Wow Andrew, You are a dedicated compost WHACKO! I love it! I bet your car will smell like manure forever;) My bin really took off after their first manure feeding. The stuff I use is 2-3 years old with worms already working on it. Good wormin' to ya. Pete

Love it.

Hi Andrew,

That's cool! My bf would not be thrilled with manure in the car. lol

What are your plans for drug testing in the manure? Are you just feeding it directly into your bin or will you be separating a test group for that? How long would you it take for them to die if that's the case? If there is deworming drugs in the manure, how long would it be before you could safely use it in your bin?

Wish you would live closer. We would all come over and play in your pile. lol

Sandra

LOL. Pete, yeah I definitely feel like I've gone over the deep end on this. I could feel the heat on the back of my neck on the drive home. Not sure why, but the smell of horse shtuff isn't offensive to me. There's only a faint whiff of it this morning. I'll probably be back to load some more before the smell fades.

Andrew

Hi, Sandra.

I thought it was cool to be able to find that much horse crud so close to an urban area. The tallest portion of the pile was at least 9 ft. high. I'll probably make a few more trips before giving the car some kind of deodorizing treatment. I'm hoping next time some of the older stuff back in the far corners will be accessible. Maybe there'll be some red worms there.

From what I've read, it should be ok for the worms in a couple of weeks. I'm only going to test a small amount in my worm bin and mix the rest into my regular compost bins. I'll probably wait a month or so before feeding larger quantities of the mixed pre-compost.

Andrew

Your manure looks much better than I get. It looks like it had lots of bedding evenly mixed in. It is a giant hot compost pile. It also looked covered? If it was on a concrete slab there may be no worms. Great score. Put a good layer on the garden now and git-r-ready! Pete

Pete, the manure was on a concrete slab and it did have a roof over it. This batch was mixed into my compost bins, so I'll have to make another trip for the garden. My dog is very interested in this new material in his territory. I need to figure out a way to keep him from digging it up or rolling in it.

Andrew

Never mind rolling in it, Andrew...I'd worry about my dog eating it. I'll have to keep the rolling and eating in mind if I have access to it! One of my neighbors has horses, but we're not neighborly enough for me to request leftovers...mostly because my dog used to love to get into their pen to "play" with the horses (and of course eat poop).
Tara

Go get more! The heat from hot composting should have killed the pathogens Sandra worried about and weed seeds! Let it cool and feed the herd. Tara you are right about dogs and horsepoop! Enclose or fence off. Of course the dog will smell no worse than the car! Andrew you should pick-up a hitch-hiker on the way home next time (see Jackass :). Your worms are gonna love you in a month.

Tara: fortunately my dog has never been interested in eating poop. Of course he hasn't come across horse poop before, so I don't think I want to tempt fate. I'll keep the fresh stuff in bins and let it compost a bit before incorporating it into my garden.

Pete: I definitely plan to get more. I think I've figured out a way to pack more in my little car without risking the stuff falling on me. Temp in the pile was 120ºF at midnight. I'm going to see if a small "organic heater" will work tomorrow.

Andrew

Poor little car (: and people think I'm crazy when I show up with a 1 ton and skidloader to get manure...

Nice score though my dog is very interested in that stuff also but it doesn't hurt her

Mendo that would be fun to see hitchhikers face or dropping the kids off at school