Horse manure

[barryla61]

Just got 4 dump trailers of aged sawdust and horse manure.
Maters are gonna jump this year!!!

[Petronius_II]

...And here I went and thought this thread was gonna be all about you accusing some other Tomatovillian of something or another...

[rockhound]

That's funny. I am a little jealous of loads of manure, especially all composted and ready to feed 'maters.

[attml]

I know it sounds weird but I have never been able to get past the whole adding horse poop as an ingrediant to something I am going to eat? I guess I am just a product of growing up in the suburbs? I know it makes some pretty tomatoes but I just can't bring myself to do it!

[rockhound]

So attml, you're saying that if a bird flies over your garden and poops, you won't eat any of your crops that year? Or ever again?

[barryla61]

Originally Posted by attml

I know it sounds weird but I have never been able to get past the whole adding horse poop as an ingrediant to something I am going to eat? I guess I am just a product of growing up in the suburbs? I know it makes some pretty tomatoes but I just can't bring myself to do it!

That's your choice but it's no different than any other compost. This green matter just happens to go thru an animal instead of a compost pit, and I remind you that horses are picky eaters - no weeds!

[vagardener434]

I started using horse manure in early 2010. I've shown the piles to folks who just said Ewwwwww...... Then I reminded them about those delicious tomatoes that I had been giving them. They started singing a different tune, but it was still a bit off-key. Horse manure is now a staple in my gardening ventures. I'd prefer a load of manure over a load of 10-10-10 anyday.

[JerryL]

Yummmm Yummmmm!!!!

[bitterwort]

If you think about it, lots of soil has been through an animal as well. (What did you think earthworms were doing down there all the time?) I'm always puzzled too when I hear people refuse to use fish-emulsion fertilizer on the grounds that they're vegetarian. Seems to me that rotted insects, worms, voles, and so on must become part of the soil without their noticing it.

[tgplp]

Never tried horse manure, but every year I add a few bags of steer manure! What do you think the difference in terms of nutrients are between horse and cow poop?

Taryn

[brokenbar]

As we had an "unlimited" amount of horse manure, and 100's of acres, I had huge piles of varying age and would turn the piles 3-6 times a year with my Bobcat. Literally, my tomato sections were 5 foot deep aged compost and not much else. Cow manure is hotter, smells worse and seems to take longer to break down when it is piled up. Horse manure will have a few more weeds (Horses are the only animal that consumes the amount of forage that they do that IS NOT a ruminant. Something happened in their evolution and that is the reason that they colic and cows, goats, sheep do not (no...they just have other equally distressing conditions tied to over-eating!) Because horses are nor ruminants, many weed seeds will pass through their gut whole and in fact, certain grains must be "cracked" or "rolled" or the horse is unable to chew them up and derive the nutrients from the grain. Young horses lack a necessary enzyme for grain digestion. Okay...more than anyone wanted to know about horses eating habits and the consistency of their poo... Horse manure mixed with stall shavings is a superb garden amendment.

[stormymater]

Be careful - ask where the hay the horses ate came from. I had 15+ cubic yards of lovely aged horse manure brought by a dear organic certified friend... the same manure he had used for 9 years & was organic certified using... 2 years ago the horses were fed hay bought through a broker & it turned out to be full of aminopyralid.

I was lucky - unlucky b/c I toted it all over my beds & property - but lucky enough to contact DowAgrosciences who promptly came, took samples & the returnded to remove all the contaminated materials in my raised beds, containers & compost pile.

It literally made me cry to lose the soil & compost I had worked on for 5+ years & I am slowly rebuilding "fake" replacement materials - metromix, black kow & garden tone - with clean native soil & cow manure whose food provenance is known.

Aminopyralid kills tomato plants at 3ppBILLION & it is persistent for years (up to 4 if in the open & longer if composted & covered). Lots of retirees who bought land are raising hay & not disclosing the use of this broad leaved herbicide so be careful. It has even shown up in organic compost, cow & other ruminant & even poultry litter.

I mention this to hopefully help someone avoid the misery I went through - the removal left my yards torn up, the beds utterly disrupted & caused me to lose most of my 2010 growing season. And it was creepy to watch folks tell me vegies grown in this stuff (squash, melons, cabbage all immune) were fine too eat... & then decline to eat any themselves....

[rockhound]

Stormy that is indeed a sad tale but at least you found a solution. I can see where, given the amount of pesticides out there in the world, organic farmers that have the room would want to expand into some form of animal raising just to have a known source of manure on the farm. So many problems seem to come along with things brought in, innocent or no.

[barryla61]

Originally Posted by brokenbar

Horse manure will have a few more weeds .

Gonna have to disagree here. As a lifelong farmer I say cow manure has way more weed seeds than horse. I have access to tons of cow manure but will not put it on my garden for that reason.
Like I said horses are picky eaters and most horse farmers only feed the best hay - alfalfa and/or orchard grass - both of which when broken down are great for soil. Just my 2 cents worth

[kath]

Originally Posted by barryla61

Gonna have to disagree here. As a lifelong farmer I say cow manure has way more weed seeds than horse. I have access to tons of cow manure but will not put it on my garden for that reason.
Like I said horses are picky eaters and most horse farmers only feed the best hay - alfalfa and/or orchard grass - both of which when broken down are great for soil. Just my 2 cents worth

That's really good to hear- I always felt a bit guilty about not using the cow manure that we have access to and using horse instead. I've been told that it's a much better fertilizer and that horse manure is a good soil conditioner, but pretty useless as a fertilizer. My reason for not wanting it is just because I find the smell, weight and wetness of the cow manure too gross to deal with in our garden which is quite close to the house. I feel better now.