Hauling Horse Manure Organic Fertilizer

One of the nice things about living here in the south is proximity to places that are interesting or beneficial for gardeners. There are garden shops nearby where you could buy plenty of garden plants typically used for landscaping. They may not have the unusual plants and vines that Centris has, but they have a modest selection of lawn grasses that you can buy.

And then there are places where you can get animal manure as organic fertilizer practically for free. We've gone to my daughter's university (specializing in agricultural sciences) to just shovel cow manure fertilizer. This is aged manure, by the way and so there is no offensive odor.

However, I read and heard from varying sources though that horse manure is way better. We not only considered horse manure for fertilizing, but also for feeding the composting worms in our vermicomposting project.

Where to get horse manure ?

Fortunately, there's a horse racetrack here in the south. It's the San Lazaro Leisure Park and Casino. It used to be known as the San Lazaro Hippodrome when it was still located in Manila. Here are the map and directions going to San Lazaro Leisure Park.


Getting Horse Manure from the Horse Racetrack

Going to the horse racetrack was probably the easiest part to our getting horse manure. To actually haul the bagged horse manure fertilizer into our van wasn't as easy as we thought.

At the side of the leisure park, we saw a stable hand leading a racehorse to a small building. The guy was wearing work boots so he wasn't a race horse jockey. We thought it was a racehorse with the bandages wrapped on the horse's lower limbs.

We asked him where we could find horse manure and he pointed us to this huge pile of tied up sacks just outside of the small building. We approached this pile and parked the van near it. As we got down the vehicle, we already smelled the wafting odor of horse manure from this big pile. As it rained the day before, the bags were quite wet. But we were determined to bring home free horse manure fertilizer.

After lining the van's flooring with some newspapers and empty sacks, we proceeded to load a bag of the horse manure from the pile to the van. It wasn't easy. Foul-smelling brown liquid trickled to our hands as we hauled the bags into the van. The stench was so bad that flies started swarming inside the van.

Upon loading the third bag, a mechanic from a nearby heavy equipment depot approached us and asked what we were after. Learning that we were there for horse manure fertilizer, the mechanic practically begged us to unload the three bags.

The bagged manure was NOT fit for garden fertilizer because it was FRESH manure. Yup, fresh manure straight from the horses' butt. Though stinky and heavy, we proceeded to unload all of them. Good thing we had emergency bottled water to wash our hands.


Aged Horse Manure for Garden Plants

The mechanic explained, and rightly so, that fresh manure would burn the roots of garden plants. We knew that, but had no idea we were standing beside a pile of fresh manure. He said aged manure wouldn't smell bad at all and it was very safe to handle even with bare hands. Also, bagged horse manure that has been aged wouldn't be as bulky like the ones we loaded and unloaded. That's because aged manure would appear more compact as they have little moisture left in them.

So when we asked where to get the good stuff, the mechanic motioned someone driving a mini-dump truck to come to us. The mechanic asked the driver to go get aged manure from stables away from the vicinity. The driver looked at our van and decided 10 bags would easily fit in there and drove off.

It was a good 15 minutes or so before the driver with the mini-dump truck came back. While waiting, DH went off to look and buy cheap molasses near the horse race track. When the driver came back he unloaded 10 bags of aged horse manure. The bags looked smaller and more compact unlike the fresh manure bags that looked bloated. No wonder he was sure 10 bags would fit in the van. The mechanic held the aged horse manure with his bare hands to show how safe and easy it was to handle.

The driver and his helper loaded 9 of the 10 bags because 1 was torn and I was sure it would spill its contents in the van.

We gave the guys Php 90 for their efforts. We were so thankful to the mechanic that we didn't have to bring home that nasty smelly fresh horse manure. The stink would have invited flies in our backyard and raised the ire of our neighbors.

Horse Manure for Fertilizing Landscaped Gardens

We went around further around the race track and saw some of the stables that were fenced off and apparently were off limits to casual visitors like us. I'm assuming some of those stables housed prized race horses that cost millions.

Much of the place had pockets of landscaped gardens like the one below.

I'm almost sure the leisure park's gardeners make use of the free horse manure for fertilizing and conditioning the soil.

There were plenty of horse trailers in different shapes, colors and sizes.

Finally, a photo of the horse race track and part of the stadium as seen from the main road.

Storing the Horse Manure Fertilizer Bags

Arriving home, we were not ready to decide how to store all 9 bags of horse manure fertilizer. Frankly, we didn't expect to get so much for that one trip. So, we just stacked all of them in a little place in our backyard.