Aw shucks, thanks folks! ":^), Yeah I think that tilling it two or three times before the final time definitely is a big factor in making good compost like that, because it does help break it down but it also mixes it thoroughly and aerates it too. I went thru an evolutionary process to arrive at using my tiller. I tried turning with a fork, poking holes with a big crow bar, burying a perforated pipe in the pile and then used my and drilling numerous holes in the pile. Each of those approaches will make compost, given time, were progressively better, but took varying amounts of physical exertion, and my supply of that was limited. I decided to use what ever mechanical means I had available to do the job in an agressive manner and it paid off well. I do not use much fossil fuel at all, it only takes a few minutes to till the pile up, and even less to pile it back up with my little on my garden tractor. I also had a little brainstorm and made a to work on the lift on the garden tractor to fluff the pile with in between tillings. It also doubles as a fork lift on a limited scale. (I just enjoy playing around with my cutting tools and welder and making useful, functional stuff like that, not to mention saving labor and enabling me to do stuff that I could not otherwise do, The other factors are lots and lots of shredded oak leaves and I have been very fortunate to obtain those pick up loads of about every imaginable kind of fruits and veggies from the supermarket dumpster too. Now they have locked them off. The manager said to call him a couple of hours in advance when composting time comes around again and he will save back some garbage cans of the good stuff for me. I hope that he is still there when I am ready again, if not I will be back to using horse manure (which is hard to beat) along with what ever else I can scrounge up. Right now I am just burying my kitchen scraps and a little bit of garden waste, but that is breaking down and working. Happy composting and gardening to you all. Bill P.

While I agree that the manure almost certainly comes from a feedlot (steers being the main source of beef in the US at least), I won't speculate on the presence of antibiotics in the stuff - except to say that it seems likely that in the presence of sunlight, heat and water they would break down in time. Apparently antibiotics in manure is on the radar of Big Ag, however...Googling yielded a study conducted by the Agricultural Research Service (article linked below) that examines the issue. One eye-opening line from the article: [...] confined U.S. livestock and poultry generate about 63.8 million tons of manure every year. That is a WHOOOOLE lotta poo. Living in farm country, this is a problem that's always puzzled me, particularly WRT hog operations and their huge manure storage lagoons that leak or spill far too often. Why hasn't someone come up with a way to deal with that stuff? They had it figured out in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome...digest it, siphon off the methane for fuel, and use the leftovers for fertilizer. Yes, I know some places do that already. But why not EVERYPLACE? As for myself, if I want animal manure, I either visit my relatives that keep cattle, one of the local horse farms...or just clean out our rabbits' cages. : ) Here is a link that might be useful: Assessing Antibiotic Breakdown In Manure

Smell it. If it smells fresh like a forest floor after a rainstorm, then it is perfectly safe to use. If it smells like ammonia, urine, or BS, then it very well might burn your plant roots. The horse stable where my daughter rides has an area where they spread their manure. The oldest stuff smells wonderful, but the new stuff smells like horse sh!t.

I always lay my hand on a bag of manure to feel how much heat is being emitted. If it feels warm (out of the sun of course) I let it age in tha bag a couple of months - until it is cool to the touch. I have *adobe* soil and I find 1-inch of 'cool' manure dug into the top 6 inches of soil each year works well. 2-inches when I'm digging deeper. More than that and perrenials and annuals don't thrive. I suspect the salt content as well as the 'rawness'. My favorite amendment for clay soils is nitrogen reinforced redwood sawdust. It breaks down so slowly that friability is maintained longer, as well as combatting the akalinity of our soil. My best iris bed was created in the spring with 1-2 inches of cold manure, a sprinkle of bonemeal & a sprinkle of superphosphate dug down about 16 inches. New rhizomes planted late summer.