Experiment: Red Dirt & Chicken Poo Tea

[lcertuche]

ALSO, if you live in the Midwest do NOT put down sand! I put down a 70 pound bag on sand in my horse's training area and now need to dig it up. When it dries out it turns rock hard and my horses can slip on it.
I think you did the right thing. Continue to make manure tea:
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting/manures/manure-tea.htm

Isn't that how you make concrete?

 

[bobm]

@bobm there is a horse show facility 10 miles from us and we can have all we want. We hauled many, many loads of it. Problem is, it is more pine shavings than poop. They didn't break down too well and being small shavings, they had a tendency to pack. There is a patch of them in the "pasture" where the pigs are now and if I dig down, the dirt is black, but there is 8" of pine shavings on top and it's been a year and a half. The pigs are mixing it up.

We have 3 horses and we filled a few low spots in the other front pasture with horse manure. The barn is now paved with wood chips and we will dig it out and apply fresh wood chips. We have 2 large piles of cow manure and hay, 1 large pile of horse manure, composting.

Interesting that the wood chips are packing. When I spread the stall cleanings out on my pastures and just left there with only the horses walking over it , there is no packing. When one leaves the pine shavings and manure that is urine soaked in a stall and let to dry out, it will pack/ solidily into a solid mass akin to particle board. If you remove the loose stall cleanings and pile it elsewhere you need to add a generous amount of amonium sulfate and keep it moist and it will break down quite fast. In my garden conisting of heavy clay native soils erroded from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I would add the stall cleanings ( urine soaked pine shavings plus horse manure) onto the garden area 6"-8" deep ,add amonium sulfate with a broadcast spreader, then rototill it in and water it, then add another layer, more amonium sulfate rototill and water, . Then one more time then plant the garden. I never had any issues of packing but ended up with very fluffy, rich, very productive soil after a couple years of doing same.