'fuel bricks' from horse manure UPDATE

I really really tried but.....the main problem is providing dry, well-ventilated storage. As soon as the weather turns damp the 'bricks' soak up the moisture from the air and become impossible to move without breaking up and don't burn as effectively (i.e. the 'burn' is used up in drying out the manure rather than radiating heat). The conundrum being that we only need them in the winter but can only make and store them effectively in the dry months. Need to move to somewhere with very low humidity for this to work effectively I think. For the amount of work required to make and stack the bricks it just didn't seem worth it - easier (here in wooded rural France at least) to forage for wood!

I know Wendy, bit further south, had more success and there was also someone who just left the manure spread out in a thin layer over a stable floor to dry and then bagged it - that seemed to work just as well for a lot less effort.....

I used to have a stable in my back yard with spongey draning rubber mats. The muck used to sweep out fairly dry and I used to fill a tub trug up with it every day and bring it into the house to burn it. I wasnt doing it to save money but to get rid of it as the bin men got a bit shirty about it after a week or two.
The smell was a bit like burning leaves but it all went up the chimney on an open fire. I had to have the fire going well to burn it as it was damp. It did spin out my coal a bit I think.
I also was left a 'present' of a bag of mouldy Speedi Beet by someone who kept her horse here two years ago. Now that was amazing stuff to burn on the wood/multifuel stove! It was fantastic for lighting the fire and burned really hot. It was better than the wood pellets.
Maybe the bricks would need to be wrappend in plastic when they are at their driest? Wrap them in cling film and then just burn the lot so it cant fall apart. That might work? Seems a bit labour intensive to me though, especially as we have the woods just near our house.
I saw on telly once in a hot country the natives collected dried cow pats off the field and stacked them ready for burning. We are good at cotton spinning and they are good at burning cow poo

has anyone seem those silaca gel pouches in handbags etc, i wonder if that would work, or store it in news paper , or rade mac dolands for the bags,lol

Did it smell while it was drying out in the house?

no , no smell at all, because its well rotted down manure

LOL I have been saving the loo rolls all summer and have run out of them to light the fire with. I crush them and put them inside each ther, they are quite good firelighters. We have also just run out of newspaper. Wish we had all the free papers delivered here sometimes!