Horse Manure as fertilizer ?

[Harvey9]

Is this good as a fertilizer? Some say it is full of weed seed. I can get some, it's 2 - 3 years old. Will be using it on a small vegatable garden.

Thanks
Harvey

 

[randy41]

go for it. you will weed the garden anyway.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've also heard that it's full of seed and that there is no time limit on how long the seed remains good. If you use it, you will have a lot of grass growing there.

Eddie

 

[Dftodd]

It doesn't work all that great for ferilizer unless you have a place you can compost it for several years. It cuts down on the amount of weeds that pop up We used to have rotating piles we used from mucking out the stalls. Then gave up and started spreading it back out on the pasture and then running over it with discs. We could get composted cow manure from a local farm for $35 a pickup truck load. So we used to just run down there for a couple loads to put on the gardens

 

[HEC]

We had a house lot years ago that was covered with a clay base and just a little loom on top of that . We wanted a garden so I covered it with horse manure and tilled it in . After doing this for a couple years we had a great garden . The people used wood shavings as bedding so that helped also I guess . Weeds were no worse than any other garden I have had since .

 

[fishheadbob]

Horse manure is full of weeds because of the horses simple digestive system. When we had horses I got to where I could tell what kind of hay the horses were eating by looking at their horseballs; it wasn't a whole lot different looking than what went in.
Cows on the other hand have 4 stomachs. When they passed something it was very digested and there weren't many seeds.
A lot depends on how much bedding is in the horse poop. If it's mostly straw or sawdust their won't be as many weeds, nor will there be as many nutrients. It will help to change the soil tilth of the garden if it's heavy on bedding though. Our horses didn't see too much sawdust so their manure was heavy on poop. I spread it on hayfields.
If you go with horse manure I'd say to compost it for a few years or prepare yourself for some extra weeding in the garden.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Apparently some of the hay we bought for the horses a couple of years ago had been treated with grazon. Ruined our garden that year.

 

[Jstpssng]

The best garden that I ever had, I hauled in pickup load after pickup load of horse manure until it was about 6" deep on top of what was until then a lawn. A friend came with his Troybilt and went over it repeatedly. That summer I canned my entire winter's supply of food including 13 gallons of pickles. I really don't remember a lot of weeds.

I knew a nurseryman who used it for his potting medium; he first would spread it out, put 10-10-10 fertilizer on and till it. It would get hot enough to burn the weed seeds out.

 

[bcjmmac]

I use horse manure - get the older stuff and spread it on top of the gardens in the fall. Winter around here kills most of the seeds/don't have to lot of weeding (use raised beds with mulched paths to keep lawn seeds out)

 

[Sodo]

Apparently some of the hay we bought for the horses a couple of years ago had been treated with grazon. Ruined our garden that year.

Another one is "Milestone" which was fast-tracked thru the EPA ( just add $$ ) . Its legal for use even though it kills broadleaf plants for years. If Milestone was used on the pasture (kills knapweed) then the horse manure coming off that pasture will kill your garden for years (except for the grass ! ).