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| We have a 15 horse boarding stable and have bedded the stalls with sawdust for many years and the resulting compost piles steamed away thru the Canadian winter happily.....as gardeners we thought of trying peat moss instead of sawdust in the stalls and the resulting compost piles sit frozen even though they are made up of manure, urine soaked peat moss and old hay.......do I need more carbon inputs (I have lots of bagged leaves and round bales of straw available)........what do I need to ignite the fire? Thanks |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Sat, Mar 5, 11 at 13:58
| Since peat is already almost fully decomposed, essentially what you have is a cold compost pile :-) There is minimal decomposition going on so little there to generate heat. Certainly adding some other carbon sources would help. Not being a horse owner myself, feel free to take this with a grain of salt, but I'm not sure peat would be my first choice for bedding. First, it is very heavy when fully saturated, so must be hard to shovel out. Second, it can be a respiratory irritant (and a rather significant one) to humans and I would assume, also to horses. Breathing the dust can be quite harmful. And finally it can lead to the development of a fungal infection, Sporotrichosis, to which horses (also cats and humans) are rather prone. I think I might be inclined to go back to the sawdust......all the above aside, it seems to be a more suitable compost ingredient. And perhaps less expensive as well? |
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| Peat moss is a very expensive and non renewable resource so sawdust, often free except for trucking fees, is the better choice. |
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| More carbon is not usually the answer to obtaining higher temperatures. I've never used peat as my primary carbon component so I'm not sure why you aren't getting 'the heat'. ISTM that peat and sawdust would be one of those 'tougher to digest' carbons so you'd think they'd have similar composting traits. Interesting. Out of curiosity, is peat easier for you to use than sawdust? I'm aware that Nova Scotia has vast amounts of peat and it's a small province so there may be financial benefits to using peat over sawdust. Is there a reason you don't use the straw as bedding? Most of the stable guys around here use a lot of wheat straw (which I sell to them BTW). Lloyd |
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- Posted by Banjonique (My Page) on Mon, Mar 7, 11 at 11:25
| Thanks for your input everybody......the vets say peat is better for horses as a bedding as it is nearly hypo-allergenic whereas straw and sawdust actually (and surprisingly) have more issues with allergins and molds.........peat is also easy to use though we do use straw in the foaling (birthing) stall for more cushioning........also straw does not absorb ammonia nearly as well as peat.......I did go back to the piles and fork around in them and realized half were cooking away but slowly and without the usual abundance of worms. |
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| I don't understand your reasoning Kimm, peat moss is hardly a non-renewable resource....Canada has at the present time, enough peat moss to do the world's needs ten times over and more on the way. Since also, sawdust isn't mined like peat, it comes from our trees....so you are saying a tree is not worth anything....better see it go rather than what comes out of a bog and is being replaced in time. Forests on the other hand, are being swept clean by countries trying to catch up to the western standard of living and paying for it with reduced oxygen levels due to trees not being replenished sufficiently. Howcum you are a bender about peat moss when there is a lot more of earth's gifts to mankind being lost every day. |
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| It's all been hashed over in this thread. Lloyd |
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| Vast amounts of these Peat Moss reserves are not accessible and therefore cannot be used as part of the reserves, so what is left is considerably less then stated. an article in Organic Gardening magazine, not written by me, has thoroughly debunked the issue of Peat Moss being a renewable resource. |
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Tue, Mar 8, 11 at 9:07
| This is such a weak and tired argument. And I'd like to read this article.....if it exists. Please link to it. |
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- Posted by sylviatexas z8a Tx (My Page) on Tue, Mar 8, 11 at 9:28
| Peat moss is a preservative; it retards decomposition. Human bodies thrown into peat bogs 1,000 years ago still have skin, hair, & clothing.
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| I'm with you, Kim, and I applaud your persistence. |
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- Posted by hamiltongardener CAN 6a (My Page) on Tue, Mar 8, 11 at 22:43
| Banj, The peat moss will soak up the nutrients in the manure and urine, retaining them instead of letting them leech away. Those bedding piles will be awesome for your garden. If you don't use all of them, ship them down here for my garden!! |
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| Beware of the man who has only read one magazine. |
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| Let me say this. It is not at all difficult to find respected sources coming down on both sides of this debate. It's laughable that anyone here (no offense) would make any definitive statement regarding the sustainability of peat harvesting. If anyone here has credentials I'm unaware of, please cite them. I'm not content with the conversation on peat being linked to that particular thread, btw. There have been other additional threads, which should also be read (Like the time I used that great word I made up.), so I would prefer that the uninitiated be directed to search "Peat Moss". People who are interested could also try googling "Peat Moss Sustainability", note the sources and make your own decision about which side of this worldwide debate you come down on. |
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| The purpose of the link to the other thread was to hopefully prevent people from taking another thread and turning it into a peat sustainability If a person doesn't like that particular thread, put up some links to ones they do like (or start their own peat sustainability thread) and let this one be about the question from the OP. His/her vet said peat is better for their intended purpose and the question was about the composting of the materials. Lloyd |
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| In a world wide meeting of botanists in Iran in the 1970's a decision was made that harvesting and using Peat Moss was an unsustainable practice, and as a result of that the Royal Horticultural Society has requested its members not use, or havest, Peat Moss. The article about Peat Moss I referenced above is in an issue about 2 back, that I have not found, yet. There are numerous other sources of information that tell you that harvesting of Peat Moss is an unsustainable practice not just one, many. If you want to believe those with a vested interest in continuing to harvest Peat Moss, those that make a living selling it, you can but you really cannot deny that there are better, less expensive materials available to most of us so we do not need to use what is a non renewable resource. |
Here is a link that might be useful: RHS on Peat Moss
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| I understand, Lloyd, and I agree. I was just adding to your suggestion. If Kim feels compelled to make his point, and he does, and will, and then other people feel compelled to contest him, then I will feel compelled to let people know that Kim is not alone on this. I consider the entire debate about as fruitless, and along the same lines, as debating global warming. |
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| The article I mentiomed above is in the February/March 2011 issue of Organic Gardening magazine. |
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| And now for something completely different! ...a return to OP's topic My source for horse manure is a breeder of thoroughbreds. He refuses to use sawdust for many reasons including those tallied by GardenGal. He can dissertate on the virtues & variety of every sort of straw, his preferred bedding. Prior to him I obtained from a hobby owner who used sawdust. From a composter/gardener's reference, straw has all the advantage; a lower C:N ratio, a more degradable composition and less desication. Neither of these suppliers rotate/turn/aerate the stable matter. The straw material is always either hot or becomes so after my initial piling.
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