A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Landscape trials and triumphs Organically Speaking... Composting Manure

I've just signed up and this is my first post!
I recently got a compost tumbler.
I have access to cow, chicken, goat and horse manure!!! Which is best and are any of these a "NO-NO"!?
Also.....should I use dried up manure or fresh manure? I have some chicken coops that haven't been used in a while that need cleaned up. The poop is dried in with the straw, would that be o.k. to use?
Thanks in advance and I am looking forward to learning!!!!
Sanza

my neighbor swears chicken poo is the BEST!
I'd THINK it would be better to use the dried up stuff, but I've been wondering about that same thing too.

Welcome, GrowinCrazy.
Yes the dried chicken/straw combo would be great. That makes your work halfway finished.
Did your composter come with directions or suggestions? Are you just planning on composting manure only or adding in your leaves and other vegetable matter?
On the right of this page is a search box that says Google. You can search this site for years of experience in composting. Just type in composting and you will get more than you can read in a single sitting

adding in kitchen scraps to the manure for composting would be great. like tina said, leaves, pineneedles,....kitchen scraps like egg shells, coffee grinds, banana peels, bread. (basically anything that doesn't have fat in it.)

keep it moist, and stir every 7-10 days. personnaly, I've found stirring it less frequently in the beginning, then more often once things really start to cook works well for me.

Thanks for all the replys....The tumbler is a tumbleweed brand...looks like a big green bullit!!
I live in a small farming community (I DON'T FARM) I work in a restaurant....so i HAVE access to great stuff. I have filled it up with: egg shells, coffee grounds, vegee peels, rinds,lettuce greens, cardboard, monkey grass clippings, hair (also know a beautician!!!) So I thought I'd add some POO!!!!
I've looked at composting sights and they seem to condridict each other on what or what not to use. I'm not sure what is "green" and what is "Brown"...I'm pretty sure food stuffs are green.....and the ratios, etc. But I will keep practicing!!!!!

your right, the food stuff is green. also the monkey grass clippings if they are still green are green. brown would be the poo and dead leaves.
WOW, you get to bring home all the resturant scraps! you'll be able to make a mountain of compost!
I believe the ratio is 3/4 brown and 1/4 green...or is it 3:1??? the ratio means more if you want it to cook fast. I just try to get more brown in than green.

oh and back to your original question. I would think any of those animals poo you mentioned would be ok. the only one I'd wonder about is the goat poo. don't goats eat just about anything? if they eat meats, then you may not want to use their poo?

Goat poo is fine, too. Poo is actually considered a "green" because it has very high nitrogen content. That designation isn't an absolute, in my opinion, but you will want to add at least some dried grass clippings, leaves (preferabbly shredded, or thinner leaves like maple instead of whole oak leaves,,) that kind of thing. Manure and green stuff only will make the compost too hot and you'll get a stinky slurry. Oh yeah, by the way, you can use the poo directly in the garden, too, once it is thouroughly dry. By far the best way to do it is dig it in in the fall, but you can use it sparingly any time. Goat, horse, rabbit, cow poo all help add texture to garden soil whereas chicken has little texture, but excellent nutrients.

Dave, what about the question - is poo that is not dried up ok to put in your compost?

I read online that cat poop is the huge poop problem and sometimes dogs because of parasites. But even that poop, if given enough heat and time can be used. I don't know how much time that means but I would think a person would need more than 1 compost area or not use the compost for a long while.


Why is goat poop different? Don't goats have parasites?

Technically anything can have parasites. Cats and dogs eat mostly meat, so it's not recommended for compost to be used on veggies. I hadn't thought about exactly why, but pet poop is gross, for one thing, the other is that parasites have specific hosts (favorite victims) and we're suscesptible to things like tapeworm, pinworm, roundworm...My guess is that goats have a different range of parasites.
Just as meat is not recommended for compost, the feces of meat eating animals is not recommended, and part of that could be the kinds of bacteria that break down the poo in the compost. Goats are not typically carnivorous or omnivorous, I don't t hink they'd eat a slab of meat if you gave it to the, nor do they seek animal prey, so they're considered herbivores.
The question of parasites is complicated. Some can enter through the skin. Some have to be swallowed in a dormant, or egglike, stage. Some are only contracted by eating meat that is undercooked. Some have to go directly from a specific host to another...cats get tapeworms from swallowing fleas, and so on. Most parasites in the animal world have no interest in preying on humans, or come only from unpurified water, that sort of thing.
one way you could use dog or cat poo is to toss it under a tree far from where children play or where you garden.
As to heat and time killing parasites, a key thing with compost is that every bit of the compost reaches a specific heat, I believe it's 140 or 160 degrees, that will kill most weed seeds and diseases, but you have to have a perfect system to get every part to that heat. I'd say look at it this way...would you want to handle something you knew had cat or dog poo in it? ick. I wouldn't risk it.
Okay, I didn't get cricket's question anwered...it shouldn't be used straight in the garden because it is too hot, releasing ammonia gas, but, aside from being messy to handle, it can go right into the compost. I know one gardener who has a rabbit hutch built right over his compost pile, and he just keeps adding grass clippings and kitchen scraps, then moves and turns that pile, and starts again. Fresh doodoo is hotter, has more nitrogen in it...it would give a good kick start to compost, ifff.....you can handle it without to much mess.

GrowinCrazy.... just one word of caution make sure if you take grazing animal poo like cows you know what they grazed on. In other words if the cows graze on a herbicided sprayed field its best to know what you're dealing with. Some chemicals will move through the animals and into their poo and then you have it in the compost pile. Read my post in the vegetable forum about losing my peas. We were warned that that same chemical will stay through to the compost pile too.

I wonder if that's Grazon (Graze-On?)
One of my friends uses a product that is "safe" fro animals to graze on immediately after spraying, thus the name brand.
I don't use his compost.
Grazon evidently passes through unaltered, so he says.

Yes Dave my hubby says it was grazon. Pretty wicked stuff if you ask me.

I think chicken poo is the best along with kitchen scraps.

Cow manure takes forever to compost...and I always end up with weeds. So I now just make manure tea to water my seedlings with instead, although I have also heard that old, aged composted chicken manure is the best you could ever use.

Chicken manure is great, particularly mixed with straw. Goat poop also works well. The trick with compost is to make sure that you have plenty of variety - too much green stuff and you end up with a slimy mess and too much brown then it just won't rot down.