According to the following link from Colorado State University, horse manure has the lowest salt content of any of the usual manures, about 1/4 as much as cattle manure. Even so, especially if you live in a region with low annual rainfall, a buildup of salts in the soil is something worth keeping in mind.

Here is a link that might be useful: Electical Conductivity of Manures

If the horse is not kept in a commercial feed lot and isn't being fed salt to bulk up for slaughter, You can use all you want. I try to put down 4 inches of it a year in all my rose beds. If you water from overhead a lot or get sufficent rain and have relatively well drained soil most salts will quickly leach out. I would suggest there are more salts in manufactured fertilizers than in horse manure.

Living in one of those low-rainfall areas, I have decided to use manures every other year, or even every third, to avoid that salt build up issue. On alternate years I'm using inexpensive community compost since I don't seem to generate as much as I use in with own compost pile. Long term I'll have to work on that.

Make sure that the horse manure is well composted or you may end up with a lot of weeds sprouting. A friend of mine with a spectacular rose garden avoids horse manure for just that reason. However I have a nearby source of beautifully composted horse manure, and I am delighted to use it here.

Rosefolly

I would suggest there are more salts in manufactured fertilizers than in horse manure.

Manufactured "synthetic" fertilizers are salts, very particular ones mixed together in very particular proportions.

That's always what they are, by design and on purpose.

Reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" is certainly an eye-opener about how animals are manufactured. If you haven't read it, it's quite a book. The manure is also loaded with anti-biotics and synthetic hormones, not just sodium chloride.

Manure from saddle horses is quite a different story.

Is chicken manure likewise high in salts?

IIRC the big problem with chicken manure occurs if one uses fresh manure instead of composted manure. IIRC fresh chicken manure is overwhelmingly high in nitrogen.

There are many salts. Sodium chloride is the most common, but there are many, many others. A lot of them are useful to a plant, provided they aren't applied in such high doses they mess up the roots' ability to take up water and nutrients.

Sodium chloride is not a useful salt for most plants because the roots preferentially take up the sodium rather than the soil's available potassium, even though plants don't have a particularly large physiological need for sodium and yet have a substantial need for potassium.

The horse manure we've had access to is from a small local boarding stable.
The horses are stabled, or out in a paddock.
There is no grass, and there are no weeds.
There mangers are full of lots of oats and alfalfa hay.
You can walk around and see what the nice horsies are eating.

With manure from that kind of source, if you are fortunate enough to find one,
you can just haul it home and spread it in the beds.

We've found that a good hand-watering starts the clumps breaking down.
I don't find the odor offensive (but then, I grew up near dairy farms). :-)
Anyhow, it seems to disappear within a day.
The roses seem to LOVE getting their alfalfa in "pre-digested" form.

Hoov's right about THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA.
It's an eye-opener.

Jeri

I don't have access to good composted horse manure - the source I have is at least 2 hours drive round trip...

It doesn't sound like bagged steer manure is a good choice especially here in Davis with alkaline soil and boron I believe...

So I am hoping that bagged chicken manure might be a more acceptable alternative. Any thoughts?

BettyN

York Rose is right about chicken manure. It is frighteningly high in nitrogen.
I'd be very very cautious about using it.

They used to spread chicken manure on the fields around here (until the big egg factory left).
I learned something about Chicken Manure. IT SMELLS TO HIGH HEAVEN.

When they spread it on fields in the area, I tell you, NO ONE within miles was unaware of it.

Bunny poo is very good, I am told -- if you know someone who keeps buns.
And exotics, such as Llamas and Vicunas are supposed to be good. I don't know first-hand.

Tell you what -- why don't you contact Baldo Villegas, at the Sacramento Rose Society,
or maybe the Sierra Foothills Rose Society:
http://www.sactorose.org/sierrafoothillsrosesociety/

or the Stockton RS:
http://www.geocities.com/cvrosesociety/

Oh, there's a LOT of good NoCal Societies. Or, drop in to the Sacramento City Cemetery
Historic Rose Garden on a Saturday morning, and talk to the crew there.

Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful: Sacramento Rose Society

Thanks Jeri - those are good suggestions.

BettyN

If you haven't already checked craigslist for free manure, give it a try.

I had good luck with bagged chicken manure by letting it sit (in the bags) in an out-of-the-way corner of the yard for a year. It kind of self-composted in there and the smell was 95% gone when I finally used it.

.

Supposedly, what burns plant foliage or roots is a fast release of ammonia gas from either uric acid or urea when manures are placed in contact with the soil. Mammals excrete their excess nitrogen as urea, mostly in their urine. Birds excrete their excess nitrogen as uric acid, mostly in their feces rather than in their urine. Presumably, then, if you apply solid cow or horse manures which contain little of the mammal's urine, you will not burn your roses. On the other hand, solid chicken manure, even when totally free of urine, can potentially burn your roses.

If I had a free and convenient sources of manure, I would certainly use it, with due caution, as a fertilizer and as a source of organic matter. But if the manure were not free or convenient, I would substitute alfalfa meal without a moment's hesitation. Alfalfa meal is cheap, odorless, almost never burns plants (its nitrogen is in the form of protein and protein is converted to ammonia at a much slower rate in the soil), and provides about 3 times as much nitrogen as the usual animal manures on a weight-for- weight basis. For example, the NPK value for horse manure is 0.7, 0.3, 0.6. (see link), while a conservative estimate for alfalfa is 3.0, 1.0, 2.0. Who needs manure?

Here is a link that might be useful: NPK Values of Manures