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Envirohose Report: It's All a Lot of Horse Manure



Connie Berto asked me to forward this to the list.  Interesting stuff, and
important to all of us dealing with manure disposal in an increasingly
regulated environment.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "connie B Berto" <cberto@juno.com>
To: <lbm@naisp.net>
Cc: <lsimoni197@aol.com>; <cberto@juno.com>; <envirohorse@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 3:42 AM
Subject: It's All a Lot of Horse Manure


> Linda, hi!   I  lost track of you  (:-( when your email addy changed.  
> Lynge forwarded me the exchange about horse manure.    Yes, EnviroHorse
> has been into manure...literally...and I'll give you some details from
> Adda Quinn's  research here.
>      I have, on several occasions, weighed my two horses'   "by-product" 
> on a combined basis, since they share a corral.   Dusty is 14.2 and Billy
> is 15.1.    Dusty weighs about 870 lb. and Billy, now a corral king,
> about 1050. Together, they  produce 60 pounds per day.    I can tell by
> looking as to which horse deposited which pile, but the bottom line is
> still 60 pounds total, per day, with a volume of .75 cu. ft./day.    This
> is significantly different from the current Am. Society of Agricultural
> Engineering statement that a 1,000 lb. horse produces 51 pounds of manure
> per day.     A rather interesting (and unsubstantiated) claim, since that
> size of horse, on maintenance diet,  would be a gut-buster type if it
> consumed 25 lbs of hay per day --- and if it eliminated 51 pounds, it
> would disappear in a matter of months!  
>       This same table (51 lb./day from a 1,000 lb. horse) also says that
> each day, the manure  would contain .30 lb. total (Kjeldahl) nitrogen,
> .071 lb. total phosphorus, and .25 lb. potassium.   
>      According to other formulae, a horse on a 13% protein diet will
> excrete less than 8 lbs. of nitrogen per year.   Manure is estimated to
> contain 30% to 50% moisture.   I kinda think the 50% number to be a bit
> high -- unless the horse is having scours...
>     About Margaret Gardiner's  claim that horse manure is 1-1-1 or close
> to it,  I think the point to be taken is that manure has very low
> percentages of chemicals.    Manure is a great soil *amendment*  but it
> ain't that powerful as a fertilizer...which makes it one of the safest
> and most benign  additions to any garden.   At least, that's what various
> gardening guides from Rodale Press say.
>       The EnviroHorse studies of horse manure from several hundred
> samples taken around the San Francisco Bay Area  have shown that the
> killer e.coli 0157:H7 content is practically nil.   (This paper is in
> process of being reviewed and published)   Another interesting study from
> Univ. of California (Davis) has shown that when ground water flows
> through a soil box 1 meter in length, 90% of whatever contaminants that
> water contained, is removed.  After another 1-meter soil box,  another
> 90% of the remaining 10% was removed.  And so on.    
>      So,  yes,  all those pesky rangers and enviros who like to point to
> our big hairy horses as polluters simply don't have the science to back
> up their claims.
>      I'm off the Ridecamp List, so could you please post this for me?   
> If anyone would like copies of these EnviroHorse papers, let me know.   I
> would charge for the copying and mailing expenses only.      Happy
> trails,   Connie  Berto
> 
> 




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