Ground driven spreaders

[Simkie]

I’d really suggest waiting until you really know you need it. Get into your place, get the flow, and see if that’s how you find you really want to do things.

I have a laundry list of stuff on how I thought I’d run my barn that didn’t wind up working out, or something else wound up being better. I was an active participant in care in several boarding barns before moving home and felt I had a good base of understanding and options.

There were even things that worked really well at our first barn, that just didn’t at the second, despite a pretty similar set up. Your just have to be there, and in the day to day, to see the particulars of how things work.

So wait on big ticket purchases until you’re in the routine and find they’re something you really do need. You really might be surprised! I certainly was.

[endlessclimb]

I am going to have a 3 bay compost bin, but that won’t be “fast” enough disposal. The compost will be for the gardens and the back yard where the dogs are.

What I know I don’t want is a dumpster. So whatever is in their dry lot has got to go somewhere, and when the compost bays are full - spreader it is!

Depending on how long their shipping quote is, I will wait anyways, as the barn is full of lumber right now for the loft that I am currently building. But I do want to have a “game plan” for the rest of the items needed to have the horses here, to make sure the funds are properly allocated. For example - the arena is not in the cards for this year, period. Priority is going to making the sacrifice area mud-free.

[clanter]

@endlessclimb

The compost will be for the gardens

if the hay that was fed had been from fields treated Grazon the compost will kill the vegetation

Despite it being a “free” garden amendment, horse manure tends to be the most concentrated source of contamination .

Beware: This Manure Will Destroy Your Garden

we trash all manure these days as it is nearly worthless

[endlessclimb]

Thanks, but already have my hay supplier lined up and have confirmed he does not use this. He grows a substantial amount of straight alfalfa, which grazon would kill.

[Simkie]

@endlessclimb

I am going to have a 3 bay compost bin, but that won’t be “fast” enough disposal.

So why do you think this?

I have a three bin system and each bin is 8 x 16. It holds a year worth of manure and bedding for four horses. It takes about six months to go from fresh to black, crumbly compost. I do nothing to manage it other than stand up the pile as it comes forward, and then move to the next bin when one bin is full.

I expected I’d be spreading the finished compost, as we did at our previous property. Worked great there. I have done that…never. Here, I use it as fill. I use the spreader to pick the paddock or field, and then back it up to the bin and run it to dump in one spot. We also use it to spread wood chips.

This is really what I mean–see how things go. Yes, absolutely, allocate funds in case you find that’s really the way you want to play it–but wait until you need something before you buy.

Spreading fresh manure on small acreage is tough, anyway. The pasture rotations are so short, the spread manure often doesn’t have enough time to breakdown before the field comes back up, or there’s just too much being produced for the land available.

[endlessclimb]

Because in this area, similar set ups are taking a year to get to “compost” status. I have some areas that could use a little fill, but overall this whole property is flat flat flat. I have about 2 acres that will never see horses, so that’s where I will spread when the rotations are happening too fast to allow manure to break down.

I will wait and see, but I don’t want to end up with a massive pile that needs to be touched several times before it finds its final “home.” I hate touching things twice, especially when they’re a pain to handle.

The neighbor burns his manure. That I do not have any experience with!

[Simkie]

@endlessclimb

Because in this area, similar set ups are taking a year to get to “compost” status. I have some areas that could use a little fill, but overall this whole property is flat flat flat. I have about 2 acres that will never see horses, so that’s where I will spread when the rotations are happening too fast to allow manure to break down.

Yes, I’m not saying you would use it as fill. I’m just providing an example of something I expected to work one way (because it had been very successful at our previous property) and went another way once we’d moved. There are a lot of things like that. It’s really tough to impossible to predict every aspect of what will work for management.

If manure in a pile takes a year to break down, manure spread over an area is going to take a really significant amount of time to break down. To me, that would be all the more reason to bin it. Yes, composting and then spreading is touching it twice, but the end product is something that benefits your field rather than a waste product. In my experience, it reduces in volume by about half from fresh to done, so there is some savings there.

You may also want to consider the width of your loader bucket vs the width of the spreader, and the weight of the spreader vs the weight of whatever you’re pulling it with. Also, as you get into your routine, if it would be of benefit to empty the spreader in one place (something we find very useful, but does require PTO.)

[clanter]

others reading this should be aware that composting for their general use is not always great

[Jarpur]

@endlessclimb

The neighbor burns his manure. That I do not have any experience with!

I’d never heard of this until a friend with a small place did this with her horses’ manure. My impression is that it smouldered for days, and the neighbors were not thrilled. Perhaps it works better in a different area.

[endlessclimb]

The prevailing wind is not towards us, thank goodness.

[goodhors]

If you are using straw bedding I can see not bothering to spread just wet bedding. Here, straw is not very absorbent, so is not good as bedding, does not really benefit the land much. We only use it a couple weeks before and after foaling. Even then we have sawdust under the thick straw to absorb liquids, cleaned daily. Straw is better for foals because it doesn’t stick much, can’t get breathed in as foal puts nose down on bedding. Straw is not very absorbent unless you chop it, which gains you MANY cut ends allowing much better absorbtion. Straw is as good or better than sawdust when chopped!! However chopping is time consuming, pretty dirty with the dust, so not many do that for getting bedding. I quit when we had used up the extra straw not needed in the foaling stall.

Spreading regular straw I noticed how fast even wet straw dried and then blew away! No benefit to land, unlike the woody products we normally use, that stay put in a layer on the dirt.

Hoping the ground drive spreader works as planned for the OP. Having to make that extra circle in bad weather to fully empty ours, made me VERY crabby! Ha ha