Cant you find a farm trying to get rid of manure for free?

Not that Im against you helping the zoo, but darn, I cant believe they charge for thier manure!

The closest zoo near me is York Wild Kingdom, every year I take the kids and see a HUGE pile of manure just sitting around, but of course its not close enough to me to bother going to get any, I can get free horse manure up the street.

Even farms may charge for their poo. An alpaca farm near me fills 50 lb feed sacks with poo (little round pellets with no smell) and sells them for $5. Their kids rake it and bag it fresh. Seems when one alpaca poops, the others all come and poop in the same spot. Makes for easy collecting for the kids.

I just put the alpaca poo on the garden this week, so can't tell you how is does there yet. But a friend has been using it on her city edible yard and it looks incredible.

I don't collect buffalo 'chips'. It usually gets incorporated into the pasture before drying, unlike on a dry prairie. I consider that poo field fertilizer that came in the pruchased hay.

The Zoo here in Jacksonville, FL will sell you a truck load of zoo poo for $10 or if you bring buckets or bags, you can fill as many as you can carry for free. I bought two truck loads for my large garden and my veggies are loving it! Highly recommend it!

Not a lot of farms here in Louisville:). Would spend more money in gas trying to find a farm. So driving to zoo and picking up poo thats already composted is more feasible for me. Plus the money help fees the animals that my kids enjoy going on the zoo and see. And my vegetables are loving it. It's a win win for me. But hey, that's me.... Just throwing the suggestion out there for those who didnt know about the zoo poo event.

Horse racing tracks give it out for free as well, at least around here.

I understand Alleykat, I hope I didnt sound too negative, just seemed odd to me, I thought the zoos would try to dump that stuff as quickly as possible.

Maybe i should try Churchill downs...
Silver kelt- not negative, i totally agree that free would be the way to go... But I guess once i used the zoo compost, i was hooked and am willing to pay for my little pot of gold. Thanks for the advice on the horse track, i did not know that! I will keep that in mind!

"Seems when one alpaca poops, the others all come and poop in the same spot."

Well... I've learned something new today! :)