Manure - How much do you pay?

I've been calling around to local stables to find manure for my new flower beds.

First person to call me back said he would load it up in my truck with a front-end loader for 40 dollars. He also said he would dig in for the hot center core.

Is this a reasonable amount for a truckload?

I am not sure...most places that I have heard of, tell you to load as much as you want for free,even with this guy loading it for you, I am thinking $40.00 is a bit high, it isn't going to take him very long, even digging for the hot core...

I can get all I want for free from a horse farm close to our neighborhood. They aren't doing anything with it.

A friend of mine said she can get a pickup truck loaded for $5 and it's already composted.

I can buy direct from a local company that also bags and sells to Home Depot and the like.

A small pickup load of composted cow manure is $27.00 - a large - $32.00.

Keep looking Osteole - you should not have to pay for manure that you have to turn around and compost yourself!

Hope that helps.
Nicole

I get mine 'free' if I load it, and $5.00 a pick-up load if they use the front loader and load it for me.
$5.00 is easily worth it for the sake of my poor aching back. :-)

You know that's right!!

I've bought compost from a nursery, $27 for a yard (a generous scoop with their front-end loader, which half-fills the half-ton pickup bed.) Ouch - especially considering it had some truly nasty spring-sprouting weeds in it that I suspect I'll still be picking out for a couple seasons.

A guy down the road has a combination horse/chicken manure compost that he will load (until you cry "uncle") and he asks only that people give a donation to help feed the "producers" (I give him $10 a load.) Unfortunately, his came with a bonus gift of poison oak seeds ... (ask me how I know!)

Another source gives it away but you have to scoop it yourself (no front-end loader on the premises :o(

All in all I'd say $40, especially from a non-garden cenvter source is very high. And uh, I could be wrong, but I didn't think horse manure gets "hot" - I was thinking it's a cold manure. (I'm sure there's *some* heat in the center, but if it's hot that means it's cooki-ING, not cook-ED.

I'd keep looking - a lot of riding/boarding stables will give it away for free or a nominal fee, just to get it out of there. Also check around for local mushroom growers. Their "waste" is excellent, well-rotted compost material and I'd say it comes closer to being worth $40 a load than plain old manure.

Terry

Thanks alot for your message. About the heat in the manure...If the barn is cleaned out regularly (it most definitely should!) some of the manure will be warm. I remember the huge pile at school (I majored in equestrian science) would "smoke" in the winter time. All that heat escaping, the pile would generate alot of steam. Stalls would be cleaned out twice a day. With over 100 horses on campus that's alot of warm poo!

Funny thing, I would always see "people" out there getting manure. I knew they were "farmers" but not being a gardener myself I didn't realize the signifigance.

Horse manure get hot! I used to put a layer in the bottom of my coldframes to keep them warm.

Ya, I grew up riding horses. We used to put the manure on the pipes in the transformed chicken house we rode in to keep them from freezing. Worked like a charm!

You can come load up all you want free from my house,Mom's or several of my friends.LOL.Jody

Got mine last year from a dairy farmer in the area. $10 a pickup load and he loaded it with his front end loader, and piled on all he could!

Osteole .. is there any stockyards nearby to you, at all ? .. Usually, they'll charge a very small nominal fee to 'load' your truck and or trailer up for you !

- Magpye

We can get ours free here at the Ohio State Fair grounds but we do have to shovel it ourselves.

I think they should pay me!!!!!! PEEEEEE UUUUUUUUU!

I have never gotten any-but lord knows I have smelled some of the worst around here in the wind!!!! The farmer down the road use PIG pooh!!! omg laaaaaapewwwww

The Farmer that rents the land here spread some kinda CHICKEN -stuff/parts/feathers/??? omg omg omg stink stank stunk!! told him from that day on-he was to dunp it behind my MIL house who had said its not bad-ya till the wind blows towards YOUR house!!!!! :) dang!!!!
It burnt the land where it was dumped-wow to NITROGEN!!!

I guess I will let God send me some good thunderstorms -they sure smell a heck of alot better-dont they! ;)