More on horse manure

[Mary McHugh]

I haven't posted here in quite a few years and have peeked in to see an interesting thread about horse manure. I regularly use fresh horse manure in the garden with no ill results.

A friend posted these results when she had her chicken and horse manure tested. As you can see, horse manure is pretty low in nitrogen. It definitely improves the organic content of the soil but IME, the chances of burning is low.

The results:

"in the never ending quest to kill time,I thought I'd publish our manure sample results...one is horse manure and the other chicken litter..both about 60dys old:

lbs per ton horse

[Dioclese]

Another nice thing about chicken feces is its counter PH effect upon soil with high alkaline content. Even works on pure caliche.

[Nanzi]

I got some horse manure, aged, that gave me so many weeds in that garden that I am loathe to use it again. What do you do about that? Nan in DE

[phorbin]

I'd probably incorporate it into a compost pile that's built to heat up fast and stay hot long enough to kill the weed seeds.

[FarmI]

You mulch and then you weed anything that comes through the mulch.

There is no such thing as a garden where weeding can be avoided as there is alwyas wind borne weed seeds and if you use animal manures other than poultry manure, there will always be weeds.

I'm so convinced of the improvements that horse manure makes to my soil that I put up with any amount of weeding because I believe that horse manure is a magic ingredient.

[ozadam]

[FarmI]

I've read that comment often and I disagree with it. I think it's an old wive's tale and it also isn't a view that I've been able to find has much support in the scientific literature on vermicides.

The worms found in horses are an entirely different species to earthworms.

I collect my horsepoop from a farm which has 20+ horses and where the owner has a regular worming program. The poops are cleared out of the stable or paddock every day and always placed in 2 piles in 2 particular spots. These spots have been in regular use for at least 15 years.

I've been collecting the poops from these spots for years now and there are always worms there. Mostly the worms there are the ones I call Red Wrigglers which are the real manure worms but sometimes the worms are just the normal earthworms. I collect then up too as I'm not going to let a free earthworm escape from going into my garden.

I also spread horse poop as it comes (often almost still steaming) straight onto garden beds and it results in a huge worm population explosion.

The range of vermicides used in horses is huge but the ones most commonly used round here (rural Aus.) are probably those that contain avermectin. The following cites all say that toxicity to earthworms really isn't a problem.