I’m wanting a drag to break up and spread manure. I have a compact tractor to pull it, but is it possible I can do this with the lawn tractor?
I’ve been reading descriptions online and it seems like some of the ones you can pull with a lawn tractor are not up to the job of spreading manure; others fall apart quickly, according to reviewers.
Could someone here point me to an appropriate drag for what I’m wanting to do?
Thanks!
I pull a 4 foot tined pasture drag with a zero turn, and have pulled it with a regular mower. it looks just like these http://www.ebay.com/bhp/drag-harrow
I REALLY like my chain harrow/drag for breaking manure in pasture, spreading it thinner after the manure spreader dumps it on the field.
However not all chain harrows are equal. Mine is similar to what lorilu pictured, but HEAVY. The thickness of the metal used in construction is larger than most of the other chain harrows I see for sale. We got it years ago from TSC, so not sure if they sell the same one. It is about 6ft wide by 4ft long, two pieces of chain fabric that hook together along the side and on each end to the main drag bar that hitches to the tractor.
I add tires, tied on top of the chain to keep the teeth down in contact with the ground during dragging. Makes the teeth bite into dirt and manure piles or spread bedding so dragging actually does smooth things out when you drive over them. Also works well for smoothing off a lightly disced field to take out hoof marks in the spring.
I had a second chain harrow that I bought which was bigger, thought it would take less driving to use on the fields. However the metal used for chain and teeth was considerably smaller, so dragging with this was much less effective even with the tires on top. Just didn’t have the weight to keep itself down into the ground for the good job. I sold it, lady was going to drag her arena, so it would be perfect for that use. Didn’t need the heavier weight to smooth groomed footing.
I also use this chain harrow with the smooth side down to smooth my sandy arena, smooth off muddy paddocks not in use or with teeth down to help the mud dry faster. Teeth are not in the aggressive direction, just helping get mud evened out for drying.
This is one of my favorite tools and has gotten a LOT of use over the years. My friend bought a one-section piece of the chain and drags her city driveway smooth with her lawn tractor. She has recycled asphalt, loose pieces and loves how the teeth keep things nice looking, no potholes.
With only 3/8"thick metal “wire”, I think it may be too light to be really effective. Especially if you don’t want to add extra weight to keep the teeth digging down into what you want spread. Those flexible teeth didn’t work well for me.
Teeth on mine are fixed, angle built-in, so you can drag forward with teeth swept back or teeth aimed forward to be more aggressive. My metal is heavier than 3/8" thick wire.
Okay, I guess you can find anything on Amazon! How about this one: http://www.amazon.com/Field-Tuff-HDHA-59-Heavy-Harrow/dp/B00CQLALNM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438560481&sr=8-1&keywords=harrow+drag
Honestly, we got a twin-size mattress from a dumpster behind a furniture store (with permission), stripped all the fabric/padding, and we tow it behind the atv. We can use it “as is” to just break up the poop, or weigh it down with blocks if we need it to dig a little deeper. Total cost $0.
We have this drag harrow, from Tractor Supply:
http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/loyal-drag-harrow-4-ft-x-4-ft
I don’t spread manure with it, as the horse is boarded, but use it to dethatch a bit, break up/smooth messy areas when vehicles have driving on wet dirt/grass and tear up the soil some when it’s soggy in the spring, so I can overseed. It also works for breaking up and moving the dog poop (and the coyote, rabbit, deer and bear poop we don’t put there!) around.
I got a cheap boom pole for the subcompact 3 point hitch and use some chains I cut to length so I can hang the harrow from the boom pole and lift it, so I can back up with the harrow attached. I put one of DH’s big truck tires on top the harrow to give it some additional weight.
The TSC harrow is a heavy duty harrow, with thick links. Still, I don’t think you’d have any trouble pulling it with a lawn tractor, or an ATV, I can lift it myself when it’s rolled up, though not super easily. If you have a boom pole, though, it would be worth it to use the subcompact and hang the harrow, it’s very handy to be able to lift it to back up, make a very tight turn or cross pavement or another area you don’t want to mess up.
We have this drag harrow, from Tractor Supply:
http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/loyal-drag-harrow-4-ft-x-4-ft
I don’t spread manure with it, as the horse is boarded, but use it to dethatch a bit, break up messy areas when vehicles have driving on grass and scratch up the dirt when it’s soggy in the spring, so I can overseed. It also works for breaking up and moving the dog poop around, rather than picking it all up by hand.
I got a cheap boom pole for the subcompact 3 point hitch and use some chains I cut to length so I can hang the harrow from the boom pole and lift it, so I can back up with the harrow attached. I put one of DH’s big truck tires on top the harrow to give it some additional weight.
The TSC harrow is a heavy duty harrow, with thick links. I don’t think you’d have any trouble pulling it with a lawn tractor, I can lift it myself when it’s rolled up, though not super easily. If you have a boom pole, though, it would be worth it to use the subcompact and hang the harrow, it’s very handy to be able to lift it to back up, make a very tight turn or cross pavement or another area you don’t want to mess up.
If all you’re doing is breaking up the manure, I use just a de-thatcher behind my mower, with a couple of heavy cinder blocks on it to keep it close to the ground. I’ve had this one for 6-7 years now and it does a good job, and is easy to put away afterward!
http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/rugid-commercial-lawn-dethatcher-42-in-working-width
I have the one from Tractor Supply. Going through the fields destroyed my riding mower. Pasture is usually very bumpy and the riding mowers usually are not meant to take that kind of a beating. I now use an ATV, which also goes much faster, so the job is done sooner.
[QUOTE=saultgirl;8255494]
Honestly, we got a twin-size mattress from a dumpster behind a furniture store (with permission), stripped all the fabric/padding, and we tow it behind the atv. We can use it “as is” to just break up the poop, or weigh it down with blocks if we need it to dig a little deeper. Total cost $0.[/QUOTE]
Ours wasn’t quite $0, but all we use is a ~$20 cattle panel from TSC. Works great - we pull it on the 4’ side, so 16’ of it is dragging on the ground. It pulverizes the manure piles and flings turds everywhere.
I bought this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CQLALNM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01
We’ll see how well it works for us!
[QUOTE=King’s Ransom;8254961]
I’m wanting a drag to break up and spread manure. I have a compact tractor to pull it, but is it possible I can do this with the lawn tractor?
I’ve been reading descriptions online and it seems like some of the ones you can pull with a lawn tractor are not up to the job of spreading manure; others fall apart quickly, according to reviewers.
Could someone here point me to an appropriate drag for what I’m wanting to do?
Thanks![/QUOTE]
“Spreading” manure to me means pulls a manure spreader.
Breaking up the piles is fairly easy work as long as your drag is not very aggressive and you keep your pasture grass at least roughly mowed. We use one of these: http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/loyal-drag-harrow-4-ft-x-4-ft. A lawn tractor can handle that easily.
I prefer to drag it tines-down because it gets more material to move, but we tend to leave it tines-up because it’s gentler on the ground.
We should have bought the 6ft model simply because it’s the track width of our tractor and it would do a nicer job of dragging the indoor. But in either size it’s good for breaking up the manure in the pastures too.
Edit: I see you already bought that exact model.
David
I have a harrow with a frame from Wingfield and will buy from them again. Very heavy duty, they have repair parts, they have good service, and my drag from 2010 is in great shape, well, the frame. I’ve used the mat so much that it is wearing down, so I’ll replace the harrow mat next year. This year I replaced two tines that had worn down. And there was operator error in this wear, I was dragging with the frame too low and the skids were essentially pushing those two tines down harder, so they wore out faster than the rest.
http://www.americanharrow.com/UTV-harrow-s/1826.htm
The closest I can find to the model I have is this one…
http://www.americanharrow.com/8-9-3pt-Standard-Harrow-p/s3pt89.htm And it seems that they don’t have skids on these, but, on the whole, I’ve used that harrow 1-3x a week for 5 years and it has held up beautifully.
Wait, I’ve surfed the site, http://www.americanharrow.com/8-9-3pt-MaxiLift-Harrow-p/wml89.htm This is closer to my model, it has the skids pictured.
[QUOTE=King’s Ransom;8255167]
Okay, I guess you can find anything on Amazon! How about this one: http://www.amazon.com/Field-Tuff-HDHA-59-Heavy-Harrow/dp/B00CQLALNM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438560481&sr=8-1&keywords=harrow+drag[/QUOTE]
This is what we use and it works great. The 4’x4’ size is probably okay to pull with a lawn mower. I’m 5’5" and about 125 lbs and I can move it around on my own for hooking it up. The larger size ones are pretty heavy - the 8x8’ really bogs down our 4wd ATV.
You can likely find it cheaper at Tractor Supply though.
[QUOTE=saultgirl;8255494]
Honestly, we got a twin-size mattress from a dumpster behind a furniture store (with permission), stripped all the fabric/padding, and we tow it behind the atv. We can use it “as is” to just break up the poop, or weigh it down with blocks if we need it to dig a little deeper. Total cost $0.[/QUOTE]
This works great until the metal wire pieces start breaking off and get left behind in the paddock. Keep an eye out for that.
SuckerForHorses – that drag was actually almost $100 cheaper on Amazon (with free shipping) than at TSC. Plus, our local TSC does not have them so they were going to charge me shipping to special order. Grrrr …
Amazon is amazing.
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