# Why is horse-dung good to put on plants' soil, but not other animals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 27, 2003, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567 "2003-11-27T12:40:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/21 "2003-11-27T20:45:58Z")
Having access to an essentially unlimited supply of bunny turds, and can say, with confidence, that bunny dodo works rather well also. ---
**Author:** ![Indefatigable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9d8465/32.png) [@Indefatigable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indefatigable)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/22 "2003-11-27T21:27:08Z")
Oh-- I almost forgot this one-- we used to have a guinea pig, and when we cleaned the dirty shavings out of his cage, we’d dump them on the flowerbed. The tulips loved it. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2003, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/23 "2003-11-28T01:54:15Z")
A better demonstration of why we still need the apostrophe to show the possessive could not be found. ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/24 "2003-11-29T01:49:29Z")
My grandparents were dairy farmers, and they used cow manure on their corn (which was used to feed the cows) and maybe their alfalfa. They had two forms–the more solid type from cleaning out stalls, and a more liquid sludge that was collected from a huge tank (which had an open top, so maybe it was more liquid from rain water). The origin of that stuff was the gutters in the barn—the gutters would clean themselves and it would get piped into the tank. ---
**Author:** ![Scarf-Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Scarf-Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarf-Ace)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/25 "2003-11-30T20:36:54Z")
> [@](#): > > When I was a young cat, there was a fellow who ran a local fundie church, his farm and a septic tank cleaning business. He’d clean out the sludge from your tank, and want to pray with you. > > The sludge was taken to his farm and spread on the fields. I doubt this practice would be legal now. Almost every year, he would manage to grow these ginormous pumpkins, and would carve John 3:16 into the pumpkin face for the newspaper photo. Thats a pretty unique story, I wish I had ice-breakers like that. 🙂 Well I think i’ve been educated to the fullest on this one. No more please. No, honestly, thats enough. ---
**Author:** ![Indefatigable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9d8465/32.png) [@Indefatigable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indefatigable)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/26 "2003-11-30T22:15:53Z")
- better demonstration of why we still need the apostrophe to show the possessive could not be found.\* I just noticed that myself, too… “Why is horse-dung good to put on plants’ soil, but not other animals?” Because it’s hard for the other animals to get the horse crap out of their fur. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/27 "2003-11-30T22:40:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Meta-Gumble \* > \*\* Also what about human’s crap? Is it just too toxic to even consider putting on plants? What about a human with a good diet? \*\* Behold [Milorganite](http://www.milorganite.com/companyinfo/companyhistory.asp)! ---
**Author:** ![deb2world](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@deb2world](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deb2world)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/28 "2003-11-30T22:41:39Z")
In high school I was an aggie. I remember Mr. Holmes my ag teacher saying that one reason horse manure is better than cow manure is because horses do not eat as much salt as cows. Salt is leached out of the soil in the desert to allow plants to grow. (note: I grew up in the Imperial Valley, Calif which is a desert reclamation area) ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/29 "2003-12-01T02:36:10Z")
I suppose this thread is an indication of how few people have a connection with the land. Animal manure, and in parts of Europe and Asia, any manure, is a valuable fertilizer. The right to have manure deposited on your crop ground was sufficiently important that efforts by the local knight to have the peasants’ oxen graze his fallow ground instead of all the fallow land was a substantial cause of discontent. In the agricultural Midwest the early spring before planting and the late fall after harvest is the occasion for a regular gala of manure spreading. There are of course many ecological side effects when dealing with large quantities of manure, especially liquid hog manure–if it gets into a waterway the stuff will quickly deplete the oxygen in the water and raise hell with fish and other aquatic critters. The stuff also has fairly high levels of ammonia too. Horses do not digest very well, having small single chambered stomach, and need large quantities of low nutrition forage like grass hay. Because the horse’s digestion is so inefficient a fair amount of stuff passes through essentially unaltered. Often a healthy stand of oats will spring up in a horse manure pile-the seed goes right through the horse and germinates in the pile. Horse manure is not as concentrated as cow, pig and chicken manure, it has lower levels of ammonia and higher fiber content than the other common livestock manures and is therefore not as “hot.” Horse manure can be safely put on plants that would scald with more concentrated manures. Because of the heat produced by the rotting half digested vegi matter in horse manure and because of the many small air spaces in the fibrous mass it was banked up around house foundations in the old days as insulation. Horse manure is the sovereign remedy for worn out asparagus beds. Just take off a half a foot of soil, pile in the horse droppings, water and wait until spring. ---
**Author:** ![daniel801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@daniel801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daniel801)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567/30 "2003-12-01T05:28:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Why is horse-dung good to put on plants’ soil, but not other animals? Because the other animals might not like it? 😉 [sorry, couldn’t restrain it] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-horse-dung-good-to-put-on-plants-soil-but-not-other-animals/215567.md?page=1)