Too much clay...

[ducks4you]

http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-...p/1580177026/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
The panel members on Mid American Gardener have referenced this book many times.
You do need greens and browns, and dirty horse stalls have both.

 

[journey11]

http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-...p/1580177026/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
The panel members on Mid American Gardener have referenced this book many times.
You do need greens and browns, and dirty horse stalls have both.

I've never seen a hotter compost pile than horse manure mixed with old hay or bedding. They cook down in no time! Amazing how that mountain of poo can reduce to a 4" pile of dirt.

 

[bobm]

Since I owned a horse ranch, I used the horse manure on an acre of grounds around our home in C. Cal. . There were 6 types of clay soils washed down by erosion from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in swaths and swirls . I would spread 6" thick horse manure right from the barn by the wheelbarrow fulls ( NOT composted-from 20-30 horses depending on number of foals and horses sold and outside mares in for breeding) and in garden, flower beds and around 90 redwood tree and 10 beefwood seedlings, 3-5 times per year and tilled into the clay soils on areas to be planted and after 3 years that whole area has become very pliable and loose soil and very fertile. The rest of the manure out of the barn went directly onto the pasture daily year round spread about 3-4" thick. With the arrival of winter rains in late Nov. the grass in the manured areas grows 2 x faster and ends up about a foot + taller than the untreated areas.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah you can often tell where a cow or horse dropped a load in a pasture field by how bright green and taller the grass is a few weeks later. A cow patty especially may look like it has smothered the grass at that spot for a while, but just give it a little time. Rain does help, but it looks like bright green islands in a sea of brown grass in late summer if it has been mostly dry.