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Horse Hockey

by Dr. Jim McCall

In our mind's eye, the romance of the old West conjures up images of horses grazing over large grass-filled plains. This impression quickly fades when reality kicks in. Today, most horses live where most of the people are. This is true even in the state of Texas -- long noted as one of the leading horse producing states, and still heavily saturated with the mystic of the old West. The county with the largest number of horses in the state of Texas is Harris County, which can also boast about being one of the most populated, as Houston is located in Harris County.

Keeping horses in such highly inhabited locations puts stress not only on the horses, but on the local sanitation. This potential problem should be a concern for horse owners keeping horses in close quarters on expensive land. To address this concern, it helps to have a clear picture of the waste generated by the average 1,000 pound horse.

While this might seem to be only of minor interest to you, the major importance of this information was pointed out to us in 1973 when Jim received a phone call from a New York research firm.

The group indicated that they were studying the impact of animal waste on the urban environment under a grant from the Federal government. They said that my name had been given to them as a resource person in this area (at the time, I was running the horse unit at the University of Maryland, which is inside the Washington, D. C. Beltway), and would I mind if they asked some questions about horse excrement. I answered the questions based on published information on the subject and was feeling quite proud that I knew the answers to their questions. They too, seemed rather excited that, in a five minute phone conversation, I had satisfied their curiosity.

As an afterthought, before hanging up, I asked what they intended to do with this information. They answered that it would be written into a report and sent to the appropriate Federal agency.

As a tax paying citizen, I was curious about what this New York firm was charging the government for the just-released information. The answer came back that the grant was for $600,000.

Of course, as professor of Animal Science at a state institution, they felt no obligation to give me any of that $600,000 for the information that I had provided. It was, therefore, free information. I am now about to pass that same information on once again.

You might wish to keep this information handy in case that twenty year old report gets lost; you could save the public another $600,000.

Question #1: How much manure does a horse void in a twenty-four hour period?

The answer: It averages between 33 -- 50 pounds.

Question #2: How many times a day does a normal horse have a bowel movement?

The answer: About 5 -- 12 times a day.

By dividing question one's answer by question two's answer, we get the answer to the third question: What is the weight of each defecation? 5 -- 10 lbs/poop.

The horse's total excrement of both liquid and solid waste is approximately 5.5 gallons per day. This is comprised of 20% liquid and 80% solid materials; the solid portion having a moisture content of 60%.

In total, the 1,000 pound hay burner will produce 8 tons of waste annually. Of that, about 5 tons are water, leaving 3 tons or 6,000 pounds of solids for recycling in some socially acceptable fashion -- which brings us to the second part of this discussion on horse-hockey disposal.

Even though disposal was not included in the Federal grant for $600,000, the topic did generate concern from several other groups. At the time, we housed 21 horses on 3-1/2 acres for teaching and research purposes in between the vast parking lots and high rise dorms at the University of Maryland, located nine miles from the nation's Capital. And it seemed quite often that people working on Capital Hill would call to query "What do you do with all the manure produced by all those horses on such a small amount of land?"

At first I thought the callers may have had an ulterior motive for asking. Even though I arrived in Washington by way of Texas, I knew that they had quite a problem with horse hockey on Capital Hill and I thought, perhaps they were looking for some fresh ideas from the animal sector for its dispatch. In spite of my reservations, my answer seemed to confuse the inquirers. You see, I did not have a manure disposal problem. We had a concrete pit, and every day as the stalls were cleaned, the feces and soiled bedding was placed in the compost pile. The next morning the pit would be empty or near empty and the process would repeat itself.

As this information worked its way along the Washington grapevine, a local environmental group became extremely interested in what was happening to the manure. So it was decided we must quit being pleased that the manure disappeared and instead become concerned with its whereabouts. So one night before leaving the barn, a surveillance camera was set up around the manure pile. The next morning we viewed the tape, and to our surprise there was a fairly steady stream of suburbanites who came, after working hours, with trash cans and plastic bags, to fill them with horse manure before scurrying away under the cloak of darkness. Due to the fact that a preponderance of these groupies of the period drove Volkswagens or VW vans, we dubbed them the "dung beetles" in tribute to those ingenious little bugs that make a ball out of manure and roll it back to their home for a stored delicacy.

Reporting this back to the environmentalists, I was surprised to learn that they were not satisfied that the manure was being disposed of properly. The asked (demanded) that I put up a sign saying not to take the manure. I protested, but complied. The result was that the manure disappeared faster than ever, but at a later hour of the night.

Since the sign had failed, my next directive was to hire a couple of students to stop and question the "dung beetles" as to what they proposed to do with their garbage can of horse apples. The most common answer was that they were "putting it in their flower beds" (especially their rose gardens), followed by "on their yards" and "in their victory gardens." At last, the environmentalists were satisfied.

What those suburban landscapers may not have known, was the plant food analysis of horse droppings. Horse biscuits have a content of 13.2% nitrogen, 2% phosphorus and 12% potassium, which is quite valuable stuff if you are a tomato plant. I wonder if I could convince the Federal government that this type of information on the disposal of horse waste is worth another $600,000.

copyright © 1966-2001 by Dr. Jim and Lynda McCall
If you enjoyed this story, you can find other articles written by the authors at their home page: McCall Horse World.