Horse manure and wood shavings

Rathbran

Well-Known Member
Looking for some advice please on what to do with this. Have a large pile comprised of horse manure, wood shavings used for bedding and old Hay. It’s composting probably about 70%. Can I spread this on the land, certainly the bit that’s composted. I’ve read that it will break down on the land but will require a lot of nitrogen to break down the wood shavings. Also will probably spoil the soil PH and need lime. Our animals don’t mix and we don’t have any other animals so not worried about worm larvae in the dung.

Any thoughts..?
 
I would compost it fully before spreading it if possible. Layer in some grass clippings to balance the nitrogen carbon levels.
 
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How big are we talking?
100 hoses 5 yrs worth or 2 hos a years worth?
And what acerage to spread it onto?

Most of the time as long as it isn't a heck of a lot per acre you won't see any negative effects from it IMO..
 
2 horses and the pile has been accumulating for a few years so there’s a few trailer loads in it, have 10 acres in two 5 acre divisions, I think it’s too much to put out in one go, as I believe it would need to be spread out thinly ?
 
Ideally compost should be broken down to the point where you cannot tell what the original stuff was. ie if it was hay, straw, woodchip etc. Some say it can take two years, but regular turning can speed this up to a few weeks. if you do spread it, anything that is not well broken down or decayed, will just sit there. And if its woody, not only will it absorb nitrogen, but if you place it near other trees, it may entice in the wrong kind of bacteria and fungi leading to losses. Now if you spread the wood shavings/chip or whatever outside the drip zone, you should be ok, but people have become obsessed with putting wood chip/barkmulch around trees, which is a big no. I went a bit off topic, with a rant; apologies.
Can you separate out whats broken down and spread that, and leave the fresher stuff to decompose?
 
Will horse manure spread on grassland bring a lot of weeds? We had a tenant and he kept a few horses in the old yard. We have parted company and he left our manure pit full as a gift. Its not a huge amount but will cover 3 or 4 acres. Is it worth spreading it or should it be composted in an eternal compost pile?
 
Ideally compost should be broken down to the point where you cannot tell what the original stuff was. ie if it was hay, straw, woodchip etc. Some say it can take two years, but regular turning can speed this up to a few weeks. if you do spread it, anything that is not well broken down or decayed, will just sit there. And if its woody, not only will it absorb nitrogen, but if you place it near other trees, it may entice in the wrong kind of bacteria and fungi leading to losses. Now if you spread the wood shavings/chip or whatever outside the drip zone, you should be ok, but people have become obsessed with putting wood chip/barkmulch around trees, which is a big no. I went a bit off topic, with a rant; apologies.
Can you separate out whats broken down and spread that, and leave the fresher stuff to decompose?
I think that’s the best plan, get out the composted stuff at the bottom and spread that mean while turn the fresh pile and compost that properly. Looks like spread it little and often. It’s slow to compost. Will see if there’s anything I can add to it to speed it up
 
Will horse manure spread on grassland bring a lot of weeds? We had a tenant and he kept a few horses in the old yard. We have parted company and he left our manure pit full as a gift. Its not a huge amount but will cover 3 or 4 acres. Is it worth spreading it or should it be composted in an eternal compost pile?
The manure on its own is pretty fertile, if they were grazing paddocks with weeds they might have ingested the seeds and there dung can be pretty acidic which will upset the soil ph
 
In my limited experience of horse shit I find that it's best put onto an " arable" field/ allotment etc Rather than grass as Hoover's sorry horses/ponies tend to consume all manner of weed seeds and shit them out ready fertilized you only have to look at the amount of stingers growing on horse heap. And they eat hay again lots of potential weed seeds.
Flog ot it to allotment holders or get a farmer to plough it in somewhere in exchange for some well rotted cow shit if you need summat on your grass
 
I think that’s the best plan, get out the composted stuff at the bottom and spread that mean while turn the fresh pile and compost that properly. Looks like spread it little and often. It’s slow to compost. Will see if there’s anything I can add to it to speed it up
Some people say that adding urine helps heaps to compost faster. It's up to you how you do it!
 
i heard of a man who took/takes bucketfulls from the septic tank and puts it on his growing vegetables, and has been known to give the vegetables to his friends and neighbours 🤮
In our school one of the jobs for the sixth class lads was wheelbarrowing the contents of the cess pit onto the parish priests potato drills . In the autumn the same wheelbarrow was used to bring apples from his orchard to the school so everyone could have an apple.
 
In our school one of the jobs for the sixth class lads was wheelbarrowing the contents of the cess pit onto the parish priests potato drills . In the autumn the same wheelbarrow was used to bring apples from his orchard to the school so everyone could have an apple.
Hope the barrow got washed in the mean time.
 
😂😂 all adds to the flavour
The trouble is you sense of smell precedes your sense of taste !! , reminds me of a place we cut a bit of silage in a good few years ago, small farm, big family so nothing went to waste, milked about 30 cows and kept a few sows and sold the weaners, anyhow we were called to dinner, bacon and cabbage and spuds, while it looked fine and properly cooked the first thing we noticed was the smell off the dinner, it stank of pig shite, I don't think anyone ate the cabbage as that was what the waft was off, hadn't he grown it between the end of the pighouse and the pigslurry tank between 2 slurry channels.....................
 
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