[sion01]

A woman who has a horse in a paddock near to my home has to collect the poo straight off the field daily as apparently the shetland pony won't eat anywhere near where it's dropped a load previously.Apparently all horses are the same.She asked me if I wanted the poo ,I accepted and have started a system where I take her an empty bin and take another empty bin the next time I collect the deposit's so to speak.

The only problem is that I never expected a shetland pony to dodo so much.I have to get the bin every other day or by the third it's full to the top and to heavy to lift in to my wheel barrow.To make matters worse she's bringing an Irish something horse there tomorrow which is a really large horse

As it's pure poo can I put it straight on to the soil as some sort of mulch until the end of the month say.I'm hopeing that by April it will have rotted down enough so I can dig it in to the soil.It will have had 6 months to decompose as they say in the book's that it should?Should I cover it to stop the nutrients washing away?

The stuff that I'll get in winter will have wood shavings in it which the book says will take two years to rot down.Is there any way of speeding it up or my muck heap will be larger then my garden?

[lacewing]

You won't have any time for gardening once the Irish horse arreives. They are huge beasts and never stop poowing great big heaps of nuggets.

Seriously though, this time of year, you can spread the fresh stuff over your plot and let the worms take it down over winter, except  where you intend to grow root vegetables, carrots, parsnip ect. they will fork if they come into contact with fresh manure.

Your manure heap should be covered with something waterproof, to keep heat in and rain out.  Perhaps you could share any surplus with a gardening friend. Or tell the lady that you have enough for now but would like some more at a later date. I'm sure she will understand. 




 gardening friend

[Nikkithefoot]

Horses can deposit between 8 and 10 plies of droppings per day. If their diet is supplemented by hay the overall volume of each pile will increase too. Horses will also 'allocate' part of their grazing area to defecate in and they will choose not to eat the grass there if they can, usually as its not the best  (ion their opinion). At least if you ever have to collect the poo direct you will always know where to look for it.

[shokkyy]

Horses can deposit between 8 and 10 plies of droppings per day. If their diet is supplemented by hay the overall volume of each pile will increase too. Horses will also 'allocate' part of their grazing area to defecate in and they will choose not to eat the grass there if they can, usually as its not the best  (ion their opinion). At least if you ever have to collect the poo direct you will always know where to look for it.

My horse does more than that and he's only a lightweight 15.3

You may not need to worry too much about shavings in the winter droppings. It does depend a lot on how that particular person mucks out, but I personally have very few shavings in with the droppings because I'm pretty careful about sifting out any clean ones. The bulk of the shavings in there are the ones that are soaked in pee, which I lift out separately after doing all the droppings. It's not hard to separate those out, so they might be able to put them in a separate pile for you. Worth asking.