In article .com,
"Chuckie" wrote:

Most chicken manure is well composted in the barn

If it wasn't a hot compost the pathogens won't be killed. The chance that
the barn floor reached temperatures in excess of 130 degrees is about
zero.

since most farms do
not clean out their chicken coop or barn every single day.
In fact anytime I get manure it has usually sat for six months or more.
Also Cow manure pulled right out of the barn and put on the garden is
very benificial.

And more often than not dangerously contaminated with zoonotic pathogens.

And if you are going to tell me about the health risk first reserch the
health risks of commercial fertilizers. They are far more dangerous
than natural manures
Chuckie

I've done the research. You clearly never bothered or you wouldn't be
peevish that facts are facts.

Chemical fertilizers used properly have all sorts of accumulative risks
most measurable in large doubleblind studies over a great length of time,
less obvious one person at a time since it could take forty years for a
very small percentage of the population to have a cancer that might or
might not be related to a horrible soup of contaminants.

Contact with uncomposted manures on the otherhand exposes individuals to
immediate dramatic risks such as cause of human illness from zoonotic
bacterial infections, "a significant human health risk" according to the
USDA's Agricultural Research service on the prevention of zoonotic
diseases.

Slathering uncomposted shit in the garden has a much more immediate
disease risk than do chemical fertilizers, which even a die-hard organic
gardener like myself finds easy to accept as a simple reality.

Chickenshit provides a very high risk of salmonella, which has been shown
to live in manures up to 286 days waiting for its next victim, though most
dangerous for the first 30 days away from infecteed animals (and
salmonella is carried by as many as 75% of chickens & cattle themselves
showing no sign of illness, animals that shed the pathogens at the rate of
20,000 to 50,000 cfu per gram of manure). Cryptosporidium & listeria
remain alive & dangerous for 6 weeks away from an infected animals, or
longer. A fresh vegetable that looked perfectly clean could cause severe
illness or death after contact with uncomposted or untreated manures even
weeks after application in the garden.

Slathering uncomposted chowshit in the garden, unless it has been
innoculated with sodium carbonate or heat-composted, presents a high risk
of e-coli, a very deadly pathogen, plus any number of pathogens perhaps
less apt to result in death but some pretty severe illnesses even so. Many
e-coli outbreaks in America have been tracked back to just such an origin:
morons spreading uncomposted cow manure where they are growing vegetables.
Uncomposted or uncarbonated cow manure commonly has an e-Coli count of
100,000 to 100,000,000 cells per gram. A 2002 Department of Health and
Human Services study looked at 54 manure samples & discovered 23 were
cantaminated with e-coli, a darmned high percentage.

The danger is particularly great for children. A North Carolina Department
of Health & Human Services study in 2004 found that toddlers (under three
years of age) who contracted e-coli were seven times more likely to have
been in contact with manure than were children who were not ill.

Tetanus is a constant risk in any garden, but with uncomposted manures in
the garden risk increases. Tetanus kills a few gardeners every year,
mostly old ones.

Salmonella & e-coli infections are the most serious risks. There are a
great many zoonotic diseases that are less commonly encountered, but
common enough, including Streptococcus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, &
Staphylococcus. Getting one's shit already half decayed from the
chickenhouse or barn isn't going to fix the problem, as these pathogens
need a HOT composting for a minimum three days to be killed, & can
otherwise remain dangerous for weeks after placement on a garden.

For cow manures that have never been heat-composted there are lesser
threats of human infection from bovine virus or cryptosporidia protozoans
or Camplyobacteria or listeria, & an array of mycobacterium. Dairy workers
usually know how to protect themselves. Gardeners crawling around in their
own gardens are not as apt to be on guard, so should just not be putting
themselves in the way of such risk slathering raw feces in places where
they work & play.

The risk of spreading diseases to other animals is also considerable,
including to the dog or the cat. Staph contracted by the family pet from
manure can result in chronic scabbing & then the infection easily
transfers to children who play with the infected pets. Uncomposted cowshit
can spread paratuberculosis (Johnes disease) to deer visiting a garden, to
domestic llamas or goats, plus it does have the zoonotic potential of
spreading from manure to humans.

A compost heap, reaching a minimum of 131 degrees F., kills all pathogens
in only three days. On hands & knees in a garden crawling about in
uncomposted poo, or eating stuff grown in the garden, or dogs or children
playing in the garden, all put everyone at CONSIDERABLE risk, something
anyone with a lick of sense is never going to deny.

Humans spreading chemicals on everything may be causing a greater lasting
harm to the larger environment & secondariy thereby to themselves. Humans
crawling around in a garden coated in feces are doing less damage to the
larger environment but taking a far greater & immediate risk of killing
themselves or making themselves lastingly ill exposing themselves to a
hundred realistically dangerous zoonotic pathogens & parasites.
Intelligent folks will make sure to run it through a healthy hot compost
before putting it where kids & pets will be playing or where gardeners
will be weeding or harvesting.

One can take a calculated risk in many things in life on almost a daily
basis. To drive drunk. To bungy jump. To help a sick animal even at risk
of becoming infected ourselves. Or play scat-games to the delight of a
sadistic lover. But to pretend such things as sleucing raw manure all over
the place is not really much of a risk is at best foolhardy, at worst a
way to kill someone, most likely a child or an old person.

-paghat the ratgirl
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