Well.....I don't know. The only manure I use is horse manure. Mostly I use it in my compost pile. But....I have scraped soil out of our smallest horse pen with a front end loader and built a raised bed out of that mixed with a small amount of sandy soil. Here's a picture of some of what I pulled out of that bed this past year.

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This one is of the plants as they were growing. These plants were grown in the same bed but in this instance, it was a fall planting that I had added a layer of unfinished compost (another hot topic) with horse manure in it, in the bottom of the planting hole.

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This is the final fall harvest I took just before our first freeze from those two plants.

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I am not saying that the things stated in the article are not true. I am just sharing the experience that I have had using horse manure. Perhaps my raised beds help leach out excess stuff...I don't know. It was an interesting read and thanks for posting it. This may actually nudge me into getting a soil test...maybe :).

Kristi

I have been pondering upon a conjecture for a long time. It goes like this 1)writers want to sell their product 2)newspapers want to sell advertising and 3)they want to sell newspapers.

Now. Lists sell. I find where professionals have studied what sells and lists sell well.

Here is my conjecture. Writers add some don'ts to their dos lists because they sell better with both dos and don'ts. I cannot find any professionals who have studied this, however.

Ann in the OP has disguised a short list of do's and don'ts i.e. do spread 1)washed dairy manure and 2)mature compost but don't spread 3)horse manure. This she sold to the Seattle Post Intelligencer who sold it to starwoodfarm who is offering it to us.

I would not use horse manure for mulch either. It needs to be composted and then added to the soil as the soil amendment that compost is.

I think the writer is full of that poop herself. She is perpetuating a common myth without getting out there and gaining her own personal observations from doing her own research. I have been using horse manure for years without the problems that is claimed in the article, I could post many, many pictures of excellent produce from my garden and my worm population has been excellent up until the last drought this past summer which took it's toll on them. However, they are bouncing back now.

This following statement is crap too: "Another common problem with horse manure use is that, over time, crops often start showing signs of stunting or slowed growth.

Soil tests can explain why. Adding horse manure to garden soil over many years can result in the buildup of toxic levels of magnesium. Because horses have an incomplete digestion system, sometimes large nutrient residues end up in the soil. Non-water-soluble residues such as minerals can be especially troublesome, in part because symptoms of nutrient excess can mimic symptoms of nutrient deficiency. "
I just got the results back from two soil tests by a reputable lab and posted the results in another thread on here for all to see. One of them shows the magnesium level as just a bit low and the other one shows it to be medium.
Many who have seen some of the many pictures that I have posted would probably agree that I do not have any problems with stunted plants or produce.

She probably got her paycheck for the week so all is well, but she should be regarded as a fiction writer. If she is supposed to have credentials as some sort of an expert or knowledgable person, they would be suspect to me.

That is my personal opinions, experiences and observations.
Bill P.

For as long as I can remember I have added either dairy manure or horse manure as a layer in the fall time in my veggie garden. I try to put down a layer of leaves then the manure then leaves again. Now I get more weeds when I use the diary manure-from uncles farm where the cattle are free range. The horse manure comes from a stable where the horse are not really free range. All of their food comes from the big round bales of hay and scoops of grain in their stalls.
another difference is the horse manure is in a huge pile, so it might already be on its way to compost. The dairy manure is fresh out of the barn. Either way it is great stuff. I always get great results out of the garden when I use manures as fertilizer. Even if I have to deal with a couple weeds it is worth it.
I can't wait till I can even get to my garden again, we got a very thick layer of snow for our area. Off to go and try and find my driveway again. My drive home today from work took me twice as long as normal.
Sandy

I concur that the skepticism about horse poo is, well, horse poo. I'm going on third year using composted poo from my neighbor's horses. I won 7 blue ribbons, 2 red, and Best of Show in my local fair with my veggies this year. The added benefit over cow poo is that many horses are bedded with straw, which helps aerate the poo pile and makes the mellowed poo a great addition to my composter. I mulch beds with it at season's end, and snow helps mellow it further. So keep pooing on the poo haters.

Albert, regarding the don'ts and do's. A local part time radio character on KSCS here locally (The Deacon Paul Brown) used to have occasional spots that were hillarious. He had a list of "Don'ts to Do", from time to time. Your posting brought that to mind.
Bill P.

Thank you all for the validation. Ann Lovejoy is a name I hear a lot of here in the NW as one of the "experts". But I've been reading this forum enough to anticipate your response, and was glad to get it. We have eleven horses, and up until I discovered (from here) the possibility of using their products, they were pure expense. Last fall I got into shape transporting lots of manure into the garden to let it sit for the winter. And now it's unusually warm, so rotting like crazy, yea!

We talked to the accountant about now using them as a tax deduction (their feed, vet bills, and even their value when they were transferred to business use) and he said YES. Yea!

I think I'll print and mail this thread to Ms. Lovejoy since I have her address. Give her some food for thought!

Laura

If you are concerned about horse manure as a mulch, sprinkle some corn gluten meal on top of the manure mulch. Corn gluten meal is a safe, organic and highly effective pre-emergent. It will help control the sprouting of unwanted weed seeds, and at the same time, help fertilize the garden further.

If you read what Ann wrote you would find she did not say do not use horse manure, she said do not use horse manure as a mulch. Make compost with horse manure.
My opinion is that no manure should be put directly on the garden, as mulch or for other reasons, all manure should be composted first. All animal manure contains various disease pathogens that could infect humans and if these manures are plunked down as mulches you increase the chance of exposure to these pathogens, unnecessarily. Composting manures lessens those chances.

I do not think that many people would be foolish enough to use manure as a mulch, especially fresh manure, unless some unknowing or irresponsible person writes about it. Most would not even think of it unless they heard or read it, kinda like that song Perry Como had with the line "My momma told us, don't put beans in your ears".
Oh well~ ~
Just the way that I see it.
Bill P.

If the intent of the article was to say that cow manure is better than horse manure, I would agree.

If the intent of the article was to say never use horse manure as mulch, I would agree with that also.

If the intent of hte article was to say never compost horse manure or never use horse manure in gardening at all, then I would disagree with that.

One thing that I think is not being seen clearly in the discussion on this thread is that the nonuse of horse poop is all about one aspect of compost use, root rot.

I don't know much about root rot, but, my guess is that it is likely a lot bigger problem in soggy Seattle where the article is based than in semi-arid Texas where Remuda is talking about her experience.

I live in an even drier area than she does and have never had any trouble when I used horse manure based compost. In areas where root rot isn't a big problem, _guess_ would be both would do about equally well. Availability and consistency of use would probably make for more difference in results than the differences in qualities. In other words, use what you got.