recently our Town council thought they were being helpful and dumped lots of loads of manure on our site....(one on my allotment fence and globe artichokes as it happens). Anyway I moved the stuff off my fence, it's too fresh to use at the moment though some people have taken it and put it straight on their plots despite warnings from the rest of us!
Anyway while moving it I noticed that while it had ants , fungi and wood lice in it worms were conspicuously absent.
On Saturday I took delivery of a load of lovely well rotted horse manure from a local Sheltand pony rescue charity and the man delivering it looked at the other manure and I mentioned the lack of worms in it.
He said it happened quite often with cow manure as they are wormed regularly and the worming solution passes right through and persists killing off all worms for sometime including any that would normally compost the manure i.e. Brandling worms and if put on the soil earthworms as well.
So bad luck to those on my site who've rushed in and put that stuff all over their plots.
It does breakdown eventually but it would mean it takes longer for the manure to reach the right state.
