We went to order 350 cubic feet of cow manure on Saturday. I wondered to the saleswoman whether the manure came from pasture-raised cows or feedlot cows, and she figured (as I did) that it was from feedlot cattle. Properly aged and composted manure should not harbor any of the bacteria that are common in feedlot cattle - but I wasn't sure if the antibiotics feedlot cattle are pumped full of would remain in their composted manure. So we decided to wait to place our order until we did some more research.
Sure enough, I found an article showing that antibiotics have been found in vegetables, after using feedlot manure as fertilizer. They report that antibiotics have also been found in organic vegetables. So I began searching the internet for an alternative. Currently I can't find any commercially available manure from pasture-raised cows that is distributed where I live, but we have a friend with a horse stable who told us we could have whatever manure we are able to shovel off the barn floor for free. A good option, but frankly we are under some time constraints right now so I kept looking. Our farmer offered to sell us some of their cow manure, and is even willing to use a bucket loader to help us. He has left it up to us to suggest a fair price. Assuming he accepts what we offer, this option will probably win - except we do not have a vehicle to transport it home in. Our neighbors let us borrow their truck, but we would probably have to take four loads to get the bare minimum that we need - and we don't want to abuse their goodwill.
I've looked into renting a horse trailer or something, but as far as I can tell that's not a feasible option. Perhaps we will offer to do something very, very nice for our neighbors. At this point though, it still looks like we might have to buy the feedlot manure:( We need more organic cows!
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