with a new operation, they rarely have solid figures for the nutrients in their manure. This makes estimating nutrient amounts for their manure management plan tricky. It usually takes several years to accumulate enough samples to be confident of their accuracy.
While waiting to accumulate enough samples for a barn-specific recommendation, I generally turn to government accumulated data.
The Farm Practices Guidelines for beef, dairy, pig, and poultry have good information for Manitoba.
Often I can find more detailed manure information in the Tri-Provincial Manure Application and Use Guidelines. I find that the way the Tri-Provincial Guidelines breaks the animals down into finer categories is also useful. The Tri-Provincial Guidelines also covers more nutrients than the Farm Practices Guidelines which is useful when someone suddenly asks how much copper is in a typical feeder barn manure sample.
It is vital to note that the values you will find in these resources are averages. The tables also show the minimums and maximums for each nutrient and you can see that they vary quite widely. The only way to know what the situation is for your operation is to test the manure by taking samples over a number of years.
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