Questions about Manure and Composting

[JoeP]

I am sure these questions have been asked and answered before so feel free to point me to older threads.

I can get free horse, cow, and rabbit manure. The horse and cow I can get by the truckload (cubic yard). I'd prefer to have the rabbit first, then the cow, then the horse if it is not aged (weed seeds). The horse manure I may be able to get in various stages of aging but most likely it will be fresh and mixed with bedding of either wood shavings or wood pellets.

I can get the cow manure either

• fresh,
• "from the barn" which is mixed with straw and not fresh but not aged/composted either or
• from a pile that's been out in the field getting rained on all winter

So my qeustions about manure:

1. Will fresh cow manure added now burn plants (tomatoes) that are planted in 8 weeks.
2. Will the cow manure that has been sitting in the field getting rained on (Pacific Northwest) still have anything beneficial to plants left in it?
3. Could rabbit feed/alfalfa have any chemicals in it that could be harmful to plants? (I read in a different thread that cow manure can have nasty stuff still)
4. Are weed seeds from fresh horse manure the biggest problem with it?

Along with the manure, I plan to add mushroom compost as well. A soil test revealed that the mushroom compost (that year) was not high in nitrogen so I'd like to use manure to add in some nitrogen.


My questions about compost: I have chickens but have not used their manure for fear of burning the plants.

1. How long does chicken manure need to be aged/composted before it can be put in the garden.
2. Will chicken manure age or compost sufficiently in an open compst bin (made from wood pallets)?
3. Would the fancy compost tumblers be better for this than open bins?
4. If I use weed and feed on my lawn, can I use the grass clippings in my compost bins?

Thanks for the input.
JoeP

[Tracydr]

I use a lot of horse manure from my own horses, fed alfalfa hay and not on bedding. Seems like there is almost no weed seeds in the alfalfa and the growers say they don't use weed control. I've not had any problems with it, at all.
I used to build mounds out of it to plant my fruit trees in when I lived in OK. They grew fantastically in it!

[RebelRidin]

There are few hard and fast rules for the use/composting of manure. I am going to just toss out my thoughts and some info on what has worked for me and where I have run into problems. Each person needs to find what works for them...

Originally Posted by JoeP

...




So my qeustions about manure:

1. Will fresh cow manure added now burn plants (tomatoes) that are planted in 8 weeks.
2. Will the cow manure that has been sitting in the field getting rained on (Pacific Northwest) still have anything beneficial to plants left in it?
3. Could rabbit feed/alfalfa have any chemicals in it that could be harmful to plants? (I read in a different thread that cow manure can have nasty stuff still)
4. Are weed seeds from fresh horse manure the biggest problem with it?

Along with the manure, I plan to add mushroom compost as well. A soil test revealed that the mushroom compost (that year) was not high in nitrogen so I'd like to use manure to add in some nitrogen.

1. Fresh manure needs to be mixed/incorporated very well, The point is not to use too much. You did not say how big your garden is but I don't think you want "yards" of fresh. Eight weeks is time enough.

2. Piled manure sitting out.... Rotted cow manure still beneficial? Absolutely! In fact...that's the good stuff. Well rotted manure can be used any time. It's high nitrogen compost. If it is ready you will know it when you dig into it because most of it will crumble up nicely look like, well... compost. I would go with that instead of the fresh. You could probably go with one part soil, one part mushroom compost and one part well rotted manure.

Get the fresh piled or composting to use later/next year...

3. Nasties from rabbit feed... Doubtful. I would consider the rabbit manure as garden gold. We keep three rabbits... I reserve the rabbit dropping for the tomatoes.

4. Horse manure is more potent or "hotter" than cow manure. I would pass on using it fresh if I had alternatives.

Weed seed can be a big problem with manure from horse or cow. Poor quality weedy hay or straw causes problems there. Hot composting manure helps address that problem. Even the stuff that has been sitting out rotting > a year can have a heck of a weed load...

I'll post later re chicken...

[RebelRidin]

Originally Posted by JoeP

...


My questions about compost: I have chickens but have not used their manure for fear of burning the plants.

1. How long does chicken manure need to be aged/composted before it can be put in the garden.
2. Will chicken manure age or compost sufficiently in an open compst bin (made from wood pallets)?
3. Would the fancy compost tumblers be better for this than open bins?
4. If I use weed and feed on my lawn, can I use the grass clippings in my compost bins?

Thanks for the input.
JoeP

1. I posted the below previously... http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=21393

One thing I failed to note is that I spread about half as much where I plan to plant tomatoes as I do everywhere else. Then I use rabbit manure to side dress the tomatoes later. I also have a very sandy soil and loose a lot of nutrients to leaching. (Note: This year we are converting to raised beds so, for the first time in 10 years, I ended up cleaning the coop into a compost bin.)

Originally Posted by RebelRidin

We have a small backyard flock and clean our roost areas and floor litter out beginning of March. We keep about 16 birds and have a mix of about 1 part pure manure (roost areas) to 3 parts chopped straw/manure litter mix (mostly straw). I regularly have about 8 wheelbarrow loads making about 20 cubic feet or about 3/4 yard (don't you love my precision). This is spread over about 600 ft square and tilled in WELL. Any fresh manure is "hot" and chicken especially so (high N ratio). Tilling it in well IS essential.

This can be as little as a week before my lettuce, brocolli and cabbage go in and peas get planted and about 6 weeks before the tomatos. This is all the preplant fertilizer I use. We've never had any burn problems. The cole crops and tomatoes seem to like it.

2. A wood compost bin will work fine if you periodically mix it to keep the compost going. Otherwise it goes anerobic an just rots. Which is acceptable too but takes longer to get to "compost"

3. The fancy compost bins.... Unless they make the turning/aeration easier they will not work any better. Regular turning/aeration and even moisture is the key to a fast composting. I am planning to make a couple with 55 gal plastic drums mounted horizontally on a pipe stand. It is hard to find any quality units that are similar without spending a lot of $ and even then,,, not sure home made wouldn't be just as good or better.

4. Weed n Feed and grass clippings.... assuming you didn't just spray it (i.e. severals weeks, rains and grass cuttings have passed) probably not a problem. If it was granular product, again probably not a problem. Herbicides do break down... However, I am not sure I would want to chance it for the veggie garden. Compost it seperately and use it elsewhere in your landscape...

[brokenbar]

All I have ever used is aged horse...not many weeds but I fed my own alfalfa that we grew. Stall manure that is mixed with shavings is a great aged manure. There should always be equal parts of each (usually, lots more manure than shavings in stall cleaning anyway because horsemen hate to throw out good shavings if they don't have to so no worries. And it is more important that the shavings are less than the manure because the shavings suck the nitrogen out of the soil as part of the decomposing process.)

Goat or rabbit is the BOMB...does not even have to be aged. Chicken poo needs to be well aged and have been rained on or sprinkled mechanically to wash out the urea. My Dad always said he never used chicken poo until it had aged three years...

I personally HATE cow poo...I think it's hotter and it always seems to have a lot of weeds. We had TONS of cow poo from the calving/holding pens but we aged it it piles and then used a manure spreader to put it onto the fields.

My garden areas in Wyoming were basically 4 foot deep aged horse manure...

[Tracydr]

Last year I couldn't get topsoil for my raised beds. I cleaned out my horse pens and used straight, aged horse manure, plus some not so aged. My tomatoes, summer squash, long beans and corn did fantastic!

[JoeP]

I just confirmed my supply of rabbit manure. It doesn't sound like it will be more than a few bucket fulls. Not the truckload I had hoped for. I plan to use that in the tomato beds.

I'll try to get the aged cow and aged horse if avialable. I'll supplement the rabbit with that.

So about my fresh chicken poo: I have a flock of 9 chickens and when I clean out the coop every few weeks, I have a little less than a 5 gallon bucket full. Not all of it is fresh. The stuff on top is from today and the stuff on bottom is four or five weeks old. Will this small amount, spread over two seperate 10X22 beds and tilled in 8 weeks before plant out still be too hot? (along with the rabbit, perhaps some aged cow/horse, and a yard or two mushroom compost) The volume of manure I suspect would only be about an inch or less. The most of the volume would be the mushroom compost - a couple inches in one bed and about 6 inches in the other.

I certainly don't want to burn the plants, but would like to try if 8 weeks is enough to mellow it before plant out. It rains alot here in the Pacific Northwest so would that help the mellowing or would heat be better for that?

Thanks for the replies.

[RebelRidin]

Originally Posted by JoeP

So about my fresh chicken poo: I have a flock of 9 chickens and when I clean out the coop every few weeks, I have a little less than a 5 gallon bucket full. Not all of it is fresh. The stuff on top is from today and the stuff on bottom is four or five weeks old. Will this small amount, spread over two seperate 10X22 beds and tilled in 8 weeks before plant out still be too hot? (along with the rabbit, perhaps some aged cow/horse, and a yard or two mushroom compost) ...

That chicken manure is all fresh. When it comes from the coop I wouldn't consider a week, six weeks or even six months old any different. It is "fresh from the coup" and full of the urea brokenbar mentioned.

Myself, I wouldn't hesitate to use that chicken manure you describe along with the mushroom compost. I would incorporate both using a rototiller. That is about all I would use for the tomato area and supplement with the rabbit around the time of first fruit set. I would add something more for my spring feeders (lettuce and cole crops).

I am in the mid-atlantic and we see lots of rain in the spring. I easily use four times the rate of fresh coop manure you are describing without problem. But again... that is in my sandy leaching soil here in the mid-atlantic and I am mixing it in with chopped up staw (which will need and draw some N as it decomposes).

It all depends on on the site and soil where you are using it. I grew up in Missouri where we had relatively heavy clay soils. We had standing water problems in the spring. My father wouldn't have dreemed of using fresh chicken manure or fresh horse manure... "That crap is too hot!"

It really does depend upon the soil and climate... What is the local custom?
If everyone (talk to the oldest gardeners you can find) says it is "too hot" I would heed them. On the other hand if they say "you gotta be careful with it" like they do around here... then I would use it.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _________

After posting the above, I took a few minutes to see if I might find some helpful websites about using fresh manure in the garden. There were a number. Most wanted it spread in the fall or composted before use. What I noticed, and this troubled me, was that many connected with university ag extension deprartments were all pointing out new hazards being presented by new strains of particularly hazardous and even deadly strains of E. coli. I was not aware that use of fresh manure in a vegetable garden had been linked to a death. At this point it appears hot composted material is the only kind considered safe/recommended (pathogen free).

We have now reached the point that we not only have to pasteurize the milk but the poo as well.

This site from Colorado State talks about the death of a child in Maine due to his mother using fresh calf manure in the vegetable garden. http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/4dm...ruit/fresh.htm They were the most adamant about only using hot composted manure that was then additionally aged after the hot phase of composting.

By chance, I located a site called "Gardening in Western Washington"from Washington State University... http://gardening.wsu.edu/text/faqvege.htm I thought it might have some other useful information for you JoeP...

[JoeP]

RebelRidin,

Thanks for the links. E. Coli is pretty scary and I have 2 small children that like to play in the dirt while dad tries to get some work done in the garden. I certainly don't want to put them at risk for something that nasty. I saw the documentary Food Inc. where a family lost a child to E. Coli. I couldn't even imagine that. OK. I'm sold. Aged it is for the garden and the fresh chicken manure will go in the compost bin.

[ArcherB]

The only problems I've had with manure has been herbicide in horse manure. I've picked up horse manure three times and, so far, I'm 3 of 3 for getting herbicide damage to my plants. They eventually grow out of it, but production is seriously hampered. I've quit taking horse manure and limit my 'craigslist" runs to bunny poo only. This year, I believe I even have the problem with some manure compost I purchased from a local supplier. I used it in my containers and found that all the new growth is terribly curled and the leaves look like they have jazz hands.

I wouldn't use the horse manure for at least a year.

[dice]

An faq and recommendation on aminopyralid herbicide damage from
manure:
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/aminopyralid/
http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/sfn/wtr11Aminopyralid

(If you do not know where the hay that the animals ate came
from and what may have been spread/sprayed on the hay fields, then
I suggest mixing some of the manure with mushroom compost in
a container and sprout some susceptible plants in it for a test before
mixing it into your compost pile or garden.)

I would not personally risk grass clippings from a weed-and-feed treated
lawn, either. (I would just spread the grass clippings under a
rhododendron and cover them with some shredded leaves.)

[Tracydr]

You can always do a test grow with a new source of horse manure. Just out a seed in a pot with some potting soil and manure mixed together and see how it does. If you get signs of weed killer, don't put the stuff in your garden. Otherwise, you're safe.
I use chicken manure a lot. Never had fertilizer burn. I usually age it 4-6 weeks and rinse with some water. Sometimes I make a tea in a big bucket with a scoop of it. Makes a nice burst of growth, great for hungry plants.

[sfmathews]

I got 12 50# bags of rabbit manure yesterday and dumped it in all my beds. I don't scoope the stuff that's directly under the rabbit cages, as its wet and has fresh urine. I will take the drier stuff that has already started breaking down some. The only thing I don't place it around is my lettuce.

[RebelRidin]

Originally Posted by sfmathews

I got 12 50# bags of rabbit manure yesterday ...

... The only thing I don't place it around is my lettuce.

Probably a good idea. When I was going through a number of the state extension sites there were a lot of references to leaf crops being a greater risk for transfering pathogens. Several recommended against using even aged rotted stuff around them or in their beds. They wanted hot composted commercial product ony...

I will continue to use composted chicken manure in the beds or spread it on top and age over winter, but I will go with a commercial product to side dress.

P.S. Did you get that manure for free? Congrats on a nice score if so

[sfmathews]

I did. The guy lives about an hour from me. Those 12 bags were the most I could cram in my trunk and in the car. Thankfully it doesn't stink!
He said he sure wishes more people came to clean out his rabbit sheds. There are only about a handful of people who do so on a regular basis. I hope to keep going out every month or so to get more.

Originally Posted by RebelRidin

P.S. Did you get that manure for free? Congrats on a nice score if so