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Cow manure vs horse manure

Updated: October 2026

A neighbour has offered a trailer of stable manure, and amazon.co.uk is showing a 50 litre farmyard bag at £10.99. Cow manure vs horse manure is the choice between a heap you can question and a sack you mostly cannot. Horse manure is easy to get and harder to trust for weeds and weedkiller. Bagged farmyard manure is usually already composted, and the label often refuses to name the animal. The [cow manure comparison](/hub/fertiliser-soil-and-bark-mulch/cow-manure) has no horse listing in it. This page is the supply and the risk. The harvest calendar for salads stays on the vegetable page, and it applies to both manures.

A neighbour has offered a trailer of stable manure, and amazon.co.uk is showing a 50 litre farmyard bag at £10.99. Cow manure vs horse manure is the choice between a heap you can question and a sack you mostly cannot.

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 you are actually being offered
  2. 2.Weed seeds
  3. 3.Weedkiller in hay and silage
  4. 4.Nutrients, without a fake analysis
  5. 5.When to pick which

What you are actually being offered

A retail farmyard bag, in the sense BBC Gardeners' World describes, is dung mixed with bedding, often cow manure or a mix from housed stock, commonly hot-composted so that many weed seeds are killed. The single Gro-Sure listing in this set, B00I950W6U, is that kind of object: £10.99, 50 litres, a listed 26 kg, manufacturer Westland Horticulture Ltd, origin given as the United Kingdom. The page does not name the herd. A stable heap is horse dung plus whatever the yard uses as bedding. Wood shavings need to rot until they disappear.

Weed seeds

Unsourced counts of how many more weed seeds horse manure carries stay off this page. A stable heap on a hay diet, sat uncovered, will grow a flush of seedlings unless you compost it hot and keep it turned. The Gro-Sure listing does not publish a composting temperature, so the bag is the lower-risk path and not a guarantee. In the Amazon reviews, one Gro-Sure buyer preferred a horse-manure compost in a pot because the farmyard bag was strawy. That is a texture note, not a weed count for open ground.
Gro-Sure Gro-Sure farmyard manure 50 L

Testsieger

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

Weedkiller in hay and silage

Housed cattle are not automatically clear. Cattle fed treated silage are a path, which is why a cow-manure bag is the lower-risk online buy and not a certificate. Straw bedding is a lower route, because the substance has not had approval for the cereal crops straw comes from. Hay and silage are the question to ask at the yard. A yard that cannot answer is a heap to compost away from the pea row, or to refuse. If the yard can say the forage was not treated, and you will rot the heap until the shavings have gone, the stable manure is a reasonable bulk supply.

Nutrients, without a fake analysis

AHDB typicals for heaps are not an analysis of the 26 kg Gro-Sure bag, and they are not a reason to call one manure weaker in the garden. Well-rotted manure from either animal is a soil improver, relatively poor in soluble nutrients. Fresh manure is the one that scorches. The choice is then weeds, weedkiller and how much you can store.

When to pick which

Choose the composted farmyard bag when you cannot question the hay, you need one barrow this month, and you can move a listed 26 kg. In this set that bag is B00I950W6U at £10.99. You are buying a hot-composted retail path with a large review file, not a named herd. Choose the stable heap when the yard can say what the horses were fed, and you can turn the heap until it is dark. The harvest gap is on cow manure on vegetables.

Common questions

Which is better for a vegetable bed?
The composted farmyard bag is the better default when you cannot ask about hay and silage. A stable heap is the better bulk supply when the yard can answer that question and you will rot the manure before it meets the bed. Fresh material from either animal stays off crops you eat raw for the Food Standards Agency interval. This comparison does not include a horse listing.
Which has more weed seeds?
Horse manure is the weedier risk in the BBC Gardeners' World guide, because of hay and outdoor stacks. Bagged farmyard manure is commonly hot-composted, which kills many weed seeds, and the Gro-Sure page still does not publish a temperature. Unsourced seed counts are left out. Compost a stemmy stable heap before you use it on a seed bed.
Which is safer for weedkiller residues?
Ask the question of both. Aminopyralid and clopyralid can pass through horses and through cattle fed treated hay or silage, and the RHS links that path to cupped growth on beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce. A hot-composted retail bag is the lower-risk order when the forage is unknown. It is not a certificate that the herd's feed was clean. Straw bedding is a lower route than hay.
Is horse manure hotter or richer?
Farm tables often list cattle farmyard manure around 6.0 kg total nitrogen per tonne and horse farmyard manure around 5.0 kg. Those are typicals for heaps, not a test of a 50 litre sack, and they are not a reason to call one stronger in the garden. Well-rotted manure from either animal is a soil improver. Fresh manure is the one that scorches.
Can I use either on roses?
Rotted manure from either source can go on roses as a soil improver, kept off the woody stem, at the depth on the how-to page. A strawy, sharp-smelling load waits. Westland's current farmyard page excludes ericaceous plants such as rhododendrons. Roses are not in that group. One Gro-Sure review preferred horse-manure compost in a pot because the farmyard bag was lumpy, which is a container limit.
Should I buy the Gro-Sure bag instead of collecting from a stable?
Buy B00I950W6U when you need one delivered 50 litre bag, you can move 26 kg, and you cannot question the stable's hay. It is £10.99 and 4.6 from 756 reviews, and the animal is not named. Collect the heap when you can store it, rot it, and get a straight answer on weedkiller. The two-pack and the £32 generic title do not improve that choice, because their volume and weight fields conflict.

Related pages

Cow manure buying guide

How to use cow manure

Cow manure

Best farmyard manure: one coherent amazon.co.uk bag

Cow manure on vegetables: harvest gaps and forked roots

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)