Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.

[Bill who putters]

My kids in sand box growing up with cat shit. Blood feces urine = life.

Bill no asthma here

[Frank]

An organic farmer (US) that previously posted here said he was concerned with contamination with a potent insecticide used to keep flies down. He would not use it on his food crops.

Frank

['Mike']

Thank God for a sensible post at long last on horse manure

Get a life some of you.

My daughter and son in law bred Arabs and 'were up to their arms' in horse muck so to speak for years. Never did any harm

Little story about being toooooooooooooooooooooooo careful and clean. Some friends had two daughters. "Spotlessly clean" all the time, as was the house. If one daughter fell over and dirtied her dress, BOTH were washed and changed clothes. Those two girls were always going down with colds or what ever there was about. No immune system to fight anything off. -- Mike

The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association

Luxury Self Catering on the Isle of Wight?

[mark]

There seems to be a lot of bull manure in this thread about horse manure.

mark

[Jeff Layman]

Depends. May be true for neonatal meningitis (1:2000), but certainly not for UTI. Quote "Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) cause 90% of the urinary tract infections (UTI) in anatomically-normal, unobstructed urinary tracts.". I am amazed that the figure is so high. There are a lot of women out there with UTIs caused by UPEC.

I'm not arguing about how dangerous it is, merely commenting on pathogenicity. I've not had E. coli gut problems, but have had Salmonella, so can speak from experience about the pathogenicity of bacteria affecting the gut. Certainly not dangerous, but very debilitating, especially in a tropical climate.

True for neonatal meningitis (couldn't really be anything else with that name!). but not so for UTI - see above quote.

I definitely agree with you on that. Constant exposure to low levels of bacteria is needed to keep the immune system ticking over properly. "Use it or lose it" applies here!

[nmm1]

I believe that you have misunderstood that. What I have been told and read is that ALL variants are uropathogenic, if they establish there, and the vast majority of such infections are normal gut flora that have got into the wrong place. And it's not rare in men, either! So what it means is that 90% of such UTIs are E. coli, variant unknown. They don't usually bother to serotype further, as it doesn't affect the treatment.

So one recommendation should definitely be not to indulge in kinky practices with fresh horse manure :-)

More seriously, that is the reason for the various hand washing and body washing order recommendations, and instructions to parents on how to bathe children, especially girls.

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[George.com]

I get horse poop & sit it in a composter for 6-12 months cold to break down. My dogs also enjoy a tasty bit of horse dung.

rob

[FarmI]

And the Hendra Virus which is extremely virulent.

But I use lots of horse manure and I don't bother composting it at all.

[bobharvey]

And, indeed, our local authority who two years ago warned people to scald the produce from their allotments because "95% of home grown produce is contaminated with salmonella"

[FarmI]

Yeah, I'm still here. Nothing wrong with me other than the red spots all over, the squint, the gummy jaws, the baldness and the limp.........

[nmm1]

Grin :-)

"The natural reservoir for Hendra virus is thought to be flying foxes"

"Only three human cases of Hendra virus disease have been recognized."

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[FarmI]

Dogs really can be such nasty little snots at times.

The other day, I went to visit my neighbour. I give her eggs, she gives me horse poop and we both think we get the best part of the deal.

One of her tenants who rented one of the houses on her farm died and the tenant's Corgi ended up being adopted by my neighbour.

The Corgi was lying on the Persian rug under an old church pew in the entry hall and chewing something with real relish. When we investigated it was a half moon shaped thing which turned out to be a paring from the horse's hoof from when the farrier had shod the horses that morning.

I usually have a cast iron stomach but for some reason seeing the Corgi doing this really turned my stomach.

[basilisk]

I think that may be the bigger problem, it is common in the southern US to use a feed through larvacide that is usually some kind of diflubenzuron compound and some barn managers sprinkle the manure with Golden Malrin which is a carbamate.

Billy might be able to expand on the hazards of these products.

I have horses and goats and don't use these products in an effort to keep the manure clean ; ).

Chickens are the best natural fly control around barns but unfortunately they don't leave any manure to fertilize with.

basilisk

[FarmI]

Yep

Hmmmm CDC. An American site.

I wonder who it was that wrote: "A lot of such rubbish is written by Merkins, who manage to make Little Englanders look intelligent. You need to be able to judge which authors have Clue and which don't." ;-P

But since you quote the CDC, their article also says "humans became ill after exposure to body fluids and excretions of horses infected with Hendra virus"

At last count, three people have died of Hendra Virus.

[nmm1]

I did. The CDC is a respected organisation, which doesn't mean that its pronouncements are gospel. The Merkins I was referring to are a different class of Web-making pest, as undesirable as RSM.

Let's all start panicking now :-)

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

[dr-solo]

it is a trade off, but organically produced food is safer according to this report......

"Avoiding MRSA Follow these tips to help reduce your risk of exposure to MRSA in meats: Shop smarter Look for the USDA organic seal. Organic meat might be less likely to have antibiotic-resistant or disease-causing organisms, as the animal hasn't been fed antibiotics, hormones to promote growth, or animal by-products. Other labels, such as no antibiotics added, are not verified by independent testing. Log on to eatwellguide.org to search for listings of stores and restaurants that offer no-antibiotic-use, grass-fed, or organic meats. Stock up on nonmeat protein sources such as beans, lentils, and tofu and swap them in for meat now and then. Visit prevention.com/veggies for recipe ideas. "

"You may not have the same close contact with meat that a processing plant worker has, but scientists warn there is reason for concern: Most of us handle meat daily, as we bread chicken cutlets, trim fat from pork, or form chopped beef into burgers. Cooking does kill the microbe, but MRSA thrives on skin, so you can contract it by touching infected raw meat when you have a cut on your hand, explains Stuart Levy, MD, a Tufts University professor of microbiology and medicine. MRSA also flourishes in nasal passages, so touching your nose after touching meat gives the bug another way into your body, adds Smith.

Tainted meat exposed Extensive research in Europe and Asia has found MRSA in many food animal species, and in the past year, US researchers have begun testing meat sold here. Scientists at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center tested 120 cuts of locally purchased meat and found MRSA in 4 percent of the pork and 1 percent of the beef. A University of Maryland scientist found it in 1 out of 300 pork samples from the Washington, DC, area. And a study in Canada (from which we import thousands of tons of meat annually) found MRSA in 9 percent of 212 pork samples. The percentages may be small, but according to the USDA, Americans eat more than 180 million pounds of meat every day. "When you consider the tiny size of the meat studies, the fact that they found any contamination at all is amazing," says Steven Roach, public health program director for Food Animal Concerns Trust.

In some cases, the tainted meat probably came from infected animals; in others, already infected humans could have passed on MRSA to the meat during processing. Regardless of where it originated, even a small proportion of contaminated meat could mean a tremendous amount of MRSA out there. "We need more US research to figure out what's going on," says Roach."

Somewhere between zone 5 and 6 tucked along the shore of Lake Michigan on the council grounds of the Fox, Mascouten, Potawatomi, and Winnebago

[Wild Billy]

Hendra virus (formerly called equine morbillivirus) is a member of the family Paramyxoviridae. Nipah virus, also a member of the family Paramyxoviridae, is related but not identical to Hendra virus.

Funny, when I read this page, it says,"Two of the three human patients infected with Hendra virus died (Australia). During the Nipah virus disease outbreak in 1998-99 (Malaysia and Singapore), 257 patients were infected with the virus. About 40% of those patients who entered hospitals with serious nervous disease died from the illness."

[Wild Billy]

What do Regional Sales Managers have to do with anything?

Do many people in the UK show signs of "Mad Cow Disease"?

[Wild Billy]

These ideosyncracies only add character to our siren of the soil.

[Wild Billy]

Let's look at a worst case scenerio.

Vegetable Gardens and Drainage Fields Sometimes the ideal place to put a vegetable garden seems to be over the leach field, raising the question of bacterial and viral contamination from the effluent. Soils vary a great deal in their ability to filter viruses and bacteria. Clay soils work best, eliminating bacteria within a few inches of the drain trenches, but sandy soils may allow bacterial movement for several feet. A properly operating system will not contaminate the soil with disease-causing organisms, but it is very difficult to determine if a field is operating just as it should. If at all possible, use your septic drain field for ornamentals and plant your vegetables elsewhere.

If you must plant vegetables, take the following precautions. Do not plant root crops over drain lines. Leafy vegetables could be contaminated by rain splashing soil onto the plant, so either mulch them to eliminate splashing or don't grow them. Fruiting crops are probably safe; train any vining ones such as cucumbers or tomatoes onto a support so that the fruit is off the ground. Thoroughly wash any produce from the garden before eating it. Do not construct raised beds over the field; they might inhibit evaporation of moisture.