Are very old, dry cow patties a "green" or a "brown"?

I would think this should be something I could very quickly just google, but alas, no. Every source I can find just lists a single C:N ratio for manure or maybe breaks it down by cow/horse/etc., but none of them differentiate fresh vs. old. So I would guess that what they're listing is for relatively fresh manure. I'm making the assumption that, similar to fresh cut vs. dry plant matter, it has lower nitrogen content the older it is. But by how much? Does it ever cross the line into becoming a "brown" (i.e. above 30:1)?

I don't have a source for fresh manure, but I do have a basically unlimited supply of old cow patties if I just walk around and pick them up. Most of this manure is probably multiple years if not decades old (I'm in the desert, it doesn't break down very quickly on its own here). I'm not sure how it took me this long to make the connection that cow patties are, in fact, manure and could be my largest source of "green" material by far. But before I just go add a wheelbarrow full of them to the pile, I want to be sure that I'm not just adding mostly carbon -- because it would take a whole lot of coffee grounds and veggie scraps to get the ratio back in line after that.

Josh, I would gather up some of those free pies, chop or dice them up with some kind of edged tool and add some water and wait.  If in a day or two you can detect any odor it would be signs of at least some little critter life in the pies.

If not I would still add them to the compost bin/pile.  One other thing to think about once you have some/any amount of compost started - worms, I'm sure they could convert those dried pies into something nice for your gardens.

Peace

Now that you put it that way, it does sound like an easy test, and would probably tell me what I really need to know. But I'm still a huge nerd and want to put a number on it if I can, haha. And if I want to scale up at some point to a Johnson-Su system or something, I think I'd want to dial in the ratio a bit better than the "just eyeball it" method I've been using so far.

I'd love to have some worms in there, but my only source locally would be fishing bait, of whatever mystery species they sell in a styrofoam cup at walmart. I'll probably give up on finding a better option and try those at some point, but I don't have high hopes. I've only seen one worm on my property so far, and the way I found it was by accidentally chopping it in half while digging... whoops. So I don't think this is a very friendly environment for worms in general (obviously the compost pile itself is a different world, but I've been tending towards the extreme end of "locally adapted" for everything I can manage to do that with). If there are any worms living anywhere near my compost pile though, I'm sure they'll eventually find it, because it's in contact with the ground.

OK, Josh call the old pies light green, lets say 1/2 strength, plug that into your C/N ratio thingy.  When I work on my small outdoor compost system, I have to tell you that I really don't follow that ratio thing very closely.  For one thing I'm a lazy garden person, I don't turn my bins as often as all the pro gardeners say we should, don't watch the moisture content that well either.  I'm not in that much of a rush to have finished compost at this point and I'm lazy.

Think about this; the materials that collect in nature will turn into compost at some point, right?  The ratio thingy is only a big deal when you need a lot of finished compost as quickly as possible.

The worms sold at your local bait shop will work for a worm bin system.  The worms are really chill and quiet, they eat your garbage and poop out fertilizer, ah they are also very good at making more worms!

Look into bio-char to help improve your soils also.  That is really rather simple to do too.

The hardest step is the first one.  Don't stress over anything, just get started.  You'll learn best by doing.  And always feel free to post questions here.  Someone will chip in to try and help.


Peace

the materials that collect in nature will turn into compost at some point, right?

Yes, in theory. However, in my climate that process takes a very, very long time, and things often sort of crumble into dust rather than turning into anything you might normally think of as compost. I know that has more to do with the lack of water than C:N ratios, but my point is I'm actually fighting the environment a bit here. So if I want my compost pile to turn into something usable by the fall, or even next spring for that matter, I need to put some effort in.

The hardest step is the first one.  Don't stress over anything, just get started

I did get started, almost a year ago now. I followed the "don't worry about it" method at first, and what I got was a smelly mess that I didn't want to breathe the fumes from, nevermind spread on my garden. Then I went and actually did the research to understand what I'm doing, and after a couple more months of trial and error (just now a more informed version of it) I finally had something that could be called compost. I really don't want to mess it up now, because it could then take another several months to fix.

It sounds like "don't worry about it" works great for you, so of course there's no reason for you to stop doing it that way. I hope that eventually, with more experience, I won't have to think about it very much either. But it definitely is possible to mess it up; I know because I did. I do agree that it's not necessary to try to get a perfect 30:1 ratio, and practically speaking it's not even possible to do that when working with non-standardized materials, like most people are at a small scale. But that doesn't mean that the numbers are totally useless.

Look into bio-char to help improve your soils also

I did look into it, after hearing some claims that sounded a bit too good to be true. Sounds like the research is mixed, it probably helps in some situations but not others (wow, what a surprise, like everything else in the world "it depends," haha). I have noticed that old abandoned firepits around here tend to create a dead zone with not a single plant growing, which is remarkable in a place with so many incredibly hardy species that tolerate pretty much anything else. Of course pure biochar could have a different effect than when it's mixed in with a bunch of ash (and knows what else besides wood might have been burned in that fire), so it's probably still worth an experiment, but I'm not expecting miracles.

My opinion would be that old dry cow patties would be brown.

Brown equals dry materials ...

Green equals wet materials ....

Kinda of like green grass vs hay ...

I am not going to sell myself as a great gardener, but I have never been concerned about the mix.  I now have 4 compost piles (1 per year), plus a large compost bin near the house.  I  only turn the one near the house. Yes, the material does take a few years to break down, but I have the space.  And with the number of compose piles I have, there is at least one ready for use each year.