Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Manure in pastures

From: Ken

Dear Jessica, my dad and I are going around and around about this, and we've agreed to let you settle it. We have seven horses and a lot of manure. The horses are basically in the pasture 24/7, which I know you approve of. The question is what do we do with the manure. In a couple of your articles, you talked about picking the manure out of pastures. This pasture is twelve acres and we don't have time to drive around every day picking up all the manure. I think we should go out every couple of weeks and spread it around with the harrow. My dad says we should pick it and pile it up somewhere because breaking it up with the harrow will just spread all the worms around and make the horses sick. My 4-H advisor when we lived in Oklahoma said it was fine to spread it with the harrow and that's what he did with his pastures. It looks like I will be the one doing the work either way, but which way is right?

Ken

Hi Ken! You didn't say where you are living NOW, and your location and climate are the key to the correct answer. If you're in a hot, dry, sunny area, then breaking up the manure with the harrow and letting it dry in the sun should work nicely - the sun will kill the parasites. But what works well in sunny, dry parts of Texas (and Oklahoma!) won't work so well in cloudy, damp, humid areas. If you live near Seattle (for example), you should probably plan to take your father's advices and "pick and pile", because spreading the manure and letting it sit in damp grass will simply spread the parasites all over the pasture. If you decide to "pick and pile", you should plan to compost the manure. Over time, composting will reduce the size of the pile considerably, and give you great material for your garden - or for someone else's garden. It's not always easy to find people who will buy horse manure or even accept it as a gift. But if you compost it first, you'll find plenty of takers, and quite possibly some buyers as well.

Jessica

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