I'm curious. Why would you pull out the most successful turf grass in the south to replace it with something that is more persnickety? Rhetorical question because it seems the deed is done. In Texas I've seen untended St Augustine blanketing the sand dunes. How much less care can you give it?

Don't do anything to the bare sand. Put the sod down first and then start applying stuff. The roots are what need the nutrients, not the empty sand.

Horse manure stinks. You'll be kicked out of the neighborhood for doing that. In fact you'll be shocked how long it stinks. It stinks for about three full weeks. I mean noticeably stinks right up to the last breath (ha-ha). It also comes to you hot enough to kill your new lawn. Please don't make that mistake of spreading some stinky manure and then being rewarded with a dead lawn.

Yes there is something a lot easier. There is a modern approach to organic lawn care that replaces horse manure and compost. Compost was king until the 1990s when they discovered why organic fertilizer worked. Since then compost is out and grain type fertilizers are in. Look at any bag of organic fertilizer and you'll see a list including wheat, corn, soy, alfalfa, cottonseed, sometimes animal byproducts, and sometimes other things. In other words, feed the soil with food. The more protein you get the better the soil will respond. An easy way to start is to apply 20-30 pounds per 1,000 square feet of alfalfa pellets (rabbit or chinchilla feed). You get it in plain brown sacks at your local feed store for about $12 for 50 pounds. The small pellets go through a rotary spreaders. That's much easier than shoveling horse dung around all day.

Here is a picture of a zoysia lawn fertilized in one spot with alfalfa a month before the picture. This was posted here at GW last June.

{{gwi:80252}}

Note the improved density, color, and growth. It really works.