Composting Horse Manure: The Benefits Come With Responsibilities!
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The Benefits Come With Responsibilities! If you own a horse, try your hand at composting horse manure. Add the weight of the horse, say a thousand pounds, to the bedding material, and you will probably get about 750 cubic feet of composting material each year. Composted horse manure will do wonders for your garden and flowerbeds, not to mention the help you can give to your environment. If anything, you can at least donate or sell your horse manure to the landscapers, farmers, and gardeners in your area. What You Will Need For ease, you will need a tractor, a front-end loader, and a manure spreader. If you do not have those and you only have a few horses, you may want to use the composting bin method. You will need three composting bins: one for the fresh horse manure you regularly collect; a second one for the composting manure; and a third for the completely composted manure. Allow space between boards and do not overfill to ensure aeration. Turn them over regularly, for proper composting. Horse Bedding Common bedding materials are sawdust, wood chips, and straw. You can also use peat moss, tattered newspapers, cornhusks, etc. Avoid using chips and sawdust from treated lumber, if you are concerned about toxins that can be transmitted to your plants and thus to you as consumer. Remove the horse manure and beddings regularly to avoid pesky flies and other pests and the diseases they can transmit. Carbon:Nitrogen (C:N) Ratio For proper composting, your C:N ratio should be somewhere between 25:1 and 30:1. Your raw horse manure has approximately 50:1 ratio, plus whatever C:N your bedding material has. Add about 30 lbs. of grass clippings or hay to bring the C:N ratio at an optimum range. If you prefer, you can also use about 90 lbs of ammonium nitrate. Consult with your local nursery if you are in doubt about ratios. Temperature Aside from the C:N ratio, your composting process will require the right temperature. It should be somewhere between 120°F and 160°F. If your nitrogen is lacking, the temperature will be cooler and composting will not be complete. A compost temperature gauge is a wise investment. Moisture and Oxygen Your horse manure and bedding material should be moist, but not soggy. Whenever necessary, use a plastic tarp over it to retain the moisture. Turn it over regularly for aeration. Composted Horse Manure Your compost, if properly done, should shrink to about 60% less weight and volume than the raw horse manure. Correct temperature during composting will also kill larvae, pathogens, fly eggs, and weeds. Horse manure is a very good soil conditioner. Be a Responsible Horse Owner To distribute horse manure in your pasture, especially if it is small, move your horse around. Remember to provide the necessary number of watering amenities to encourage your horse to move. Stay away from grazing, however, during rainy weather to avoid soil compaction. Do all you can to prevent any potential horse manure run off. E.g., construct a berm around the pile area, if necessary, and place that pile at least 150 feet away from any surface water, ponds, etc. You can also provide fencing or other means so that there will be no horse manure deposits in streams. Composting horse manure helps everyone win!
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