Hi guardenman, When any organic matter breaks down in the soil is uses a small amount of nitrogen, which can easily be offset but adding a small amount of a nitrogen amendment. Soil will also always have a certain amount of pathogens present. A rabbit, squirrel, deer, etc. deposits fresh manure on the soil, birds do the same as they fly over. Does worm casings (poop) have pathogens? These tests were conducted to determine when crops were safe to consume after the use of fresh manure, and to determine when the pathogen level is acceptable. You are never going to eliminate pathogens entirely. All this you hear about how terrible manure is, is nothing but unfounded hype and not based upon any scientific reports. People have been using fresh manure for countless generations, and to my knowledge, there has never been a major reported saftey issue. All the reports we are hearing about contaminated foods are about contamination during processing, not because of manure use. It is because of issues like this that organic gardeners sometimes get labeled as kooks! If there is a concern, through washing, which you don't get with supermarker produce, is a good added safty measure. Ron The Garden Guy http://www.TheGardenGuy.org New Article "Common Sense Organic Gardening"

Maybe this will help with the chicken poop. It is a summary of how to use Lacto bacilli to get the chicken poop deomposing in the chicken house, help eliminate some odor, and help your chickens' health. This is summarized from the Gil Carandong paper on the link above, with an alteration. 1. Get or make some plain yogurt--doesn't matter whether it is fat free or full fat or inbetween. Make sure it has live cultures. (Dannon and Stoneyfield do). NO flavors. (This is the alternative to gathering LB from the air..) 2. Put a sieve over a bowl and line the sieve with a coffee filter. 3. Pour yogurt into sieve and let the whey drain out. Depending on how long you let it drain, you will end up with more whey/stiffer "yo-cheese" product (which you can eat or feed to chickens) or less whey/firmer yogurt product that resembles Greek yogurt. Eat it yourself of feed to the chickens (and goats) if you don't like yogurt. (If you use a quart of yogurt and let it drain a couple of days in the fridge you will end up with close to 2 cups of whey.) 2. Two options with the whey. Store the pure whey in the fridge or mix 1:1 with unsulphured molasses to keep at room temp without it going anerobic. 3. If using pure whey, mix 1.2t per 2 gallons unchlorinated water (like in a typical 2 gal pump sprayer). If using the molasses/whey mix, mix 2.4 (2.5 for ease) in two gal sprayer. Spray the chicken house floor...how often? I would do as much as possible at first to really get the LB bacteria working in there. You can also use this same mixture for the chickens' water. It will be like natural antibiotic, good for their digestion according to the paper. It is supposed to be particularly effective against Salmonella and E coli. Refer back to that Janong article to look how they are HANDLING the chicken litter from the house. They also use it in piggerys to eliminate odor. As for the pile of straw... a. Perhaps you can screen it off with some split bamboo fencing (not too pricey) or another alternative...free wooden pallets? http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/sawyer69.html or, if you need taller, this one: http://summerville-novascotia.com/PalletWoodShed/ But, if you add the right stuff to the straw pile (as mentioned above) you will have some incredible compost...and the straw pile will continually be shrinking.. Thank you Luckygal and RJ over on the other thread for coming up with the "one step" method of dealing with the LB... Here is a link that might be useful: split bamboo fence

Mctoon - thanks for the kind words. You actually CAN have an extremely productive RB soil w/o the addition of any sand/silt/clay if you wish. The soil you see here was in my raised beds. It has a little sand and a little Turface MVP in it, but I made the mistake of not adding enough of the mineral ingredients, and had to deal with some shrinkage until I fortified it with the Turface fines that come as a by-product of the Turface MVP I screen for bonsai and container soils. It's now probably the most productive soil I grow in. If you're considering a packaged mineral component, I think I'd give a serious look at Turface Quick-Dry. It has tremendous internal porosity, an excellent CEC, won't compact, always drains well, and holds as much or more water than loam, mixed with organic amendments. Using ingredients with large particles like Haydite & some of the others, just isn't going to give you what you're looking for. Used in small fractions, they don't significantly alter drainage or aeration; in fact, they sort of just take up space. Used as significant fractions of the whole, they're just TOO large to be suitable because they'll drain too fast and dry out too quickly. Al

Kippy-the-hippy, I would suspect that prized horses are treated better than some cattle, unless it is a prized cow that wins ribbons at a county fair; if such a thing even exists. (Think the scenario may have come from a movie).... But truth/fiction....The point is, I don't know what the horses are used for, they may or may not be prized , BUT, I am ambivalent about questioning people. While I do not mind getting my hands dirty here and there, I am a "city girl" growing roses, and in no way a cattle, horse, or even a manure expert. That is why I posed the question seeking guidance from members WHO ARE. Based upon the sage advice I have received, and my situation, my choice is to continue purchasing the steer manure that is labeled to be free of many of the un desirable things and call it a day for now. Given a more comfortable opportunity to acquire horse manure, after this thread, I feel somewhat comfortable in at least knowing what to be on the look out for, which is relative to my OP. Lynn This post was edited by desertgarden561 on Fri, Jun 27, 14 at 17:41