Manure

Higher organisms then feed on the fungi and bacteria in a chain of life that comprises the soil food web.

Agricultural manure in liquid form, known as slurry, is produced by more intensive livestock rearing systems where concrete or slats are used instead of straw bedding.

Green manures are crops grown for the express purpose of plowing them in, thus increasing fertility through the incorporation of nutrients and organic matter into the soil.

Other types of plant matter used as manure include the contents of the rumens of slaughtered ruminants, spent grain (left over from brewing beer) and seaweed.

Due to the relatively lower level of proteins in vegetable matter, herbivore manure has a milder smell than the dung of carnivores or omnivores.

In intensive agricultural land use, animal manure is often not used as targeted as mineral fertilizers, and thus, the nitrogen utilization efficiency is poor.

Animal manure can become a problem in terms of excessive use in areas of intensive agriculture with high numbers of livestock and too little available farmland.

[citation needed] Manure can emit the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, contributing to climate change.

[11] In 2007, a University of Minnesota study[12][13] indicated that foods such as corn, lettuce, and potatoes have been found to accumulate antibiotics from soils spread with animal manure that contains these drugs.

Animal manure is often a mixture of animal feces and bedding straw, as in this example from a stable .
Skatole is the source of the foul smelling odor of manure.
Concrete reservoirs, one new, and one containing cow manure mixed with water. This is common in rural Hainan Province, China .
Compost containing turkey manure and wood chips from bedding material is dried and then applied to pastures for fertilizer.
Pile of animal manure on a wall
The women of a neighborhood ward with manure on their way to the field of one of them, Tireli, Mali 1990