Horse manure

Is horse manure a viable option to cow, steer manuere?? I can get all the horse manure I want for free but I have to buy cow,steer manure. I was told that horses pass a lot of unwanted seeds but because of a cows two stomachs, all the seeds get ground up.

what kind of bedding did they use for the horses? Most times sawdust is not too good if it is not composted.

It must work to some degree. It's what helped New Jersey become the "garden state" back a long time ago. That because when New York City was 100% horse power for transportation, all the horse manure got barged across the river to New Jersey, and used in vegetable growing.

Horse M. has less nitogen than cow. If you have an unlimited supply, just pile it on.

Re bedding: A pile of horse manure with sawdust, shavings or other un composted bedding will use the existing nirtogen In the composting process. Suggest you Google composting for a better explanation. If you get mostly the pure stuff and pile it on you should see results.

KEH

Cows have four stomachs, but I don't know about horses. I assume they must too since they eat grass. You'll need more horse manure for the same amount of benefit.
Zach

cows have 4 stomachs; horses have 1. i"m pretty sure they will both pass viable weed seeds.

If I could get it free I would put it in a pile to compost.

I use it in my garden all the time. Yes more prone to have weed seeds but you can apply it fresh and it will not burn your plants. I also feed my horses in a way that every year I make a compost pile so I have manure in many stages of composting which is very nice. I also do a lot of raise bed gardening and what is call square foot gardening which mean you use a smaller area but get more from it

Horses, being herbivores, have a large caecum, but only one stomach.

4 stomachs?? guess i missed a couple.

We've got sheep, dairy goats, cattle and now even a horse. From my observation of their manure, the goats pass the fewest intact seeds, followed by the sheep and then the cattle. If the hay is overmature and perhaps weedy, a lot of seeds will pass through anyway. Not too much experience yet with the horse, though it is not a ruminant and therefore has but one stomach.

We compost all of our winter's supply of manure. The ruminant manure compost goes onto hay ground or pasture, so I don't worry about the weed seeds.

We've also got chickens and hogs. The hogs are fed mostly ground feed, so no viable seeds there. The chickens do a good job of grinding their feed in their gizzards. When we compost that manure, it eventually finds its way into the market gardens.

The best way to handle the manure is to make sure it is well composted and given enough time to mature before using it. If the horse manure is mostly solid manure and bedding, its probably going to be pretty weak in nitrogen. If they trapped a lot of the horses' urine in the bedding, this will improve its value considerably. Free manure is very good to have, though it might not be very nutrient dense. You can control the weeds by composting it well.

Here's a website that might help understanding composting.
http://attra.ncat.org/soils.html

The seeds don"t get ground up in the stomach, livestock grind the seeds when chewing. Sheep, Goats and calves grind their food pretty good, mature cattle and horses, not so much. Horse manure is good fertilize but is considered a ""dry"" manure and as such takes longer to breakdown.

It's usually good when composted, the nitrogen in it breaks it down, if you aerate it/the pile often, it will break down into something that is beneficial to your soil.

Depending on what was used for bedding, how much hay is left behind in it etc. will determine how long it takes to completely break down. Hay, straw etc. is carbon and takes a lot to break down, moisture/heat created from the process of composting will eventually do it, but of you use manure that is fresh, it can very well used the existing nitrogen to break down, like KEH mentioned, the manure has to be composted and reach a certain temperature to kill off the weed seed. You can ad things to enrich it with nitrogen, like fresh lawn clippings, prefferably from a lawn that is not sprayed with chemicals.

I used to make compost from horse manure, bedding was sawdust, or shavings, pine seems to be the best though I have done it with hardwood sawdust as that was the only kind available at times, it takes longer to break down.

Heres a pile I made a few years back, made some nice compost with minimal work, good soil conditioner, garden material or what have you, you could also mix in some other materials and make a good topsoil or what have you.

Never have understood why anyone would compost manure before using, especially horse. Its not very powerful to start with, and composting will use up all the nitrogen, so you end up with soil amendment, not fertilizer. Its not great as a fertilizer when fresh, but will help some if you put on plenty. There's enough undigested plant fiber in it that it makes a pretty good soil loosener in the process. Cow is much better, chicken is the best.

BTW, don't use the solids from separated cow manure- local guy with many cows put in a separater about 20 years ago, invited all the area guys to come get the separated solids free, for their fields. They were lined up, with their little tractors and old manure spreaders- almost like a tractor show. That lasted exactly one year, because they got zero fertilizer value out of it. All the nutrients are in the liquid.