David Hare-Scott wrote:
....
In my view whatever organic matter you can get locally and cheaply (or free)
is always superior to what you may buy or truck in.

if it is clean, sure. however, i'm wary
of taking anything from a farm these days.
things aren't the way they used to be.
animals are moved around a lot more now and
there are more resistant diseases.


To all those who say that it is essential to compost manure before use, I
ask why?

ever hear of E.coli O157:H7 ?

for children and elderly there is 6%
chance of kidney failure if infected. for
the rest of us it can mean bloody poo,
vomiting and other fun stuff.

this bacteria can be found in even healthy
animals with no obvious sign it is there short
of testing each pile of poo. it can take as
little as 100 bacteria to cause an infection
(in my opinion 1 is enough if you happen to
be really unlucky or are immunologically
under the weather).

and then there are the flesh eating staph
bacterias going around now too. a friend
lost his foot and it's very likely it came
from horse manure.

i'm sticking to green manures and worm
composting of green manures, that's about all
the risk i want to take.


songbird