Horse Muck on wood chips?

[Grasscutter]

I have moved to Scotland and find that all the bedding used for horses is either sawdust, or wood shavings.
I am used to horse muck on straw, which breaks down quickly.

It appears that local farmers will not spread this on their fields because of the time it takes to break down.
The main worry is that I have been advised by a couple of local farmers that if I put this into a veg plot, even if well rotted, it will dramatically change the acidity of the soil.

Can anyone comment please??

[digger]

Well I would think the way to check this is to do a ph test, but i do suppose that it would depend somewhat on which type of wood shavings are being used. All our horses are bedded on shavings for a good part of the year and although the shavings can take a little longer to degrade it's not that much longer really i build a big heap and the heat generated added to the nitrogen that is present in massive quantities the lot rts within a few months, the ph of my ground has always been around 7.0, but do a ph test on your soil prior to applying any manure, and then mix soil and muck in relevant quantities and check the ph again.

[Grasscutter]

My experience in the past with shavings has not been what you describe.
After applying one year it took nearly two seasons for the applied shavings to degrade to apoint when they were not visable. The muck had gone long before that........
and that is another worry.....ps pine resin present in shavings

[digger]

I think it rather depends on the type of shavings being used of course the amount being used is very important, some horse owner are very careful about the type of shavings being used because they can of course be detrimental to the horses well being, That said i have an area which is about 12ft x 12ft with tin sheets on three sides, this is used to stack the muck shavings and all also the droppings from the paddocks goes into the mix, our horses live in stables that have rubber matting on the floor the shavings are used primarily to soak up urine, there fore the shavings are wet and full of nitrogen this gets more fresh droppings added and so the muck is more present than the wood shavings, you could try to obtain the horse muck on it's own, in the horses field will be lots of muck without shavings . This muck has tobe removed regularily because if not it will be injurious to the horses and to the grazing, you could ask for permission to collect the muck from the field, this way you will be doing the horse owner a favour and saving them some work, failing this you could always buy yourself a horse.