Hello everyone. Does anyone have or have used a paddock blade to clean up horse manure in the field? Pros/cons?
Thanks Marti
I use a harrow, and spread manure in the fields in the spring… but we have no mud issues- ever. Then I also run a rotary mower over them later in the summer, which also spreads manure as well as cutting immature seed heads off any weeds that might be growing. This enriches the soil, builds topsoil. I use a blade in the winter, for snow on the driveway.
No. We spread stable bedding on the hay field from about Labor Day after 2nd cutting is harvested, until around the first of March. Then bedding goes on pastures thru the summer months. Both the hayfields and pastures are dragged with the chain harrow in spring. Pastures are additionally dragged about every three weeks over summer.
Our clay soil needs the additional organic material (sawdust, wood fiber) to stay productive in forage production for grazing. So our fields are never “cleaned” of manure.
I have a friend who only has one horse in her large pastures, who cleans them with her lawn mower and the vacuum that attaches to it. Come spring warm-up, she and husband go over the pasture and literally sweep up all the winter manure piles for disposal on their unfenced acreage. She thinks this prevents dead spots, keeps her horse healthier. It is a unique method, but her horse and pastures look really nice. Grazing is great!
This for a dry lot during Winter. I also harrow my pastures during the Summer.
This for a dry lot during the Winter. I mow and harrow my pastures during the Summer grazing time.
You said field in the first post, so we answered about cleaning fields with a blade. I still don’t think the blade would do a good job in dry lot paddocks either. You might use the front-end loader to loosen manure piles by dragging backwards then rake loosened piles into the bucket.
Frozen stuff is hard to get loose, while wet piles will break down into little pieces you can’t get cleaned up well into the bucket. Either way it is a LOT of stopping and starting, climbing off and on the tractor to clean things up.
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Paddock Cleaning Made Easy | Buy Australian – Paddock Blade Australia
You mean one of these? They are OK… but not as good as they claim, for our fields anyway. Good for smooth or close cropped paddocks. Flicking them over to empty is a bitch.
We use a stick rake on a tractor now. Much easier on everyone!
The blade was still better than doing it by hand though.
Yes, this is the type of blade I’m looking at. I have a neighbor with a welding business, thinking of asking him if he could make one for me. Thanks for the reply.
Get him to make one that looks more like the Tow n Scoop; I have a homemade one of those as well, and it just works a little better.
Is the stick rake also called a landscape rake or York rake? They do clean things up, but not without pulling up dirt or spreading things all over. So your manure if soft, will cover everything.
If hard the frozen balls also just get widely spread around.
We have a landscape rake which I use to rake up wasted hay in the feeding areas. Then scoop that into the spreader with the loader, to distribute on the fields. Also works really well cleaning fence rows, pulling out downed branches and brush into a line. Then I drive down the line pushing brush into a pile for burning. Cleaning the fencerows lets me mow much closer to the trees. I mow with the brush hog to prevent new brush or tree growth spreading into the fields. Landscape rake is also good for breaking up crusted snow, just not set so low tines are dragging on the ground.
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Thanks for the reply.
Thanks for the info.
Yes, a landscape rake. It rakes the top few mm of the paddock, which has made a huge difference this wet season. Our land needs it.
As for frozen manure… hahah. I wish. We got one hour at 2 degrees this year. One HOUR.
And the whole town whinged.
The rake does a better job than the blade. The blade leaves the sh*t smears around the paddock more than the rake does.
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