I hope you mean you’re growing ornamental stuff. If you’re growing veggies, let the manure age for at least six months. And what are the goats eating? If it’s a weed/grass diet, I’d be sure there are no pesticides used on the stuff.

Ruth

The source is an organic farm.

So, for the ornamentals I could till right away? (And grass?)

And why not the veggies?

How about if I put tilled the manure between the beds for the veggies?

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

..and what you get in raw manure is what’s left after food is processed by digestion, which includes a lot of digestive juices. A farmer used to come collect my daughter’s horse manure, in the winter - so it would age before planting season.

Ruth

Goat manure is great according to a friend who keeps them. The key issue is the bedding. Goat maure itself can be tilled right in. The urine can be higher in nitrogen, but not like hen manure. Be careful of the bedding. If they’re bedded in straw or hay, the weed seeds can be a problem in the garden if not composted first.

Goat Manure is just fine to use in a garden. It’s very high in nutrients. It gets VERY hot when used fresh, and has the potential to burn tender roots, so compost it first!

I’ll be using plenty of goat, chicken, and cow manure in my garden beds. It’s all very good stuff— the more variety, the better!

—mf

From High Atop The Mighty Corrente Building… Comes Wisdom.

This is the kind of “burning” issue of the day that should dominate the intercourse here at Correntewire.

Enough of that smutty, tiresome Gisele Bundchen, I say.

“The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention.” - Molly Ivins

It’s for “cajeta,” the best caramel sauce in the entire world.

Not what you asked, I know, but since you have an organic farm that has goats, get some goat’s milk, it’s great stuff.

This thread says not.

What are the variables? My climate is zone 5, and my soil is clay-y in one spot, infested with Norway maple roots and road salt in another, and fine in another. It’s all not good, and I’d rather till right in if I can get away with it.

Suppose I do that for the flowers under the maple, and between the beds in the garden? Will I get away with it and not burn anything that way?

And as far as smutty, tiresome Gisele Bundchen: Speak for youself!

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Do both.

You’re not going to get all those areas worked on at once anyway. Set up your composting device—bin type if you have spare lumber or concrete blocks available for this purpose, disused garbage cans if you’re a cheap person like me—and assemble the other materials you’re going to mix in, grass clippings and leaves most likely, straw if available, kitchen leavings (eggshells are essential but MUST be dried and ground dust-fine, which I just learned about three years too late) et al.

Then do the hardest thing which is getting into the habit of stirring/forking/rolling or whatever mixing technique is needed for whatever your device is. Failure to do this most likely accounts for my garbage cans full of not-particularly-composty-substances. Meaning I am probably not the best person to listen to on the subject, but when did lack of expertise ever stop me before?

At least you’re started. Then just take out what you need for a given job and it will have had at least a little time to start breaking down. And the next batch will have had more time, etc. Just mixing it in with other organic material should cut down any tendency to “burn” and the fact that you are tilling it into soil anyway reduces the concentration further.

I’ve known people who just had raw stall contents (horse in this case), manure and peed-upon straw, put down straight from the barn onto the yard. It made the neighborhood smell farmy-funny for a few weeks but I don’t remember anybody bitching about it. They did have nicer grass the next year.

get rabbit manure (not “litter”, which includes bedding & shed fur, etc & is not as good for your garden because it has more contaminants). Water well, also.

DO NOT USE COMMERCIAL CHICKEN “LITTER” TO FERTILIZE ANYTHING YOU INTEND TO EAT, EVER. Just don’t do it. Chicken feces are filthy anyway, and the nitrogen content is such that most plants won’t survive; but the “litter” contains such wonderful things as chickens that died in the broiler/layer pens, etc. Not to mention the mites.