Post-winter manure clean-up in a wooded pen .. WWYD?

[OnAMission]

Is there a 4 wheeler or somesuch in this scenario? I don’t remember seeing one… which is unfortunate.

We have an 4 wheeler and I tie my rubbermaid big cart behind it and hand pick all the piles. It’s not easy in bad weather so I was hoping you got a suggestion that might apply to us.

I have an old small John Deer riding mower that would probably sell for about $500 and I know I see old Craftsmans for less. I could get a dump trailer for that and while I might look a little silly it’s small and strong and easy to get on/off. You might be able to find something like that and just use it as a small sorta vehicle instead of a mower for not much money, find a cart or maybe dump trailer attachment, and at least be able to have some mechanized help. Ideal? no… cheap? could be.

We do harrow in the spring after the long winter of poo, and yes, we’ve used a chain link gate with a tire on it but we pull it with that 4 wheeler. The 4 wheeler is old and not perfect but we use it daily.

[NancyM]

The grass grew back so thick last summer on our winter feeding/ pasture area that we hayed it last summer. That’s the first time we’ve done that. Got 60 small square bales, 60 lb bales, off it, grass hay. It’s maybe a 2 acre area, with trees at the far end, which the horses use at will, and a winter shelter shed, which they rarely use. Just part of a 50 acre pasture area, the only part the horses stay in by choice, in the winter. The retirees are off it now, and back out grazing the hayfield again, getting all the grass that was covered in too much snow to get in their fall hayfield grazing of our second crop. When they come off the hayfield, we will harrow that. And I will probably harrow the wintering area today, so that we can hay it again this summer. There is no mud.
The manure I pick out of the sand paddocks in summer goes as fill in various spots around the farm, where it breaks down to produce fertile flat ground out of what was previously unusable disaster area. That’s what I do with manure now. Years ago, when we lived in an area of high rainfall and mud, and had all horses in stalls with attached paddocks that had to be cleaned daily and produced copious amounts of manure and bedding, we had to pay a trucking company a large amount of money to haul it all away. No more.

[Bebe_Falcon1]

@OnAMission

You might be able to find something like that and just use it as a small sorta vehicle instead of a mower for not much money, find a cart or maybe dump trailer attachment, and at least be able to have some mechanized help. Ideal? no… cheap? could be.

This was my original idea but DH thought it unreasonable/excessive despite the alternative (no power equipment at all and/or moving barns altogether) being less than desirable!

I’ve ordered a 12 Amp leaf vacuum (with metal turbine) for about $100 and already have a 100’ 12 gauge extension cord so I’m hopeful that it will at least extend so far (and be powerful enough) as to collect some of the manure, even if it has to be broken up first with a fork. I’m going to modify a leaf bag collector kit to fit over the wheelbarrow:

WORX WA4058 LeafPro Universal Leaf Collection System for All Major Blower/Vac...

And if that works well then I can justify a more expensive gas-powered leaf blower/vac that won’t have any sort of distance limitation like the plug-in version does. Obviously the wet cow-patty-like stuff will still need to be picked-up manually. I’ll keep you all posted (this will be my weekend project)

I was out there yesterday and got four or five large wheelbarrow loads scraped-up and moved to the growing pile, so it doesn’t look bad at the moment. It’s just keeping it that way with seven poop machines working 24/7 - and still having time to actually do things with the pony!

[SusanO]

I tried that. It didn’t work very well. Would not pick up the wet heavy stuff and the dried up old manure would get picked up and little pieces filtering through the trash can cover would fly all in my face and hair. I tried to blow the manure into a plastic trash can with a cover instead of a bag but I got very little in the can. It was just easier and more efficient to use the apple picker to pick up the manure. You may be in a drier climate than I am in and it might work for you but for me it was an experiment that didn’t work very well. I would have sold you the set-up for half price.

[Bebe_Falcon1]

@SusanO

I tried to blow the manure into a plastic trash can with a cover instead of a bag but I got very little in the can.

I won’t bother making a special cover for the wheelbarrow then, until I know this method works! Not sure why I’d have any more luck than you did with the leaf vacuum method but it seems worth attempting

[Alterration]

I use a box blade with my tractor to at least scrape it into a pile, but I have a similar issue in that the gate is too short for my tractor to get into a few of the dry lots. It sucks. Then doing something with the manure is an issue. Scooping it with my small tractor scoop is…well let’s just say I worked for 4 hours and barely made a dent. I’m not the best scooper in the world, but it’s definitely a daunting task.

You might make more progress renting a skid steer or something for the day, then keeping up with it daily in the summer.

[Scribbler]

So I do self board. I clean my stall and runout every day. Basically I get about one wheelbarrow of poop per horse per day. With 7 horses one wheelbarrow a day will not make a dent.

[Bebe_Falcon1]

What are everyone’s thoughts on something like this to push the manure into a pile in the paddock:

… (especially if I could get a machine shop to weld on “wings” at the sides of the plow blade to help capture the manure)? It seems a manageable size, would be easy to store, has chains on the wheels to help with traction, and would give me that power assist I’m looking for.

@Scribbler

With 7 horses one wheelbarrow a day will not make a dent.

I know, and this is the problem. It’s quite overwhelming if I think about it too much! And it becomes a bit of a … obsession is maybe too strong a word … but perhaps a fixation? I’ll haul several wheelbarrows out, and the next time I go out I can see all that’s accumulated since and it’s hard not to keep forgoing pony time for paddock-cleaning time.

A lot of it dries out quite quickly (and there are free-roaming chickens who help that process along) but because everyone tends to hang out in one or two of the same areas all the time, it feels like it builds quickly.

[Alterration]

I will say - cleaning when drier is so much easier. The wet stuff is miserable! I try even with the blade to only do it when it’s dry. Otherwise I’m just smearing it around like really gross Nutella.

[4horses]

I like that tiny tractor like thing. What is it called? I want one.

Of course, for $500, I can just pay my neighbor to muck.

The leaf blower worked great for dried manure, but the dust was baad. I have a ton of leaves mixed in with the manure. Last year I blew all the leaves away… Didn’t try again this year with the dust.

I wish something worked as well as shoveling, but nothing does.

[Bebe_Falcon1]

It’s called a Gravely. They seem to cost as much if not more ($500+) than a cheap lawn tractor, despite most available models being generally quite old.

[Simkie]

Just curious, how long has this barn been running? Presumably when you saw the space prior to moving your horse in, they weren’t up to their eyeballs in manure, or you wouldn’t’ve considered the property. This may be a self limiting problem.

I very much disagree that removing manure–even one wheelbarrow a day–won’t make a difference. Doing anything is better than doing nothing, and you can absolutely move the ball if you focus on specific important areas. (The wheelbarrow I’m envisioning is also quite a bit bigger than scribbler’s – took me a bit to realize, I was marveling at her prodigious horses! )

I’d really focus on taking manure OUT rather than piling it inside. Piles will just spread, and piles will make that space they’re over unusable. Whatever usually happens in this field to make it not be a manure pit later in the year won’t be able to happen where those piles are.

I’d suspect that little gravely won’t have the power to push if you weld wings on. There’s a balance between blade size and power.

[Scribbler]

Of course there’s the question of where the manure will go in the wheelbarrow. Most places I’ve seen have the manure pile in a convenient location for the barn but a very long ways from the pasture or turnout. And in fall winter spring the intervening space tends to be too muddy for a wheelbarrow. Could you start a manure pile out back of the problem area? Because otherwise you may not even be able to get the manure out.

And I’ve seen neglected paddocks in the spring. They can be entirely covered in broken down manure to the extent you might think it was footing if you didn’t know there was gravel under there. The only thing to do would be to scrape with a tractor. However the people with this kind of problem usually don’t have the right equipment to fix it.