Wonderful pics and a real pleasure to see them. Thanks for sharing them with us.

However i think I can honestly say I have never found a reference to or study done on either gazelle or oryx or camel manures in gardens. And they are sure not something many of us would have an personal experience with. :-)

So I would assume the same guidelines would apply to using any of them that apply to using any herbivore manures in the garden -

1) actively composted for a minimum of 60-90 days before application or

2) if fresh applied no sooner than 120 days prior to harvesting

3) minimal direct contact with the edible produce such as low growing leafy greens etc.

Compost forum discusses all this is more detail.

While you wouldn't have to worry about the antibiotics and hormones issues found in some compost here you may need to take care due to the possibility of different, wild (vs. domestic) enteric pathogens.

Dave

Nice story.

I have to assume that what comes out of them can't be much worse than what goes in to them. So you might ask around and find out what they eat. If it's just grass, it's hard to worry too much. As long as they aren't disease carriers themselves. Again, that's something the locals will be aware of. Manure from meat-eating mammals is discouraged for that reason, but I don't think these are.

As to composting, certainly do that.You can do it in a compost heap, or you can just dig it into a bed you aren't going to use for a couple of months. I don't think "baking in the sun" counts as composting, actually. The soluble nitrogen in the manure will stay that way if not composted, and it will burn the plants.

You probably can use those manures and you've already gotten great advice about how to use it. But to me it's not a question of whether you can or can't use it but whether you should. In my opinion, I don't think it would be appropriate to take the manure from the desert for your own personal use. It's akin to walking into a forest and hauling away leaf mold. Again, this is just my opinion.

Rodney

p.s. Those are great photos.

Regarding composting, I believe the general rule is herbivorous poo good, carnivorous poo bad.

My opinion... go for it. Just compost thoroughly like you would anyhow and till into soil a good couple months prior to planting.

Kevin

It shouldn't be any different from cow manure or sheep manure.
It is just the question of composting. The very old weathered under desert son and dried ones can make a good soil amendment but will have no or minute amount of nitrogen

Thanks, seysonn, for pointing that out about dried manure. I did a little checking. In fact, the powerful nitrogen kick (or over-kick) you get from moist manure is mainly in the dissolved ammonia gas, which leaches out fast. By the time time the manure is dry, that's gone. By aerobic composting, microorganisms convert that dissolved nitrogen into slow-release nitrates. So I guess a dried patty, especially one that dried out fast, then has little of either.

So I guess the dried patties don't need composting before putting in the garden. They don't necessarily add a lot of nutrients, though will benefit soil structure. Dig it in!

The rule about herbivorous-good, carnivorous-bad is because the latter manure can contain parasites that will live in humans.

Thank you everyone for all the advice.

After reading what theforgottenone1013 said, I have decided not to collect any of the manure as now I do agree it is " It's akin to walking into a forest and hauling away leaf mold."

As for camel manure, I will only collect it if I can speak with an owner of them and collect it from the pens they live in overnight, instead of under the trees and plants they feed off in the middle of the desert.

Before I initially I posted this thread, I had done a google search for "camel manure fertilizer". I had read that it is very popular in Australia. But I just now did a google search for "camel manure fertilizer UAE" and got this info from a veterinary site here in UAE:

"Dogs that are walked on the central grassy reservations pick up lots of ticks. We believe this is because the lawns in Abu Dhabi are fertilized with camel manure that includes loads of ticks..."

So I am giving up on that plan! d

Hmm. Not too surprising about ticks. But of course if you're going to dig the manure in, not sure what difference it would make. For the lawns, I'm pretty sure it isn't dug in. I think ticks require blood feeding at each several-month stage of their life-cycle to survive. So I would think if you got some older, dried up patties, you might be good to go.