Independent comparisons. We may earn from shop links. More info

How to buy farmyard manure

Updated: October 2026

You have a bag in the amazon.co.uk basket and the title says farmyard manure, while the row beside it says cow dung, compost, coir or digestate. The search you used, buy farmyard manure, does not sort those apart. By the end of this page you should be able to keep a composted dung-and-bedding bag, reject a lookalike, and check that the litres on the listing agree. The [cow manure comparison](/hub/fertiliser-soil-and-bark-mulch/cow-manure) shows the three listings that stayed in this set. This page is the checklist before you pay. It does not crown a winner and it does not set a mulch depth.

You have a bag in the amazon.co.uk basket and the title says farmyard manure, while the row beside it says cow dung, compost, coir or digestate. The search you used, buy farmyard manure, does not sort those apart.

Our top picks

Gro-Sure Gro-Sure farmyard manure 50 L

Best overall

Gro-Sure Gro-Sure farmyard manure 50 L
8.6/10about £10.99
View offer
Gro-Sure Gro-Sure farmyard manure, 2 x 50 L

Alternative

Gro-Sure Gro-Sure farmyard manure, 2 x 50 L
4.9/10about £28.49
View offer
Generic Generic cow dung manure listing

Alternative

Generic Generic cow dung manure listing
1.6/10about £32
View offer
On this page
  1. 1.What counts as cow manure in a UK shop
  2. 2.Rot, smell and bedding
  3. 3.Litres, weight and the three listings
  4. 4.Certificates and the herbicide question
  5. 5.Bag versus bulk

What counts as cow manure in a UK shop

Farmyard manure, in the sense a UK garden can use, is dung mixed with bedding, usually straw. The animal is not guaranteed by the words on the sack. Chicken manure pellets, coir and multi-purpose compost are different purchases. The Gro-Sure farmyard page on gardenhealth.com is marked discontinued and says there is no green waste. The current Westland farmyard page says the conditioner consists of manures and composted organic matter. If the Amazon title still says Gro-Sure, that is the brand on the listing. It does not prove that today's Westland formula is inside the bag.

Rot, smell and bedding

Well-rotted manure is dark, more even, and only modestly earthy. BBC Gardeners' World treats six months as a minimum rot, and a year if the bedding was woody shavings, because fresh dung scorches and the wood has not broken down. A strong smell of fresh dung is a reason to wait. In the Amazon reviews of the 50 litre Gro-Sure bag, some batches smell mild, some still smell of cow dung, and some contain twigs or raw straw. If the listing will not say the manure was stored or composted, do not pay a premium for it as if it were ready to spread.
Gro-Sure Gro-Sure farmyard manure 50 L

Testsieger

Gro-Sure Gro-Sure farmyard manure 50 L
8.6/10about £10.99
View offer

Litres, weight and the three listings

Match the title, the volume field, the unit count and the weight before you compare prices. One review of the single Gro-Sure bag says it felt like 50 kg. Plan the lift on the listed 26 kg, and treat 50 kg as that buyer's report. A clean litre figure is still not an organic certificate. The two-pack lists no weight, which matters when you are planning who can carry the delivery.

Certificates and the herbicide question

The RHS says aminopyralid and clopyralid can pass through grazing animals and through cattle or horses fed treated forage, and damage beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce for more than a year. A hot-composted retail bag is the lower-risk thing to order online. It is not a written guarantee that the herd's feed was clean. The plants are what fail.

Bag versus bulk

JPR Farm Direct sells turned cattle manure and straw in bags of about 900 litres, with the price calculated from the postcode. If you need one barrow for roses this month, the single coherent 50 litre listing is the amazon.co.uk option in this set.

Common questions

Is farmyard manure the same as cow manure?
Often, and the label will not prove it. BBC Gardeners' World says bagged farmyard manure is likely to be cow manure or a mix from housed stock, commonly hot-composted. The Gro-Sure amazon.co.uk listings in this set do not name the animal. Treat "farmyard" as dung and bedding unless the page says digestate, coir, chicken manure or a compost blend.
How do I spot digestate sold under a farmyard name?
Read the ingredients, not the headline. Melcourt SylvaGrow Farmyard is anaerobic digestate plus up to 20 percent green compost, and the maker says it works like farmyard manure. That can be a useful soil product and it is a different category. If the page says digestate, green compost or coir, it is outside the cow-manure bag this checklist is buying.
Does a 50 litre claim match the unit count?
On the single Gro-Sure listing, B00I950W6U, the title, the volume and 50,000 millilitres all say 50 litres, with a listed weight of 26 kg. On the two-pack the title says 2 x 50 litres and the unit count says 100 litres, while a volume field says 50 litres. On the £32 generic title, 40 litres, 500 g and 1,000 g are all present. Agreeing figures are the ones you can turn into a price per litre.
Is the Gro-Sure bag certified organic?
The listing does not say so. No Soil Association name, or any other scheme name, appears in the bullets or the spec table, and PAS 100 is not claimed. A discontinued Gro-Sure page that mentions no green waste is not an organic licence for the Amazon sack.
Why might the same bag be cheaper in a garden centre?
Crocus has listed a 50 litre Westland farmyard manure at £6.99. That figure is a garden retailer, not amazon.co.uk, where the single Gro-Sure bag in this set is £10.99. Delivery of a heavy sack is part of what the online price is buying. The shop sack and the Amazon sack are separate products on separate pages, because the retired Gro-Sure wording and the current Westland wording already differ.
What should I ask before accepting a farm heap?
Ask which animals, what they were fed, whether the bedding was straw or wood shavings, and how long the heap has been turned. Hay and silage are the higher-risk route for aminopyralid and clopyralid. A strong fresh smell means the heap still needs time. If you will eat crops raw, use the harvest intervals on the vegetable page rather than spreading the heap on the day it arrives.
Are cow dung cakes a substitute for a 50 litre bag?
Cakes sold for fuel or ritual use are not a barrow of composted bedding, and they will not cover a bed at a mulch depth. A listing that puts cow dung in the title, then states both 500 g and 40 litres, has not offered you a 50 litre sack either.

Related pages

Best cow manure

Cow manure on vegetables

Cow manure vs horse manure

Cow manure

How to use cow manure: season, depth and planting hole

Sources

Public UK and maker sources from the research digest, used for this page in October 2026. Prices, stars and review counts are from the three amazon.co.uk listings captured on 19 October 2026. None of these bags is claimed here as pure cow manure, certified organic or PAS 100. The 6.0 kg nitrogen figure is a farm typical, not a 50 litre bag analysis.

  1. RHS, how to use organic matter (retrieved 19 October 2026)
  2. BBC Gardeners' World, garden manure (retrieved 19 October 2026)
  3. Food Standards Agency, managing farm manures (retrieved 19 October 2026)
  4. GOV.UK, animal by-product categories (retrieved 19 October 2026)
  5. AHDB, using farmyard manure (retrieved 19 October 2026)
  6. RHS, weedkiller in manure (retrieved 19 October 2026)
  7. Westland farmyard manure (retrieved 19 October 2026)
  8. Melcourt SylvaGrow Farmyard (retrieved 19 October 2026)