Manure Happens

For those of us that have a horse, we know, manure happens and lots of it. Every day, all year round, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Boxing Day, horses poop. The numbers John Lyons lists in his most recent issue of Perfect Horse are probably pretty accurate: 50 lbs per day or eight tons per year, about $150 in fertilizer value yearly and that's for one horse not counting used bedding materials. I don't know, some days when I'm cleaning stalls it seems like a lot more. And we have some really poopy horses that I'm sure produce twice that much.

The fact is that it's easy to overlook this aspect of horse-keeping when getting into horses.When you bring home a new puppy no one worries about what to do with all the poo once it's picked out of the yard. With a horse picking it up is only the first step. Over the years at the various places my horses have been kept we've done all sorts of things. Loaded it into a spreader and dispersed it over an unused pasture. Dumped it into a bin that was hauled away once a week( I think to a mushroom farm but I'm not sure). Dumped into ever growing piles in an unused corner corral. I've been known to shovel some into a trash bag and bring to my mother - not to set on fire on her doorstep, but for her to mulch her garden and add to her compost.

Compost, by the way, is my favorite manure disposal. When it's done right (which takes some work and a lot of time), you eventually wind up with no waste; instead good usable soil to improve lawns and pasture and gardens. If you don't keep up on it though, or have enough space, you could wind up with stinky mounds and more flys than you can imagine. Not to mention horses with worms and other parasite problems, especially if they graze in a pasture that isn't cleaned or at least harrowed regularly. (Harrowing is a way of spreading and breaking down manure piles.)

I often see adds in the paper or signs offering free or cheap compost or manure and I can sympathize. While I can think of lots of uses for the stuff, espescially if I were into gardening, I bet what my horses produce in a day would tide me over for a year. What about the rest of it? That's one for the ages. By the time Tuff is 30 years old I will have shoveled 216 TONS of his... er, stuff. Well, at least it's good exercise for me.

Anyway, I'm just saying that before you bring a new horse home, give a little thought to what's coming with it because I'll tell you right now, I'm not answering your 'Free Manure' sign, I've got my own crap to deal with.