On 15/07/09 16:24, Bob Hobden wrote:
"Ed" wrote ...
I have a couple of large compost bins on my allotment which I regularly
fill with compostable materials from home, but this only accounts for a few
percent.

For the most part, I go to the local riding stables where they bag up the
horse manure and leave it outside for people to take for free.

In the winter time, when the horses are inside the stables, the mix is
heavy with straw and bedding. But now in the warmer months with the
horses outside , it is mainly stuff gathered straight off the paddock
areas where the horses pass their days.

The thing is this. The bins are 4'x3'x3' and I just do not have the
energy or strength to turn them. So , in effect they are cold compost
heaps. I let the contents rot down over a 2 year period.

But is there a danger that the pathogens in the horse dung will not die
off (as they would if I were operating a hot heap) and that my family
could become seriously ill if I use this composted material on my
vegetable plot even if it is 2 years old?

Pathogens in Horse dung? Please advise what and any scientific papers that
back it up. I know it is a big carrier of Tetanus but not heard about
anything else of concern.
"No major human disease has ever been accurately attributed to the intimate
contact human beings have had with horses for thousands of years.
Veterinarians and vet students probably have the greatest exposure to true
risk from horse manure. The horse has a very inefficient gut: it's a one-way
throughput system. Horses are physiologically incapable of vomiting or
regurgitating. If something gets stuck on the way through, the only way to
get it out is by surgery or physical intervention. As a result, you will
often find vets armpit deep under a horse's tail. Nevertheless, there has
never been a documented case of veterinarians contracting illness as a
result of this rather extreme true exposure to horse manure."

We use well rotted 1 year old stuff and have never had any trouble.


No, I not no expert scientist or nothing nor read scientific papers. I
am just a gardener. But I see a few articles on the web that says if you
maintain a hot heap then it will kill pathogens.. If you run a cold heap
then these things are not killed off with the heat. Hence my concern.

In article ,
Ed ex@directory wrote:

No, I not no expert scientist or nothing nor read scientific papers. I
am just a gardener. But I see a few articles on the web that says if you
maintain a hot heap then it will kill pathogens.. If you run a cold heap
then these things are not killed off with the heat. Hence my concern.

A lot of such rubbish is written by Merkins, who manage to make
Little Englanders look intelligent. You need to be able to judge
which authors have Clue and which don't.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 15 July, 17:40, wrote:

A lot of such rubbish is written by Merkins,

And, indeed, our local authority who two years ago warned people to
scald the produce from their allotments because "95% of home grown
produce is contaminated with salmonella"

Ed wrote:
On 15/07/09 16:24, Bob Hobden wrote:
"Ed" wrote ...
I have a couple of large compost bins on my allotment which I
regularly fill with compostable materials from home, but this only
accounts for a few percent.

For the most part, I go to the local riding stables where they bag up
the horse manure and leave it outside for people to take for free.

In the winter time, when the horses are inside the stables, the mix
is heavy with straw and bedding. But now in the warmer months with
the horses outside , it is mainly stuff gathered straight off the
paddock areas where the horses pass their days.

The thing is this. The bins are 4'x3'x3' and I just do not have the
energy or strength to turn them. So , in effect they are cold
compost heaps. I let the contents rot down over a 2 year period.

If the bins were more like 6'x6'x6' they would probably hold enough heat
in the bulk material to become hot. I only turn mine once to put the
edges into the middle.

But is there a danger that the pathogens in the horse dung will not
die off (as they would if I were operating a hot heap) and that my
family could become seriously ill if I use this composted material on
my vegetable plot even if it is 2 years old?

Pathogens in Horse dung? Please advise what and any scientific papers
that back it up. I know it is a big carrier of Tetanus but not heard
about anything else of concern.
"No major human disease has ever been accurately attributed to the
intimate contact human beings have had with horses for thousands of
years. Veterinarians and vet students probably have the greatest
exposure to true risk from horse manure. The horse has a very
inefficient gut: it's a one-way throughput system. Horses are
physiologically incapable of vomiting or regurgitating. If something
gets stuck on the way through, the only way to get it out is by
surgery or physical intervention. As a result, you will often find
vets armpit deep under a horse's tail. Nevertheless, there has never
been a documented case of veterinarians contracting illness as a
result of this rather extreme true exposure to horse manure."

We use well rotted 1 year old stuff and have never had any trouble.


No, I not no expert scientist or nothing nor read scientific papers. I
am just a gardener. But I see a few articles on the web that says if you
maintain a hot heap then it will kill pathogens.. If you run a cold heap
then these things are not killed off with the heat. Hence my concern.

A hot heap works a bit faster and it is only really hot for a few days.
Mainly it helps to kill off weed seeds. My heaps go hot when I put a few
cubic metres of grass cuttings on them in one go. I have had one up to
smouldering. If you can add enough of anything to the heap at once with
the right amount of water you will get it hot for a while. The horse
dung will act OK as an accelerant, but if you want something that will
encourage a hot heap then the proprietory mix Garotta (sp?) seems to
work as well as anything.

I wouldn't worry about pathogens from horse dung either. And if you have
access to plenty of straw and horse manure it is worth fermenting some
to make your own mushroom compost. I might worry about that persistent
residual pesticide that has been causing trouble in winter hay though.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Ed ex@directory wrote:

No, I not no expert scientist or nothing nor read scientific papers. I
am just a gardener. But I see a few articles on the web that says if you
maintain a hot heap then it will kill pathogens.. If you run a cold heap
then these things are not killed off with the heat. Hence my concern.

If there is nothing to kill off, then why worry. Many compost heaps
have diseased plant material that can harm plants. There is a concern
then. But non-caninvore and non-omnivore waste is not a major concern.

The hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide given off by
fresh manure are concerns in hot or cold compost heaps. Horse manure is
a solid waste excluded from federal regulation because it neither
contains significant amounts of listed hazardous components, nor
exhibits hazardous properties. C. tetani is reportedly found in equine
manure, but does not represent a source of significant public health
risk. Many common equine helminths (worms, bots, etc.) are pathogenic
to domestic animals but are not pathogenic to man. Generally speaking,
horse guts do not contain the 120 viruses and constituents of concern in
human, dog and cat feces (carnivores and omnivores). Most viruses with
zoonotic potential (animals infecting humans) are not found in horse
wastes.

Pathogens of primary concern are waterborne microorganisms that usually
follow ingestion pathways into the body. Transmission can also occur
through direct oral-fecal exposure. These include Cryptosporidium parvum
, Giardia duodenalis, Campylocbacter spp, Salmonella spp., pathogenic
strains of E. coli, andYersinia spp. By far, C. parvum and Giardia are
the two of most concern because they have very low thresholds of
infectious dose. People infected by these organisms may exhibit a range
of symptoms from mild abdominal discomfort to death, especially among
the very young, elderly, and people with immunologically suppressed
systems. Neither of these organisms can be destroyed easily with
traditional water treatment processes.

So if you use horse manure, make sure the people that gathered it washed
their hands after using a toilet. They and their pets are much more of
a concern than the horse manure itself.

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