Manure Ecology

Manure Ecology

A Vintage Story mod that adds a realistic manure production and composting system for domesticated animals. Collect manure from your livestock, process it into compost mash, ferment it in a barrel, and apply the result as a rich organic fertilizer.

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How It Works

Animal Manure Production

Domesticated animals periodically drop manure at their feet. Wild animals do not produce manure — only animals that were bred in captivity (generation 1 or higher) are eligible.

Each animal must also meet two additional conditions to produce manure:

• Fully grown — juveniles do not produce manure
• Well-fed — the animal must be at least 50% fed (configurable)

When an eligible animal produces manure it is placed on the ground beneath the animal as a stackable ground item, up to a configurable maximum per tile. Collect it before the pile reaches capacity.

Default Species

<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Animal</th> <th>Manure type</th> <th>Hours per item</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Chicken</td> <td>Rich</td> <td>8 h</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sheep</td> <td>Dark</td> <td>8 h</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hare</td> <td>Dense</td> <td>8 h</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Pig</td> <td>Dry</td> <td>8 h</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Goat</td> <td>Dark</td> <td>8 h</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tamed Deer</td> <td>Dark</td> <td>8 h</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

The species list, manure type, and production rate are all fully configurable.

Composting Process

Raw manure cannot be applied directly to farmland. It must first be mixed with a dry organic binder and then fermented in a sealed barrel.

Step 1 &mdash; Mix (crafting grid)

Combine manure with hay or thatch in the crafting grid to produce compost mash:

<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Manure type</th> <th>Manure</th> <th>Hay / Thatch</th> <th>Output</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Rich / Dense</td> <td>8</td> <td>2 hay or 4 thatch</td> <td>4 compost mash</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dry / Dark</td> <td>4</td> <td>2 hay or 4 thatch</td> <td>4 compost mash</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

Step 2 &mdash; Ferment (barrel)

Fill a barrel with 64 compost mash and seal it. After 336 in-game hours (14 days) the mash converts into 16 compost, ready to be applied to farmland.

Fertilizer Values

Each compost type has different nutrient concentrations (N = nitrogen, P = phosphorus, K = potassium):

<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Compost</th> <th>N</th> <th>P</th> <th>K</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Rich Manure Compost</td> <td>30</td> <td>15</td> <td>15</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dense Manure Compost</td> <td>15</td> <td>30</td> <td>15</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dry Manure Compost</td> <td>15</td> <td>15</td> <td>30</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dark Manure Compost</td> <td>20</td> <td>20</td> <td>20</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

Manure Weathering

Naturally generated ground manure piles are affected by water and rain.

Liquid contact &mdash; if a liquid (water, etc.) flows into a tile occupied by a manure pile, the pile is immediately cleared. By default the items are dropped as a pickable ground entity so nothing is lost; this can be changed to silent removal via config.

Rain &mdash; while it is raining on a sky-exposed manure pile, each cleanup interval there is a small chance that one unit is removed from the pile. By default units are silently removed (no item entity is spawned) to avoid entity spam; this can be changed via config. A pile fully washed away by rain is gone permanently.

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Configuration

Config file: VintagestoryData/ModConfig/manureecology.json

The file is created automatically with defaults on first load.

General

<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Key</th> <th>Default</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>TickIntervalMs</td> <td>10000</td> <td>How often the server checks animals for manure production, in milliseconds</td> </tr> <tr> <td>MaxGroundItemsPerBlock</td> <td>12</td> <td>Maximum manure items that can stack on a single ground tile before production stops</td> </tr> <tr> <td>MinimumGenerationForDomesticated</td> <td>1</td> <td>Minimum animal generation required for manure production. 0 = no restriction (wild animals also produce)</td> </tr> <tr> <td>RequireNoGrowBehaviorForAdult</td> <td>true</td> <td>When true, only fully-grown animals (no juvenile grow behavior) produce manure</td> </tr> <tr> <td>WellFedThreshold</td> <td>0.5</td> <td>Fraction of maximum saturation required for production (0&ndash;1). 0 = no hunger check</td> </tr> <tr> <td>DebugLogging</td> <td>false</td> <td>Enable verbose per-tick logging to the server log</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

Weathering

<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Key</th> <th>Default</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>WaterClearsManure</td> <td>true</td> <td>When true, liquid contact immediately clears a manure pile</td> </tr> <tr> <td>LiquidClearDropsItem</td> <td>true</td> <td>When true, liquid-cleared manure is dropped as a pickable item entity; when false it is silently removed</td> </tr> <tr> <td>RainClearDropsItem</td> <td>false</td> <td>When true, each rain-removed unit spawns a pickable item entity; keep false to avoid entity spam</td> </tr> <tr>