hi
which do people think is best, horse or cow manure as i have access to both. i was thinking cow manure because it has to go through stomachs but this may make no difference at all
I don't know if this helps but cow poo is £10 a lorry load and horse poo is £40 at out lottie,why I asked , much foot shuffling and aahs then answer came "because horses do better s**t." Well I was no wiser among the poo experts but they all seemed sure !!!!
Someone please enlighten us.
XX Jeannine
Cow manure is great but a bit sloppy. It has to be well mixed with straw and then well composted.
You can see on my site that I have 5 compost bins, 2 horse manure and three for garden compost.
http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments1_homepage.html
this is not the first (nor will it be the last) Poo posting
If you do a search on A4A using poo, manure, horse, cow you will find rich rewards on the Poo subject. ;)
A4A wisdom seems to generally agree that well rotted Cow is best ... with Horse a close second (and maybe easier for 'Townies' to get hold of, so to speak ;))
However, all our rural neighbours (including several Farmers), say Cow is the only manure worth bothering with, unless of course:
you specialise in Pigs and/or Chickens
raise Llamas (oh yes !!! several herds nearby)
keep Horses or care for retired Horses
pick the bones out of that recommendation .... ;D ;D
We use Horse for the house garden and the now on the new Lottie, mainly because it comes ready bagged and free and we know the producers very well ....
A retired Shire Horse called 'Popeye' and his pal, a retired Shetland called 'Knick Knack'
To digress ... often when it rains, Knick Knack can be seen sheltering by standing underneath Popeye .... I kid you not ;D ;D
Mikey
That's useful info there! Will type that up and keep it as when we come to fill our raised beds, I won't have to ask that question!
Only drawback with cow manure is that it's heavier than horse muck so more effort is required to shift the stuff about. Not recommended for the lazy gardener, especially if the horse variety is readily available.
Horse has more nutrients and is longer lasting in the earth but cow is good for dry earth as its wetter.
I'd always go for horse myself.
oh - well in that case I might think about getting cow manure for my pumpkin patch next year - the soil is very dry there
Live in the country, but are any of the surrounding farms interested in carting a trailer load to our allotments even if we pay. NO!
I do it myself, with permission, with a small trailer, hard graft but free. What do they do anyway - burn it!!
Poor farmers eh?
Horse manure mixed with chicken droppings home compost and grass cuttings is the best I think. I have 8 large composts spread between three allotments and thats all I use. On the down side you do tend to get a lot of weeds with horse muck, but then the chickens get them.
Alan,
Envy you!!
I use both. Cows have more than one stomach so there is less of a problem with weeds seeding. Cow manure is heavier as already stated. Why not mix them.
Is that a silky in your picture. XX Jeannine
I'll throw a spanner in the works.
I'm getting a trailer load of sheep manure delivered on monday. Out allotment secretary works on the local farm where they keep some sheep indoors. He tried some last year on his allotment - before giving some to the rest of us. It looks like really good sh*t. Very fine - no lumps, turns to stuff that looks just like potting compost after a 6 months.
Horse for me because its free. ;D ;D ;D
Sure is Jeannine, he is called Willy Nelson, he is getting on in years, we reckon about seven years old, he looks after his two girls, Poppy a Light Sussex banty and Blacky a little black banty of unknown origin. They will be kept until they expire unlike the laying hens and the W/Summers
Oh wonderful, I adore them,the very first time I had chickens someone came and asked me if I wanted this silky rooster as they couldn't keep it. Like an idiot I said yes.
He could fly like a ruddy eagle and got out of my pen frequently.
I lived on the side of a river, all my property was to the rear and side of the house, I had a small front garden, maybe ten feet,fence, then a narrow lane by the river, just wide enough for a car,then a drop into the water of about 30 inches.
This crazy silkie used to escape, go to the waters edge, flap it's wings and shriek, then take off. I think it had a suicide plan. It would land in the river scream it's head off because of course it could'nt get out and as it flapped it got further from the bank. I used to have jump in and rescue the barmy thing, I did it loads of times, it became the talk of the neighbour hood, once it looked dead and I brought it round with mouth to mouth. We had to put a roof on the chicken coop of course then it sat in a water bowl!! We called it Hari Kari
Eventually I was approached by lady who bred them whose rooster had died to see if I would part with it,OH boy did I.
It got under me skin though and I got more when I was in Canada, just loved 'em looked really good with my Buff Orpingtons...mind you I never got a roooster!!
I am envious. XX Jeannine
Horse does seem to produce weeds. So does the cows stomachs take out more nutrients than a cow? but less seeds?
I have 5 compo bins on 3 plots. I have just put about 200 bags of horse in them. Hoping they will go down enough before the annual shredding day! later in the year. LOTS of straw in it though.
Horse is great in my experience, use loads to enrich sandy soil. But do check its not mixed with sawdust (straw is fine), and that poo from horses who have just been wormed has been kept separate.
Whats wrong with the sawdust? ??? We get free bags of horse manure at the lottie, sometimes mixed with sawdust and sometimes with straw. I've just put it all in a compost bin together as you can't tell before opening the bag which is which.
sawdust takes much longer to decompose and breakdown thats all, so can leach nitrogen from your soil in the process. Its fine if you can leave if for a long time before using.