I'm in the camp who plants pretty soon after manure applications. I took an organic gardening course in the early 70s where the instructor said that you could use fresh chicken manure as long as you applied it three weeks before planting. I followed that advice and never had a problem until the year when I convinced my new husband that chicken manure was the cat's meow. He, who never did things in half measures, took his dump truck to the chicken farm and brought back about 6 loads of chicken manure and dumped it in his half of our garden. I was supposed to spread it. Unfortunately (for him), it took me weeks to spread the piles and his half sat under the bulk of that manure until I was done. Then he planted his corn, which came up and keeled over. His tomatoes, same thing. He had a beautiful garden the following year. My half did swell. Now I have my own chickens and I clean my house(s) out once a year---in the spring---and when the building starts to smell, I throw another bag of leaves, shredded paper, straw, wood shavings on top, trying for a good mix of of carbon to manure for in-house composting. I occasionally flip the litter until Dec. when I leave it alone. Last January I flipped the litter, and the composting bedding sent up steam like I'd just tossed water on sauna rocks. Unfortunately, I cooled the composting process off and killed it. I think I deprived the house of a lot of compost warmth that my hens would have appreciated here in zone 5 in January. I'm intrigued by the deep litter method, but I've never tried a different system. My litter is very broken down by April or May when I clean the henhouse and I've used it directly on the garden for the past two springs with good results. I am a little careful not to overapply and I fork it in lightly and I don't put it in a planting row that I plan to plant right away. I sidedress those rows. If it were me, I wouldn't hesitate to dress my beds with it this fall. I see, though, that you've missed the boat as far as fall goes. You could put it on top of the snow if you wanted. Make sure the snow-covered rectangle you put it on is the garden and not the driveway.

I have been working with horses since 1964. My horses range in ages of 2 years old, 5 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old and up to 25 years old. In the past 5 years, hay producers in my area have turned to using poultry litter on their hay field as fertilizer because of costs. The square bale hay looks green and great, but my horses just sniff it and walk away. They waste it. They won't eat it. Each year, I have to return the hay and buy hay that was not produced with poultry litter. Thank goodness, most hay producers are being honest when I ask if they used poultry litter in the production of their hay. Last year, when I took 100 bales home from a hay producer that I had bought from previously that season, my horses would not eat the hay. I called the hay producer. He confirmed that he had distributed poultry litter in the production of that hay. When he looked in his notes and realized that I had requested non-poultry litter fertilized hay from the start, he came to our place and removed the 100 bales of poultry litter fertilized hay and replaced it with hay that did NOT get produced with poultry litter. My horses immediately started eating the hay that did NOT have poultry litter used in the production of it. So, here is my question. Has anyone experienced this problem with their horses? If so, what did you do? This has happened to me with 4 separate hay producers. I cannot find anything on the internet that explains this problem. I understand that it is a fairly new process, but surely, someone is recognizing the problem besides me!!! I got a response: "Be careful feeding this hay to your horses. Chickens spread salmonella. I myself, would never feed my horses this type of hay." Should I be concerned??? I got another response: "Not at all uncommon. A lot of horses don't like hog manure fertilized hay either. Not new at all. A lot of farmers use manure from chickens and hogs when the price of commercial fertilizer get high. In years past it was much more common. Guess what, if that's all they have to eat for a few days, they get over it, and eat it just fine." My reply was: Have you had the experience with horses not eating their hay?...and you continued to only give them that hay AND they started eating it??? If so, what problems did you observe? Any health issues? From my experience, this behavior of not eating their hay is not natural. I have been feeding my groups of horses for 48 years. This issue with my horses not eating the hay given them has only occurred since the poultry litter has been used as fertilizer, which has been in the last 5 years. I understand the farmers' need to keep down costs, but for the end result to be that the product not be used (wasted), that seems to defeat the purpose of growing the hay. I wonder what problems have occurred that have not been registered by some agency....where would one report this anyway? It is just not natural for my horses to refuse hay. This is a BIG problem for me. My experience is that the hay producers really don't want to hear this. Yet, to be honest, they need to know this. Here was the response: "Yes, I've had experience with hay fertilized with chicken, hog, and cattle manure. Sometime they eat it without a problems and other times, a couple of days of it alone, and they eat it just fine. The smell is usually the problem. If they get hungry, they will eat. Chicken is very high in nitrogen and bad about burning if applied to heavy. It should be composted for awhile before applying. The problems associated with e coli, etc, are usually not there if the application doesn't burn up the hay crop. Seldom do they apply any of these close to harvest time, which gives mother nature plenty of time to dispose of e coli, etc. Sun and rain, will do an excellent job of decomposing. It was used a lot around here, more so, a few years back, and never heard of any problems feeding the hay to horses. When the farmers used horses for tilling it was used extensively for horse hay." Does anyone have any advice on Hay fertilized with poultry manure and the possiblitity of Salmonella risk??? Thanks

1. Covering your compost pile with plastic is not a good idea. The only thing that will do is prevent good air infiltration which the bacteria that are digesting the material need to exist. A plastic cover could also entrap excess moisture and that too will displace air. Either reason could cause the composting process to become anaerobic (in the absence of air) which can permit many disease pathogens to develop. 2. What the C:N ratio of that manure would be will depend on what was used for bedding, if straw it would be closer to the optimal 30:1 already while with sawdust that ratio could be 200:1 and if that is what you would be getting it would be almost useless in you compost bin. Since you are working with cubic feet you need to know how many cubic feet are in those bags. If your compost pile is 4 x 4 for each 6 inch layer of vegetative waste you would need about 2.5 cubic feet of manure so you would need about 20 cubic feet total for each 4 foot high bin. If that manure weighed in at 2.5 pounds per cubic foot you would need about 50 pounds total of that manure. 500 pounds of that manure might be overkill, unless it was mostly sawdust in which instance you might need even more since all the Nitrogen would be used up digesting the sawdust.

I've never used horse manure. I used tons of cow manure. A friend of mine uses horse manure for her roses. Every spring she gets fresh horse manure and applies it in a thick layer around the roses. At some distance, of course. If the manure touches the canes, it will burn. Any manure. I've never heard of manure burning roots, just by being applied on the ground around the plant. Of course, maybe it is possible, I just never heard of such thing or experienced. A compost pile.... You can use the compost in any way you want - for mulch (when is not finished), for tea or straight in the hole. I have plants planted in pure compost and... I have to say that the way they grow is just incredible. Compost will never burn. There's no such thing as "too much compost". It is normal to have many many kinds of bugs and worms and other creatures in a compost pile. They are important actually. You want them there. It is a whole science in making a compost pile. You will have to learn how to do it right if you want rich compost and a pile that doesn't stink the whole yard. You can have a big compost pile or a small one (a 4 x 4 x 4 I would say is a good - small - size). You know what I would do? I would find a place in my yard that is a little out of the way, I would build a bin with some chicken wire, I would get the manure, I would go in the park or forest or something like that and I would get lots of dry leaves and I would mix them together and would just let them sit there until spring. Or... you can make compost tea. I assume you know how to do that one, right? Boy, did I talk a lot :) If there's something else you need to know... go ahead and ask. Valentina