Questions on Various Manures

[salmonslayer]

A farm on one side of us has offered us all the horse manure and chicken litter we want and another farmr two farms down just offered us Llama manure. We would be looking to use it to compost and to till into our truck garden patch and orchard this fall.

Is there an advantage of one over the other? I have heard that llama manure is pretty balanced ph wise and that chicken litter is rich in urea but I dont have any experience. Specific questions include:

1. Which would be best for a vegetable garden?

2. Any issues with using manure for an orchard and which would be best?

3. If I tilled it in to the truck garden patch this fall for spring planting could I till it in without composting it first?

4. I also have access to all the cow manure we want from a dairy farm, would that be better to spread on the pasture than horse manure?

This is our first year on the farm and the gardens are very prolific so I dont want to screw it up. Thanks in advance.

[cfabe]

I'm not sure about ph and fertilizer values and what not, but I have heard that manure from llamas and goats does not carry the risk of bringing in weed seeds in the manure because those animals digest things so completely. I guess this is a problem with cow/horse manure. The goats and llamas break down the seeds so they won't germinate.

[Bret]

No one ever accused me of knowing my ssstuff.

It's been too long since I read the nitrogen table in Rodales Composting book, but it is in there.

You can use all of them for side dressing plants anytime but you could risk burning them or contaminating your plants. I transplanted some red raspberries this spring and think that I in fact burned them to death.

Till it under is a good plan, to keep from losing the nitrogren to the air. Or pile it near where you will use it and let it compost naturally for a season. It will be very nice to work with when it is mature compost and it will happen sooner than you think.

[MELOC]

info i got from martin and the gardening forum...

NPK Ratios of Common Barnyard Animal Manures

Sheep: 0.7-0.3-0.9
Horse: 0.7-0.3-0.6
Steer: 0.7-0.3-0.4
Cow: 0.6-0.2-0.5
Pig: 0.5-0.3-0.5

Rabbit: 2.4-1.4-0.6
Goat: 1.3-1.5-0.5
Chicken:1.1-0.8-0.5

[WindowOrMirror]

Llama you can use immediately (like rabbit). Horse and chicken must sit a year.

[wogglebug]

Originally Posted by WindowOrMirror

Llama you can use immediately (like rabbit).

True - or you can use it as top-dressing or side-dressing for row crops.
As a comment, sheep manure is excellent for this as well, as a fertilising top-dressing mulch; but can introduce nettle seeds.

Originally Posted by WindowOrMirror

Horse and chicken must sit a year.

Chicken manure is too hot to use immediately. You can till it in and leave it a few months (like overwinter), or compost it first. Note that chicken litter will probably have wood shavings or sawdust as well, and the wood will need to break down first.

Horse manure you can use immediately as side-dressing near but away from direct contact with row crop plants.
As a warning note, I have heard (but don't know from personal experience) that horse manure may container residue from worm-killing drenches which is not good for earthworms.

[GrannyG]

We have a llama so use the manure to till in the garden. Works great for us....

[Callieslamb]

Be aware that llamas will manure where they smell other llama manure.....just a warning. They will all manure in the same pile so their manure usually isn't mixed with straw or hay.

As for the horse manure - what is with it - oats? Straw? It's good to know your weed before you start pulling it. LOL!! But it's great for the garden. I don't know about the orchard. It seems that weeds wouldn't be an issue since you mow an orchard anyway.

[Forerunner]

If you have ready access to carbon, enough to mix half and half with your manures, I would mix and compost from now until spring.
The composting process balances the pH, whereas spreading fresh may create a pH problem....I say may.
If you don't have access to carbon, I'd spread them a little on the thin side, this fall, till it in real well and probably be good to go for spring.

Anymore, my preference is always to let material of any kind mature in a pile, but I occasionally get an urge and disc in some fresher stuff. The fresher stuff is best used if you will be machine tilling or otherwise incorporating it into the soil, and not planning on any immediate hand gardening in that area. My experience is that fresh manures make the ground turn hard and tough after the first good rain.
Finished compost is like working with moist coffee grounds.
Only finished compost for any plot that will be worked by hand.

[rambler]

Originally Posted by salmonslayer

4. I also have access to all the cow manure we want from a dairy farm, would that be better to spread on the pasture than horse manure?

This is our first year on the farm and the gardens are very prolific so I dont want to screw it up. Thanks in advance.

What critters do you put in your pasture? I'd be very concerned about passing pathigens from the maure to my critters, I would not bring outside manure into my pasture unless it had 3+ months of good growing weather to die off before letting my critters back in that pasture. Mist rsp the same manure as my critters.

For the garden, any is good, composting it is a good thing to lower the weed count & get rid of the e.coli & such.

Chicken manure is hottest bang for the buck, hog manure 2nd, cattle third, horse 4th. Not familiar with the smaller critters, so don't blame me if they need to be up in their higher...

Out in the filed for corn/soy/wheat growing I'd love to get my hands on chicken or hog manure. Cattle manure does fine.

For garden use, I'd prefer composting it, and any of them work well that way. You loswe some nitrogen, but also lose some of the bad things too....

If you want to add carbon to your compost pile, that is just - straw, grass clippings, fibery plant stuff.

--->Paul

[Alex]

Hi,

Duane the neighbour is retiring -- auction for equipment tomorrow. So last fall I got Paul to come with one of his big backhoes and 2 big dumptrucks. We stockpiled and covered with a big tarp two loads of cow manure -- well rotted.

We also stock-piled 4 big loads of gravel from his place which he subsequently sold.

We have been using cow manure for years -- works great -- dig or till it in the fall or spring, and use as a side dressing through out the year. We also compost with 6 to 12 inches of straw in winter and growing season.

Our garden soil is wonderful and productive.


Paul Paquette’s back hoe and dump truck loading manure from Duane’s pile

Here is a quote from another post of mine,

Originally Posted by Alex

That's right, NOTHING -- NO till, then:

• Cut the grass,
• Put down 3" or 4" of compost or well-rotted manure,
• Put down four layers of newspaper,
• Wet them down,
• Put on 8" of straw, moldy hay, leaves, etc for mulch,
• Dig hole just for the seeds and plants you will plant this year,
• Add more mulch as needed,
• If up north like we are, start garden a little later, or remove the mulch at the planting area one or two weeks before planting, to let soil warm up,
• The soil gets worked up well and there is no disruption to the rich upper layer, worms do a lot of the work, I think, and the newspaper adds to the soil, and helps keep out the weeds -- still a few -- but the newspaper blocks them -- mostly.

That's it, it works, we use drip irrigation with that system, less weeds, and if put drip, or the pump, on a timer, then you don't have to be there to water.


No-till start, weeds cut, manure down, cardboard down. Those black plastic pipes on the fence are our interconnected (with valves at each branch) DRIP IRRIGATION pipes. We put those down later.


Ready and waiting for plants, seeds, and the magic of no-till. Drip pipes still on fence. Our fence is 4' of stock wire at the bottom, and 3' barbed wire, this keeps the deer out. The yellow horizontal thing on the fence is a wind-shield trap rolled up, which we don't use -- thought we needed it.


Our Garden August, those are the flowering potatoes in front and lush peas five feet tall to the left, they went to seven feet and gave peas for months. That's Hops starting to over-run the gate, a month later it was all over the place.

We have lots of worms as mentioned, and the knotted-old hay field is loose and rich looking soil.

Good Luck with NO Till,

Alex

P.S. We ONLY put shavings on the Blueberries, and things that like acid soil. We don't use it on our garden, it would stunt our plants: guess that's based on your own soil's needs.

Good luck with getting Manure -- get it all stock-pile it and let us know which is best.

Alex

[motdaugrnds]

This was the first garden we have grown in the last 7 yrs; so our garden area was quite diversified with plant life, which we tilled in. This gave us plenty of room for experimentation as to fertilization.

In one area we had placed all our goat bedding from the previous 2 years. In another area we used cow manure; and in another straight 10-10-10 from the shop. It has become obvious to us the area where goat bedding had had 2 yrs to sit is putting forth the nicest vegy plants (no additional seeds).

This has permitted us to know, after this year's harvest, we will be placing both goat bedding and chicken droppings in the area of the garden that has not had it, letting it sit for probably 6 months or longer. (We have a very large composter I have never used. I simply have not understood how to use it, even though it came with instructions. It is the type with a handle that permits us to turn it daily; so I am determined to start making use of it as soon as I can be sure of what to place in it.)

I do know the ph of the soil (dependant on what you will be growing in that area) is important and some vegy plants will be using more nutrients than others; so it pays to know whether your plants will be heavy or light feeders no matter what type of fertillizer you use.

[salmonslayer]

Wow great information and its helped formulate our plans. We have a significant compost operation going and with part of our veg garden we were able to incorporate that rich dark compost (no manure) and you can actually see the difference compared to the area where we just used some fertilizer and a little composted horse manure.

We are in the Ozarks and the soil is rocky limestone though our garden and pasture has fairly good soil with lots of earthworms. When we tested the garden area (about an acre right now) our pH was 6.1 and phosphorous and potasium levels were rated very high and we had almost 4% organic matter. The pasture was a little more acidic but still had high PK levels.

We do till mechanically so I think I will till in the llama manure this fall and plant vetch or some other nitrogen fixer for over winter and compost the other manures. I think I am officially in the homesteading zone...getting all excited about free poo and all!!

[Alex]

salomslayer, HA