Encouraging Dung Beetles!

For horse owners, dung beetles mean less cleaning paddocks and poo shoveling, and great soil development without cost or effort! They also help control fly and parasitic worm populations, which is superb news for our horses. So, if you have dung beetles, take good care of them and, if you don’t think you have them, chances are you probably do have them in the ground, but you need to create the right conditions for them to establish and thrive

Dung beetles are very cool creatures!

Dung Beetles eat and bury your horse's poo, control insects and parasites, de-compact soil, cycle nutrients and hydrate your pasture – and they do it all for free.

Dung beetle behaviour has fascinated humans for thousands of years, including the ancient Egyptians, who accurately documented that dung beetles’ ball rolling is influenced by the sun.

We now know some species of dung beetles even use the moon and galaxies to navigate and roll their manure in straight lines! They are currently the only known non-human animal to orient themselves using the Milky Way.

If you have horses and manage them mostly on pasture, you want dung beetles!

Turn over a fresh dung pile and there should be hundreds of dung beetles and other insects present.

Having dung beetles around as long as possible and throughout the year would be an ideal situation on all  horse properties, but it requires some thoughtful management.

Taking Care of your Pasture

Dung beetles can break down large quantities of poo by eating and nesting in it, some species tunnelling it into the ground to use as food and insulation for eggs. These actions increase organic matter in the soil, improving its ability to retain water and increasing nutrient availability to plants as well as aerating the land - beneficial for both root structures and other organisms.

Importantly this activity is also thought to break the parasite life cycle by removing the dung medium that acts as the incubator for the parasite eggs. This prevents the worm eggs hatching into motile larvae which would otherwise wriggle away from the dung and climb the grass stalks to re-infect the grazing horses.

But if your pastures are severely compacted, even dung beetles cannot do the work for you.

If the soil is too hard, they will die because the spikes on their legs get eroded and, without them, they cannot bury themselves into the ground.

So, if you find that you don’t have beetles or you have very small amounts, you may need to help them with some soil development strategies like  de-compacting using Keyline ploughing,  composting and mulching.

Dung beetles also require fresh dung, so it’s important you don’t remove all the good, fresh manure from pastures and yards. Only remove the older pats that have been left to decomposed for at least 3-4 days, and you can see the pat is all broken down, spread and only larger fibre components are visible. By this stage, they also have a greyish colour.


According to ecologist, farmer and TV presenter, Dr Sarah Beynon, the dung beetle population is 

“a great indicator of the environment and how healthy that system is.”  The more the better!

Declining populations

However, while our animals produce as much waste as ever, the dung beetle populations in the UK have suffered widespread decline. One of the biggest factors cited for the reducing numbers is worming medication used to control parasite levels in horses and farm animals.

Traces of worming medication in the dung are toxic to invertebrates and can kill the dung dwelling insects as an unintended consequence. As well as breaking down dung, the beetles themselves are food for wildlife such as birds and bats – so a smaller population will have a knock on effect here too.

Tips to take care of dung beetles

How do we prevent the need to worm our horses from becoming  a major threat to the insects in our ecosystem?

  1. Follow a targeted worming programme and worm only the wormy horses.  
  2. Avoid treating all stock with parasiticides at the same time if possible.
  3. If using a wormer keep animals off the pasture for as long as possible (48 – 72hrs) so dung beetles don’t come into contact with contaminated droppings.
  4. Worm when dung beetles are less active – during winter months
  5. Where there is a choice of effective chemical, try to use the one least toxic to dung beetles. Ivermectin is one of the most used and most harmful wormers; moxidectin is moderately toxic, while pyrantel, fenbendazole and praziquantel are least likely to impact invertebrates – though they may still have an adverse effect on other fauna.

Did you know? 

A dung beetle can bury dung 250 times heavier than itself in one night. There is one species – Onthophagus taurus – that can pull a load 1,141 times its own weight! It’s considered the strongest insect in the world! Most dung beetles search for dung using their sensitive sense of smell. Some of the smaller species simply attach themselves to the dung-providers and wait for their reward to be delivered!


SOURCE: Westgate Labs | Horses & People





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