Topic: Red worms in horse manure

[carrot-cruncher]

Question....... ???

If the horse manure I want to put on my allotment is full of red worms (which do nasty things to horse's insides) is it still ok to use the manure on my plot?

Will the red worms work their way into the soil like earth worms or am I introducing another, new pest to my plot which will kill off my plants

Anaxi

[Mimi]

The little red worms you describe Anaxi  sound very much like brandlings, baby little worm..... wonderful things ;D.  They will help to decompose the manure and will do fantastic things in the soil.  Chuck em all in,  they will do nothing but good in the soil.  

[derbex]

Anaxi,

if they are brandlings that's great -they look like this :-

http://vermitechnology.com/redworms_nightcrawlers.html

as Mimi says they are good things to have -you've goy yourself a wormery for nothing. But -I'm not sure what they'd be doing inside a horse?

We get horse pooh fresh at our allotment and the advice is to stack it -partly to let it decompose and partly to get rid of any nasties that may be in it.

[carrot-cruncher]

derbex

with the worms being red & in the horse manure I just assumed they were the horsey variety as in encysted red worms.

[RichardS]

Any more info on the manure - is it really fresh stuff or has it been rotted for a period of time (>few months)?

From memory, stables clean out and stack the stuff in piles until it can be disposed of - I don't know how quickly brandlings would migrate into a fresh pile, but my money would be on them being brandlings.  However I also don't know much about horses or their parasitic infestations...

Having said that, I certainly wouldnt use it without rotting down unless I knew it to be well rotted.

Stack it and leave till autumn, when it will have rotted down considerably and temperatures within the stack will have effectively sterilised it.  Then dig it in to the beds which will be containing next year's plants that would benefit from it (not carrots, for instance - I believe that too rich a soil causes forking).

[carrot-cruncher]

the person who owns the muck pile told me the stuff i'm using is the older end & approx 3 to 4 years old.   it's very wet in comparison to other muck piles i've seen where the manure has rotted down to a lovely dry, crumbly texture.

i'm still putting it on though so it's got rest of the year to rot down whilst suffocating the weeds.   any perenials that make it through will just dug up or a dose of roundup

[derbex]

If it's 3 or 4 years old I'd have thought you'd be ok, and if it's just going to sit there for another few months then even better.

Do they look like the worms in the picture? Roughly the same size as earthworms, but redder with thin stripes?

Jeremy

[carrot-cruncher]

Derbex

I've had a look at the link you sent me but can't be sure.   Next time I'm down the lottie I'll have a word the owner of the muck pile to if he knows what type of worm they are.


CC

[derbex]

I could send you a brandling in the post ;D

Jeremy