Horse manure as fertilizer

[firefighter9208]

Anyone used horse manure as fertilizer on his/her pasture. I have Boer goats Hill Farm Boer Goats and the price on Nitrogen is out the roof this year. I have a friend that owns a stable and trains/raises horses. He creates quite a bit of manure (Well, not him personally, but the horses). He has told me that i can have all I want (for free) if I haul it. I have a single axle dump truck that will haul about 10 tons. He lives about 15 miles away so gas wouldn't cost me much.

My questions are:

1. How would be the best way to spread it? I don't have a manure spreader.
2. How good a fertilizer would this make. It has some hay (bermuda) and shavings mixed in.


Any ideas would be appreciated.

Chris

 

[ToadHill]

Horse manure is not as good a fertilizer as cow manure but for free, what the heck. I'd spend the $$ and get a manure spreader, there is no easy way to do it without one.

 

[tony123]

Be sure to compost it for a year. Get it good and hot. Or else, you'll be spreading every weed seed in the county right on your pasture.

 

[czechsonofagun]

Tony got it right. You can grow wheat from horse manure no problem - thats what is growing in our manure dumping area. Horse crap does not stink too bad, b/c it is much less digested than say from cow or sheep but for the same reason it preserves most of the seeds.

 

[Reg]

IF the guy is CHEAP the manure is probably good.

Reason being that cheap horse owners try to economize on bedding, which is mostly shavings. They pick out only the manure to toss out, which is exactly what you want. A high wood content will take forever to rot down, so you might find yourself spending even MORE on nitrogen.

 

[firefighter9208]

Ok guys I think I'll go and check out his manure pile. It should mostly be manure with some shavings. I have goats so weeds aren't really a concern. There's not a weed in my pasture and I've never sprayed it. They would rather eat weeds or blackberry briars than grass.

Chris

 

[EastTexFrank]

Horse manure makes great fertillizer. I wish I had a source near me now. When I lived in the U.K., the local stable would let you haul off as much as you wanted. I must have hauled tons of the stuff. Over there they used straw for bedding, nor shavings, and after composting I used to spread it with a wheel barrow and shovel and till it in. That was, without doubt, the very best vegetable garden I ever had.

 

[Cottonhawk]

We use our horse manure as fertilizer in our pastures, flower pots, and garden. They are really good fertilizers and easy to spread by using a spreader. In our pastures I also drag to break up the manure chunks.

 

[AKfish]

Good advice here. Horse manure is a great plant nutrient source.

Horse manure isn't as broken down (cellulose, lignin, etc.) as cow manure because they don't have a ruminent digestive system; only a stomach and caecum.

Composting finishes that breakdown process. And significantly reduces creating a weed problem. Doesn't completely eliminate that possibility, though.

If you can't compost it; the clumps will be present in the field for a spell and you'll have to break them up with a spring tooth drag or an arena drag (fixed tooth) to speed up the breakdown process and make the material available to your pasture grasses.

AKfish

 

[firefighter9208]

Thanks guys. Anybody got plans for a homemade manure spreader? I hate to spend $1000.00 on one and have a couple small trailers I could build one out of.

Chris