Humm, cows eat hay, horses eat hay and what comes out the backside is pretty much the same except cows digest more of the hay than horses do so I would think the opposite is true.

That said, horse manure must be aged or it will burn your plants. When I use it I shred it so there are no "apples" left then mix it with really finely shredded leaves, paper ect and it creates one very hot compost pile.

I must say though that this year I have bypassed the manure together and just use the hay. It takes a little longer to break down but works just as well.

The more you turn a manure pile and keep it moist the faster it breaks down.

When I use horse manure

I've had people tell me that horse manure isn't great, and that cow manure is better, but if horse manure is what you've got, and no other options are available, then I'd say go for it. When I was living in an area with easy access to free, well-aged horse manure, and not any other sort, you can bet that I took it. It did wonders for my soil texture.

If you just want to "age" the manure, then you just wait! You might get a much better end result if you put it into your compost pile and compost it normally, however.

If fresh, both horse and cow manure have about the same nutrient content. Aged or dry cow manure does bump up quite a bit but one doesn't often find documentation relating to dried or aged horse manure to make similar comparisons......not sure why :-) One advantage of cow manure is that there tends to be less weed seeds......cows have two stomachs and therefore the digestive process tends to be more complete.

'Aged' manure is just allowed to sit for a period of time before using. A period of six months is typical. A lot of the chemicals which can cause what is often referred to as "fertilizer burning" are volatized during this period. Feedlot manure (from either horses or cows) is recommended to be composted - different from aging - before application with edible crops to eliminate the potential for pathogens. This would also neutralize the weed potential.

I've often heard to avoid horse manure because of the weed seeds. I added some to a garden we had once before (in another state) and I do think it increased our weeds, but I recall that manure being quite dry and dusty, so who knows what the story was. This was several years ago.

I used aged horse manure as the bulk of the filling for my 2 raised beds last year that I filled "lasagna" style. I had very few weeds. I am using it again for the new beds this year.

I've been using thoroughbred horse compost here in Kentucky for the last 2 years and have had negligible weeds in my raised bed (pretty much almost none). The place I buy it from much age it well before it is scooped up and sold to people like me.

No fertilizer used.. just horse compost. You be the judge of how nutritious my garden soil is :)
{{gwi:269122}}From 082008

From head to toe I am 6'2"
{{gwi:269123}}From 072808

Animal manures have been used as a source of fertilizer for eons, and none are really any better than any other. My chart of animal manures says that cow manure has an NPK of 0.6-0.2-0.5 and horse manure is 0.7-0.3-0.6, not enough difference to be concerned about. Because cows digestion system is different from a horses cow manure does tend to be more "weed" free, but the only time those "weeds" would be a problem would be if the manure was improperly handled, applied to the garden too soon.
All manures today, according to all the Ag schools, the CDC, and the National Organic standards people (not the USDA group), should be aged 12 months before being applied to the garden at least 90 to 120 days before harvest. Since "aging" means simply piling that manure up and letting the nutrients in that manure gas off to the atmosphere and run into the soil where they become pollutants, all manure should be properly composted which will then capture those nutrients and hold them for the plants in your garden to use later.

"all the Ag schools" Links to a few of them please.

"the CDC" Link please.

"National Organic standards people (not the USDA group)" Link please. Plus a link to who these people are would be helpful to determine their background.

Mr. Miller, because of your reputation for inaccurate information (no rubber in tires comes to mind), I have a lot of difficulty in believing much of what you attribute to other organizations. As I have seen you post links in the past (Florida composting and others) I think you appreciate the helpfulness of linking for those of us not as conversant with "insiders" as you appear to be.

Lloyd

I've been told that horse manure is better than cow manure. People say lots of things. I've used both and from my experience (I use it mainly to get my compost piles to heat up), they're both good. I wouldn't hesitate to use it. GaryStPaul

It's true people say lots of things (: Its all good poop I would use whatever is easiest to get home

I've used hm and yes, I think there are a few weeds with it, but boy does it grow great tomatoes! I go out in our field and pick up fresh hm, actually donkey doo, and drop it into the tomato planting hole, plunk in the plant and watch it grow. If you have access to hm, give it a try, even with one plant as an experiment.

I'd use horse, cow, and chicken manure regularly, if I had the chance. If I had to choose one, I'd probably take chicken manure.

Which is better probably depends on one's priorities, also how to handle it depends on the situation.
If you are dressing manure around existing plants that will be harvested before the 90 days is up, you probably should be using well composted stuff. Also if using around existing plants, one wants to avoid fresh stuff that might still be too "hot" and burn the plants.

If weed seeds are a worry, then perhaps compost the horse manure to help kill more of them off or choose the cow manure. However, in many raised bed or lasagna gardening situations, weeds are so easy to pull out that it doesn't really matter as long as one can tell the difference between the weeds and the plants they want.

Otherwise, use what is available the easiest and cheapest.

Thanks for all the information. I know that everyone has their own 'best practices' and I'm guessing the farmer that originally told me this has more experience using cow manure if only because he has his own cows! Why buy horse manure if you can get the cow for free, as it were.

We can get the horse manure for free, so that is probably what we will do. I will keep the weed seed comments in mind, though. Thanks for the info!

I love cow manure and I love chicken manure slightly less (only because it's so loaded with wood products) and horse manure is better than a stick in the eye. Horse manure is weedier, from my experience, than cow, but so what?; I'm a mulcher, so I don't worry about weeds. The manure I use is fairly fresh and works swell, but I don't know the reasons behind the concerns about composting it. If it's e-coli, then I suppose I'm playing Russian Roulette. I don't plant directly in manure and burning has never been an issue.

I wouldn't use it unless you know exactly where it's from and how the horses were maintained. We have 3 horses, and I don't use ours. Aging it is simple; you keep a really large pile, and you use stuff that's at least a few months, if not years, old, from the bottom of the pile (I know this from a place where I boarded, years ago.)

Here's why you wouldn't want to use our manure (or most folks', if you ask me!)

1. I give one of my horses an oral liguid medication to fight Cushing's syndrome. This is extremely common in horses. It's called pergolide, and is not considered safe for humans. It cuts down on the harmful by-products of an over-active pituitary, they think. Wouldn't want any of THAT in my veggies...

2. Most horses are wormed regularly. The insecticide used must come through in the manure.

3. Some horses are fed a fly killer, that stays in the manure!

4. Our horses are sprayed a lot in the summer, with a very toxic fly-killer. It's the only one that works here. Overspray often gets on the manure lying around.

5. Sometimes I spray the insides of the stalls with a less toxic insecticide. When the horse defecates on that, and we scoop it up, I assume it gets into the manure pile.

And so forth...

Oooohhhh, that's very interesting. I hadn't thought of that aspect of it. Hmmm....

The horse manure I bought has lots of wood chips in it because it was from scooped out stalls. Wood chips need to rot. I think horses probably get more treatments than most cattle. I felt safe eating my calves but cattle are also wormed, there are blocks they lick that are supposed to cut down on flies, stuff put on their backs for grubs, have fly ear tags, vaccinated etc, but they are not usually sprayed in stalls where it would land on the manure. I would use any manure I could get because it does wonders for soil. If you knew what poisons people used to use on gardens you would be afraid of soil too. My father used lead arsenate on green beans.

I use tons of horse manure. It has lots of wood shavings and I give it a year to age.