"0tterbot" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message

I thought about this question overnight and it's a bit hard to
answer
because it's a matter of being able to
see what it looks like.

it's certainly looking less pleasant than it did :-)

LOL I got a very vivid mental picture when I read that! My mind had
a very unpretty sight in it :-))

i was wondering though - some bits of the manure would be older, &
some
quite fresh, as it's chook house rakings incl from their yard. does
the poo
deactivate a little anyway (in a dried condition) as it ages, or
does it
need to compost down a bit (with moisture)? i ask because 1: i don't
know

If it's all very old and a uniform brown colour and in biggish
horizontal sheets (that's how it compacts down when old) then it is OK
to use like that, but you have to break it up a bit and compacted chok
shit in sheets can be hard to brek up. However, if it is mixed ages -
some fresh and juicy and some brown and compacted looking, then I'd
turn it a bit. But also as Jonno says, you could use it very thinly
and a long way from stems. Round shrubs or trees maybe, but be very
cautious if you want to use it in either the veg bed or in the flower
bed - maybe you could use it on corn as it's such ag ross feeder.

g but also 2: i got a shitload (no pun intended... well maybe) of
horse
manure from a neighbour, & it was the same, mixed ages (of poo, not
horses
;-), but felt more confident to just start using it straight away
because
it's milder than chicken manure. i'm not 100% sure this was a grand
plan,
but for the most part it seemed absolutely fine. (the several things
which
came up which weren't too healthy from the beginning, i wouldn't
necessarily
claim it was from too-fresh manure, as our weather's been bizarre,
so there
have been deaths & stunted plants anyway, iyswim... but perhaps it
was the
wrong thing to do.)

I also get horse poop of mixed ages from a neigbour and I use it
straight away. Not too close to stems and on well watered soil and I
always top it with mulch. I swear by horse poop and think it is THE
best manure of all time (although I have a freidn who says rabiit poop
is better). I also find that I have surprisingly few weeds from the
horse poop - possibly because of the mulch as seeds need light to
germinate. I might get 3 oat plants and a few others each year in a
bed of 70 roses which is heavily muclhed and always gets horse poop.
I'd get more wind blown seeds than I get from the horse poop.