What is the bedding material mostly composed of? In my area most stables use pine sawdust or chips, some areas might use wheat straw. It depends on what's available at the best price.

If you are only composting bedding and horse urine and manure, then it will take longer to breakdown because there likely is not enough green material to produce heat. You could add grass clippings to the pile to help heat it up, or blood meal will also add nitrogen to help heat it up.

I generally don't adjust the ph of the compost. I adjust the garden soil ph after adding compost.

I'll take any left over bedding that you may not want...lol.

Stable bedding sometimes contains a ton of lime which can be good or bad, depending on your soil and how much compost you want to use.

Stable bedding can sometimes be pretty salty and require leaching.

Ditto what mister potato head said about nitrogen.

The bedding material is made of very fine wood chips. It does heat up pretty well to 145-150 and stays there for about a month. Then the worms move in. But I still see wood chips. How much longer do I need to wait? Can I expect a good amount of nitrogen at this point and plant veggies using it?

I guess I'll ask the stable owner how many salt licks the horses go through in a month.

As noted by Mr. P.Head, additional N is required to break down wood's high carbon.

The species of wood will have effect on the breakdown period. Further, your soil composition/climate bears on this too, if incorporated.

Horse manure isn't very high N to start with... the urine has a higher component, so no, don't expect that. It will promote tilth and general fertility. Some gardeners say the wood chips are great for their situation; I try to avoid them as I use very little added fertilizer to compensate N tie-up.

Many years ago in work places all over there were available to the workers salt tablets, whihc were meant to increase thirst and thus cause the workers to drink more water to stay hydrated. However many workers would take the salt tablets and not drink to replenish the fluids they lost and there sodium levels increase to dangerous levels so the salt tablets were removed form the work places. Many animal raisers put salt blocks out for their animals and those animals lick the salt and then drink water, they are smarter than humans, so the amont of salt, sodium in animal bedding will not be very high and need not be much of a concern.
The lime, used to aid in keeping fly populkations down, will be of more concern and if any is used in the bedding you get you need do nothing more about the pH. Finished compost usually has a neutral pH, 7.0 or close, even if nothing is added.
How long it takes to digest any material you compost depends on the C:N ratio (30 to 1 is optimal), the moisture (too little or too much inhibits digestion), the amount of air available to the bacteria that digest that material (moisture can influence this), and the sixe of the particles. Larger particles take longer to be digested. Wood Chips, even if small in size, can be tough for the bacteria simply because of the density of those chips in comparison to an Oak leaf.

Scott,

I often use partly finished compost. I don't think you need to wait until every bit of it is unrecognizable, just put it through a one inch, or one by two inch wire mesh screen and filter out the big chunks. If you want really fine siftings for seedlings, use a half inch mesh. Return the big pieces to a new compost pile.

I wish I had unlimited time and materials, I'd be able to wait until all the compost was completely finished....lol.

Salt levels in compost vary greatly with the feedstocks and tend to be highest in manure-derived composts.

There has to be something more than just the bedding to get those higher temperatures. What else is in the bedding?

Lloyd

Lloyd, there is a bunch of urine and manure mixed in with the bedding.

Thanks for all the info.

Scott