What a load of manure

[Jameslovell]

Hi all
I am currently looking after my friends small collection of farm animals and eyeing up their poo! They have offered me manure before, so I may seek 'compensation' in this form when they return.

There are horses, pigs, chickens and sheep. Now the sheep and horses share a field, so it would be a pain to sort that out. Is it ok to have it mixed togeter and leave to rot down? Can I also use the chickens manure?

I was planning on planting out my asparagus into a proper bed and then covering them in 20cm of fresh horse/sheep manure, leaving it to rot down over winter. Is that ok to do, or does it have to be well rotted already before putting on the asparagus?

I want to build some beds in the grden, so would also fill them with manure to rot down over winter ready for next spring. Should I cover it?

As for the chicken, in was thinking of adding a few buckets to my compost bin. Should i do that or have a seperate bin for it? There will be straw in it, so it would need to rot down before use.

Any advice would be great, thanks.

[taff]

Chicken muck is the strongest, in terms of nitrogen and burning young plants, so that really needs to be well rotted first before you put it on top of anything, but it'll make your compost compost itself a lot quicker, just mix it straight in.
If you're putting raw muck on top of any plants, they may well be burnt by it, but it isn't a problem to put it on an empty bed and leave over winter to rot there.
the horse/sheep poo can also be put in a barrel of water for use as an instant liquid fertiliser next year if you like. Fill the bucket/barrel about 2/3 rds full of horse poo, top up with water. The sheep poo, I don't know how much to use, it's a bit fiddly to collect
someone more experienced with poo will be along soon

[Jameslovell]

Lovely, thanks. Maybe I won't put fresh muck on the asparagus, but the other beds I will.

[solway cropper]

If I was making a liquid feed I'd be inclined to put the muck in in a hessian sack and suspend it in the water.

Leave it for a couple of months and you get all the goodness in the liquid and can then just tip out the sack onto the compost heap. Or just put the whole sack on...if it's hessian it will rot down.