Excellent stuff, but it does need to be composted before use. It may already be; check with the supplier how long they have had it before you got it.

Resin

Not knowing where you are located makes a difference. If you are far north, will have frozen ground in the next 3-6 weeks, you can use it, but it won't break down very much over the winter - the bacteria, etc. won't be able to "work" when it gets too cold. If you are somewhere warmer, where you will have more than 6 weeks of time before the ground freezes, of if you will have a heavy cover of snow, which will, paradoxically, keep the ground a bit warmer, then the stuff will keep breaking down over the winter into spring.

If it is well mixed with bedding - straw, pine shavings, or the like, in a half-and-half, or better ratio - then I wouldn't worry too much about using it as a mulch - no deeper than 5", which will break down by the end of spring to 2-4". If it is more like straight manure, then it would be too hot, and needs to be composted (mixed with "green" material) and left for 2-3 mo. with turning or 6-8 mo. without turning before you use it.

If you are getting it from a pile that has been building over the summer, and if you can get to the far (oldest) end of the pile, then it should be pretty well broken down and can be used ad lib - but no deeper than 4".

Thanks for the replies. I'm in NW Missouri. Unloaded a trailer full yesterday. The top still has some smell to it but the majority of it has a more earthy, almost like potting soil smell to it so its definately been composting for awhile.

I know its the wrong forum, but how about as topdressing for the lawn this spring? I thought about aerating this spring, overseeding, then top dressing a very thin layer to help add some organic material and fertilizer to the soil.

Sounds like a plan to me....

You might keep in mind the advice about a little being good, but too much isn't better. Its easier to overfertilize most trees than under fertilize them.

As suggested above how much is enough/too much depends on exactly what you are actually getting. More bedding material or more manure. So its kind of touchy-feely, to make a pun.

JK, you can make 12 inch deep or more beds of the composted horse manure right on top of or your native soil, and you can plant trees and shrubs directly into the stuff. I did that several years ago for my daughter when she moved into a new house in the North Fort Worth, TX area.

The only soil the builder left after scraping the pad to build the house, was a hard white clay. That Clay soil must have been fairly high in salts and had a pretty alkaline PH level.

But when I made the beds of straight cow manure, which had cured to pretty much the same condition which you describe the stuff you brought home, all the trees and shrubs I planted in those beds did well

List of things planted:

10' tall Black Gum Tupelo tree

8' tall 'Muskogee' Crape Myrtle

7' tall 'Jane' Magnolia

multi-trunked 6' tall Paperbark maple

two 8' tall Loblolly pine trees

6' tall 'Plum' yew

5' tall (slow growing) dwarf Japanese maple

3' tall 'My Mary' deciduous azalea

some gound cover type 'Hilda niblet' azaleas

I believe that the virgin soil was too alkaline for most of the items I planted to grow well. Yet the straight horse manure beds I made about 1 foot deep and which over time settled to about 6 inches high altered the soil conditons enough for all the items I listed above to continue growing in a very healthy manner.

I see no reason for you to have any problems by using the horse manure you brought in as a top dressing around the trees and shurbs you planted.

Just apply the stuff from 4 to 6 inches deep and you can even cover it with a couple inches of stredded mulch.

Do keep the manure about 4 inches away from the trunks of your trees and shrubs, just like you would do if only putting down mulch.

JK,

This Fall is a great time of year to improve the soil conditon for your lawn.

Horse manure is a very effective way to do that.

Simply fill a lawn cart full with the manure, and sling shovel fulls of manure in an arching spray pattern across your lawn. Continue shovel slinging the manure over the entire lawn surface that you want to improve.

Then next spring, after the ground thaws, you can again give your lawn the same treatment.

The horse manure should provide much more natural benefits for you lawn than can be found in the more commonly sold lawn fertilizers.

My dad got some manure once for veg. garden. There were a lot of weed seeds in it. They pass through the animal and then sprout in the manure. Composting for a year before using fresh manure to rid of weed seeds. Dads garden grew great, but so did the weeds, took years to get rid of some of them. So unless you dont mind the weeds I think it would be ok.

The Horse manure compost that we used certainly did not sprout a lot of weeds in the landscape planting beds. I would think that any composted horse manure, which did not have too intense of an odor, would have been first piled up by at least the previous year's spring, summer, and fall.

To determine if any manure is cured enough to use without burning or weedy problems, One would simply need to ask the supplier how long and how hot the manure had been composting. after that one would just need to test the supplier's accuracy of reporting, by observing the manure's texture, color, and whatever odors can be detected in the compost.