Manure is something that every garden needs. It seems that almost all waste can be used except for dog & cat. Chickens, bats, rabbits, and horses to name a few. All can be used to fertilize your garden. I found this nice chart on manure: Manure Guide Though these cannot be applied when they are "hot". Hot manure is fresh and straight out of the stall. Manure must be composted. Below is a link to a great site that lists the different manures. If you click the Blue title, it will take you to an article on just that type of manure. I cut out some of the manures because how much manure are you really going to get from your gerbil? They also suggested that you could go to the zoo. What I found odd was that the list divided steer and cow. I would have assumed that they were the same. In looking around the web and checking out manures I keep coming across manure tea. It seems like more of a process then I want to undertake but has anyone ever made some?
Fortunate to have friends with horses. I take a trailer over and they fill it up. I bring it home and dump it near the raised beds. Then another has piles of seasoned goat manure and she loads it onto the trailer with her front loader. Am in the middle of chicken/turkey country so litter is easy to get. Most farmers pile it in their fields to season. They always leave some that is easy to scoop up. We also have rabbits/chickens of our own--could say that I am full of it--lol.
Better way... Because.....SCIENCE! http://www.isca.in/AGRI_FORESTRY/Archive/v1i1/1.ISCA-RJAFS-2013-001.pdf " Conclusion This study showed that there were significant differences in tuber diameter, fresh and dry weights of leaves, tuber and whole plant. Residual nutrients affect the yield performance of succeeding crop and extend of effects depend on the nutrients content of manure. Radish tuber yield was high (76.98 g) in poultry manure and followed by 57.48 g in goat manure (T4) on fresh basis. Based on the yield performance of succeeding crop, it was cleared that the application of these two manures in EM bokashi form could be improved soil fertility on sandy regosol. "
It's the bokashi activator that gets the fermentation process going. How to make your own EM-1™ inoculant and Bokashi
We have access to horse, bat, and chicken manure. I suppose I could ask friend if I could have some of their rabbit manure. What I like to do is put it where I will be planting ahead of any rain/snow, so it will leech into the ground ahead of planting(speaking of, gotta start salad greens and snow peas this coming week).
About 6 years ago I built my wife a shit pit, 12'X12'X8' three side into the hill where she dumps into from the top and on the third side made up of 2X8 planks. It composts for about a year, and then I remove it to the storage pile, which is currently about 50' dia, 6' high, anybody in the area that needs some compost is welcome, I will load them with the front loader. It still needs another year of sitting in the pile to completely break down.
I like rabbit manure because it isn't a hot manure and I don't worry about burning my plants. The same for fish emulsion and comfrey.
One of the benefits of composting the manure is the nasty bacteria like salmonella and E coli are generally killed off during the process reducing the risk of contamination/illness for fertilized vegetables that are eaten raw. AT
To make tea from manure compost it first then put in a bucket or drum, have seen it done in totes, pre drill and install a hose at the bottom place a catch container under the hose add water to top it will leach the nutrients out and you have compost tea
Awesome man! This visual image is so nicely made. It really helped me learn the overall process of preparing manure in the right way. Great job!