I have 4 stalls, a yamaha 450 and two john deere dump carts. 4 stalls go comfortably into one dump cart, I can put 3 days into 2 carts if I need to. We have a pallet fork on the tractor. Dump cart goes on the pallet fork with a rope attached to the dump release. Tractor lifts cart over container and dumps. Voila!
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I assume from your posts you are not the owner, so making structural changes to the barn, ramp, container system, buying vehicles and running a tractor down the aisle are not your decisions to make. You are looking for a way with the tools and vehicles and the setup that you stepped into run more efficiently. with less physical labor. And if I did read everything correctly, what you have is an ATV with a trailer, wheelbarrows, muck buckets, yourself and two laborers, two barns, and 30 stalls to muck.
Could you correct my assumptions, and also share how you handle the manure that is in the paddocks and pastures? Is that also part of the additions to the big manure container?
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Correct, I’m simply an employee not an owner, so this is purely an exercise in what’s simple/easy to solve this problem.
This was my main question:
Who moves their manure with an atv?
Do you have a dump cart to move it to your pile or container?
What’s the volume of the cart/dump trailer and how’s that working for you?
Paddock/pasture picking isn’t the biggest struggle right now, it’s getting the poop from the barn up the ramp, using the equipment we have.
Thanks!
Honestly searching was stumped by not really knowing what to call it. 🤦
I currently do not, but worked at a barn that did and it was honestly the best way to do stalls. We would muck into the cart/ dump trailer and then drive it out to the muck heap, pull the pin and it would dump. I don’t remember how big it was but we were able to do several stalls at a time depending on how long the horses had been in. They mostly got 8-10 hours of turnout and we had about 15? Stalls to do. There’s no way we could have used a wheelbarrow with that set up due to where the muck pile was located. Note that we never had to back the trailer up.
I have been trying to figure out what vehicle (golf cart or ATV/utv) I’ll be purchasing to do the same thing for our own farm because I’m sick of dealing with wheelbarrows. Especially when trying to clean the rutted, frozen paddock.
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I have a Club Car electric golf cart with a power dump bed that I use for stall cleaning and dry lot pick up. I don’t know what I would do without it.
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Main choices to make:
Electric vs gasoline vs diesel
2 wheel drive vs 4 wheel drive
Manual dump bed vs hydraulic/electric dump bed
One seat vs two seats vs more seats
DOT road tires vs off road tires and best type of tread pattern (mud, sand, turf. etc.)
Roof vs no roof vs closed cab
Windshield vs wind in your face
Manual transmission vs automatic
Other considerations:
Top speed
Towing capacity
Noise level
Cost
Reliability
Availability
Dealer reputation for good service
Based on all the above, my own search narrowed down to a 2 seat UTV Deere Gator vs a Kawasaki Mule. The 2 models I chose between had the same size engine, same bed capacity, same towing capacity, and almost everything else very close so it was a pretty straightforward comparison. Deere wanted over $3,000 more than Kawasaki. I bought the Kawasaki and used the savings to also buy a 16 foot tandem axle utility trailer to haul it or my tractor or hay bales or fence boards. In a pinch I can even tow one of my smaller cars. Overnight, a trailer went from “might be nice to own” to “how did I live without one.”
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I find the quads I’ve used very user friendly and utilitarian.
At the last place I worked we did everything with it: drag the arena and round pen, harrow the paddocks, cart water and hay hither and yon, plow out parking and gates, …
I was really intimidated by it, but NOW I really like them.
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Wouldn’t you be better served asking your employer? I find it hard to believe an experienced employee has these types of questions for an online audience.
Speak to your employer.
I like what she is doing. Gathering information and opinions and the experiences of others in order to prepare for presenting ways to improve efficiency to an employer is an excellent approach.
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You’re assuming she’s new to the industry. She’s not, I see this as passive aggressive and an attempt at an attention grab. But sure we can chalk it up to ignorance.
Because in the history of the world, no one ever has looked outside the box for answers. I was in product development for decades and I wouldn’t have been too successful or lasted very long if my approach was to solely look within the organization. #bettermousetrap.
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Sorry I don’t buy what this poster is selling. They present themselves as savvy in the CE forums. I have a hard time believing this is nothing more than a passive aggressive swipe at their situation and an attention grab.
Yes I’m cynical. I’m also probably not wrong. I also find that posters feigned ignorance exhausting.
Lol, I was curious what others people use.
It has nothing really to do with my employer.
I’m just curious about other, maybe different or “better” ways to go about this.
Feel free to ignore it. 
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You need your vision checked then.
Who’s attention am I trying to grab?
Its a discussion board.
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Say what?
If you are so troubled reading my comments, feel free to ignore them.
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Yeah, I’m not sure if I’d ever present my employer with ideas… Certainly like to consider alternative ways to get it done, and if they ask I do share my ideas which they’ve been great about considering.
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She learned about the side-dumping trailer option here by asking for information and suggestions. Just because a person has worked at horse farms for years, and her owner has owned barns for years doesn’t mean either of them has knowledge of all manure handling equipment options.
I appreciated having my employees take the initiative to come up with ways to increase my productivity. Having a “this is the way we have always done things” employer must suck.
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I’m old, cynical and pretty damn good at a barb when the mood strikes me, and if this is such a thing, it’s a swing and a miss. But guess what? It’s a not an entirely useless exchange of ideas even if it is, so maybe it’s ok? I mean unless you are the employer, why do you actually care?
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OK here is thinking outside of the box:
Solution 1 - Rig up a conveyer belt on the ramp to transport muck tubs up the ramp where they can be dumped at the landing on the top. Like a hay elevator but transporting muck tubs. You wouldn’t need an engineer to build this -just somebody that is “handy”. Not me - I am not “handy” building stuff. You would muck into muck tubs on a wagon/ dump cart and drive the muck tubs to the base of the ramp. I have some “dump” carts and they are somewhat unwieldy and harder to dump than a muck tub. You could use an ATV to drive the wagon and just drive it through the barn so no carrying tubs.
Solution 2 - put heavy duty screw eyes or a bar at the top of the ramp. Drive the wagon to the base of the ramp and run a cable from the handle of the wagon, through the bar at the top of the ramp back down to the ATV. Pull the ATV back from the ramp and that pulls the wagon up the ramp.( We used this method with my tractor to load my manure spreader onto a trailer to take it to get fixed). You do have to go slow and steady the wagon on the way up. It might be slow but faster and easier than pulling a cart up.
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