Topic: Horse poo ??? ???

[ox]

Right I'm getting some very conflicted stories about horse poo and am now confused 
I can not get hold of cow manure but have found a riding stables that has loads of well rotted manure. I have just spoken to one chap down the allotment and he said ooo yea get as much of that as you can it's great stuff. Then spoke to another gardener and he said I would not touch it with a barge pole and make sure it does not have wood chippings in or it will spoil the soil and you will not be able to grow anything on it.

What are your veiws please and experiancies with it

Jim

[kenkew]

The manure is good. Wood chips not so good. If it's mixed with straw even better. Horse dung was all I could get hold of for many years. I used it with great results. If there is a down side it's that quite a few weed seeds pass through a horse and end up on your plot. OK if you keep on top of them. All the dung I got was fresh so I let it stand for at least 6 months. It heats up pretty well so no doubt many seeds in it are killed off anyway.
 Don't be put off using it. If it's for free, get all you can.

[ox]

The manure is good. Wood chips not so good. If it's mixed with straw even better. Horse dung was all I could get hold of for many years. I used it with great results. If there is a down side it's that quite a few weed seeds pass through a horse and end up on your plot. OK if you keep on top of them. All the dung I got was fresh so I let it stand for at least 6 months. It heats up pretty well so no doubt many seeds in it are killed off anyway.
 Don't be put off using it. If it's for free, get all you can.

so if it had wood chips should i leave well alone

[Old bird]

I would get as much as you can!  Even if it has wood chips in - they eventually rot down!  I believe that there is a small difference but I have used both with no obvious disadvantages.  In fact last year I had woodchips and that did very well all round.  It seems to be finer in texture as well with less weed seeds!

As a soil improver and food for plants you can't beat it!

Some may knock it - but it has been around for centuries and it is still the number one food for plants and soil improver.

Good luck with your collection!

Old Bird ;D

[Lauren S]

Hi Jim
I found this article you might find interesting reading  8)

http://www.allotment.org.uk/articles2/Horse_Manure_Does_It_Have_Any_Uses.php



"One problem with using horse manure to fertilize ground is that many people use sawdust or wood chips as bedding in horse stalls. When the stalls are cleaned, the dirty sawdust or wood chips as well as the manure are removed. While the horse manure itself is a good fertilizer, the sawdust and wood chips are not crop friendly. That's because when wood breaks down in the soil a nitrogen deficiency occurs, which stunts the growth of crops. To combat this problem, a nitrogen fertilizer can be added to the soil after horse manure is spread on it; or a nitrogen fertilizer can be added to the horse manure and sawdust or wood shavings mixture before being added to the soil".

[Old bird]

I stand corrected!  Never noticed the nitrogen missing?  Maybe i don't apply the manure thickly enough?

Old bird
 :o

[Lauren S]

Having posted that, my friend only uses her horse manure with sawdust/woodchips and her produce looks fine  ::). So I think it's a case of make up your own mind  ;D

[Macy]

Whilst it may not be as convenient with limited space, can you not just leave the manure with wood chips longer before using? Once it's broken down, it's broken down...

[norfolklass]

if you can go and help yourself to horse poo, I'd go for it! I got some last year from a local stables and because I was left to my own devices I poked about and found the well-rotted bits in the pile and bagged up about 15 bags full of really good stuff: crumbly, dark brown and full of worms.

this year, a neighbour was offering a truck load of bagged horse poo for a fiver, but it's rubbish in comparison: just grass and full of seeds – our site is now full of plots that have a nice thick layer of germinating muck ::)

if the muck is well-rotted and not full of straw or woodchip, get as much as you can!!! if it does have straw and woodchip in it, you can always build yourself a nice pile and leave it to rot for next year.

[Lauren S]

On average, a 455kg (1000lb) horse generates 9 tonnes of manure each year!  :o  ::)  ::)  :o

That's alot  ;D

[Old bird]

Lauren - you are a mine of useful information.  Who do you think worked out how much a horse poos!

Old Bird

 ;D

[froglets]

I'm a devotee of horse poo ( did I really just type that - checks to see no-one in the office can see the screen)

The best option is to go to a stables where they let you go and dig out your own & as someone has already said, dig down and get the older stuff & if you can get to where you are slicing out turves of the stuff, you have hit black gold.

If you're not to pernickety & it's not as well rotted as you'd like, throw propriety to the wind & pick out more nuggetts than chippings - good gloves are a bonus.

If neither of those are possible, then just bag it up and make your own heap, cover with black plastic or put in a dalek compost bin & let it rot down for a few months.  If you can get a goodly heat, it will generate it's own heap and promote rotting quicker.

Short answer - get some in, it will be useful if not now, then later.

Happy shovelling

[Lauren S]

Lauren - you are a mine of useful information.  Who do you think worked out how much a horse poos!

Old Bird

 ;D

The poor devil who has to shovel the stuff everyday I suppose  ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

Victorian gardens ran on horse muck and they didn't do so badly. It's true that sawdust soaks up nitrogen as it rots, but horses pee a great deal of the stuff. It gets into the soil eventually, and it won't wash out as fast. So don't get too het up about it.

[Baccy Man]

Grab all you can the smell will tell you how fresh it is. If it has a strong odour then leave it to break down before using if not then use straight away. Don't worry about the sawdust/woodchips causing nitrogen immobilisation the combination of manure & urine will provide more than enough nitrogen to compost it & feed the soil.
You can never have enough manure.

[Eristic]

Stop the panic over the sawdust and shavings nonsense. That's propaganda spread by the horticultural industry to stop you using the stuff. They lose a lot of money every time you don't buy nicely wrapped products. There is a minuscule amount of truth in the fact that the lumps of wood if fresh and uncontaminated will extract some nitrogen from the soil. BUT. woodchips soaked in horse shit are saturated in nitrogen and cannot possibly deplete the nitrogen from a nitrogen depleted soil because the soil does not have any nitrogen and the wood chips do. YES!

No way would I leave horse manure for 6 months before using it either. By then all you've got is compost. I've been shoveling the stuff most of my life, tons and tons of it and have never seen anything but a dramatic improvement in both crops and soil.

There is some more nonsense doing the rounds about the manure burning the crops. Show me the proof.

[lorna]

9 tonnes a year? Now I know why my daughter has lost weight since owning a horse :) That reminds me must ask them to bring me a few more bags.

[kenkew]

I leave fresh horse manure for 6 months because it's a darn sight easier to spread more evenly when it's dryer, and it's still manure and still steaming after 6 months. ...and I've been shovelling the stuff for years too. I garden in the wet mud of Flanders, so dryer suits my ground more so than wet manure.
 I've always had my manure mixed with straw which I've always found a perfect mix. Never had wood mixed so I can't be scientific about it's qualities, but given the choice, I'll take it with straw, thank you.

[Eristic]

Manure with straw probably holds a lot more water than the woodchip variety. In London there is the choice of take it or leave it so I take it. Straw is difficult to manage at the stables particularly when most of the staff seem to be in the 12-14 age group and the straw all comes in giant bales nowadays.

When I visit the stables I always select a good part of the pile and dig into the oldest stuff available but sometimes there is only really fresh stuff and i find that if stored in bulk sandbags for about 6 weeks even this is fine and crumbly. My stockpiles rarely live longer than 8-10 weeks before being deployed somewhere.

What I would really like to know is where does it all go?

[kenkew]

Ha! Ha! That's a good point! I must have added tens of tons of the stuff but where it all ends up is another thing!