A Guide to Composting Pet Horse Manure

Owning and maintaining horses as pets leaves you with large piles of waste. This poses as an opportunity more than a mess when you take advantage of its use in the garden and in landscaping. After mucking your horse-pen and letting the piles sit for a while, you are already kick-starting the composting process needed to take advantage of the manure's nutrients. Knowing how to use the manure as a compost for your garden and landscape environment lets you make use of it without looking for ways of hauling it away from your property. Using a guide to composting horse manure makes this project easier to accomplish.

Preparing The Piles

When mucking your horse-pen rake the piles of manure into piles measuring at least 3 feet high. This is to make sure that enough heat is trapped inside of the pile to keep pests from forming in the pile. Horse manure produces hot gases while it ferments and ages, so the larger the pile, the more heat it holds in and longer. Make sure to locate the pile as far away from your living environment as possible due to unpleasant odors and potential pests. Pests that enjoy the scent of horse manure include flies and different beetle varieties.

Aerate The Piles

Aeration is necessary to allow for heat-flow and odor control when composting horse manure. It also lends a hand in speeding up the process of composting. There are a few different ways of providing aeration to the manure piles including the use of a tractor, using a rake or inserting pipes into the piles.

The easiest manner in which to aerate the horse manure is to simply turn the pile, mixing the top layers beneath the bottom layers, using a stiff rake or shovel. This should be done once every two weeks to help speed up the fermentation of the wastes. A tractor can achieve this task quickly.

Making a sort of chimney with PVC pipe to insert into the manure is an alternative to physically turning the waste. Drill small 1/4 inch holes up and down the length of a pipe measuring about a foot taller than the height of your manure pile. Insert the pipe down the center of the pile and leave it there. This provides the aeration it needs without needing a helping hand.

Maintaining The Piles

Moisture control is necessary in maintaining and producing a high quality horse manure compost. Too much moisture will turn the compost into a sludgy mess that becomes saw-dust like when it dries. Too little moisture has a similar effect on the manure. To remedy this only a few precautions need to be taken.

Cover the manure piles with tarps or heavy duty garden plastic during the rainy seasons in your region. This keeps the compost from getting over-moisturized, avoiding the disgusting mess that results from it. Don't put the manure piles near water sources that become flooded frequently. In dry areas such as the western United States, administering a light mist of water periodically keeps the manure pile moist while it ages.

Conclusion and Miscellaneous Information

Horse manure can be enriched with other materials to create a nutritious and rich compost for your garden plants. Kitchen wastes such as egg shells, coffee grounds and even oyster shells add to the composition of the mixture. Avoid meat, dairy and yeast products as these items will attract pests and create odors. Yard clippings and trimmings can also be added to the compost such as grass and shredded tree clippings. The nitrogen in plants like these also speed up the process in which the manure becomes a usable compost. Following a guide to composting horse manure with these tips helps improve the luster of the plants you grow.