What does everyone use to spread compost in the pasture? I was set on a manure spreader, but I’m considering continuting to compost and spreading that instead.
Wheelbarrow :rolleyes:
When I can get a neighbor to do it: tractor with FEL
But I am on 5ac and only have 3 - horse, pony & mini.
I compost and spread that every Spring in my veggie garden & now dump wheelbarrow of stall cleanings onto the garden.
Another neighbor takes away about 1/2 my composted manure for his gardens every Spring & Fall.
Pastures get “spread” when they get bushhogged.
Roughs get cut down & piles get blasted apart by the bushhog.
I’ve used all of my finished compost filling low spots or smoothing out bumpy areas (so mowing is easier) and that gets done with the FEL.
To spread it in the field, I’d load it in the manure spreader.
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We use a manure spreader to spread compost. Works great. For some areas where access is a problem, we will use the tractor bucket to take loads then rake out manually, but that is a lot more work.
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It depends on your layout and area where you can “store” the manure, etc. I have both a small manure spreader and a compact tractor with FEL. Before the spreader, we just made a big pile of manure, and then during summer/fall, used the FEL and drove around and spread it. Then, used the spreader when we bought it.
I bought a gator several years ago with a dump and now I clean the stalls and sheds with that and drive over to areas where I want to build up the land (have 19 acres) and dump piles. The piles all kinda “disappear” eventually. It’s a bit unsightly over the winter but spring/summer/fall, eventually they are full of green vegetation. I’ve been building up the side of my outdoor ring for 2 years now. I still have a small manure pile behind the barn for those times I just clean stalls with a wheelbarrow but every summer, we just use the FEL/manure spreader to spread it around.
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Use your spreader to distribute any compost. Should work fine to do that. Depending on wanting a thick or thin layer, you can spread at a higher speed with ground drive for thinner layers. Or rev the PTO speed up while keeping tractor moving right along in second gear. For thicker layers, you might have to do 2 passes on the same ground with ground drive speaders. With a PTO driven spreader you can drive slowly in lowest gear, while speeding up the PTO speed, or again, make 2 passes on the same ground. Overlapping the row each pass will help get thicker layering too.
I don’t compost but do spread dirty stall bedding daily. This keeps wet bedding off the spreader floor, chains, so they last longer. Plus no chance of manure freezing on the chain to break it in winter. My clay soil needs the bedding material to make it more absorbent, less slippery as dirt particles are kept apart. I don’t want the organic matter (sawdust fibers) breaking down quickly, like I would get with compost spreading. I also get more soil coverage in a thin bedding layer on my fields, than I would get if I composted the manure. I have found that adding this organic, but non-composted material has greatly improved my soil, grass production, over not spreading on my fields. I do not find straw bedding spread on fields to be very helpful. It dries and blows away too fast to be useful.
Sandy soils also benefit greatly from applying lots of organic matter. It slows the drainage and helps make it a better soil for all plants to grow well in. With clay and sand, they continually need more organic matter applied as the old stuff breaks down to dust in time.
I dislike manure piles that take up usable space and draw flies. Spreading daily is much nicer for my needs. We also apply fertilizer yearly according to our current soil test. Adding just any fertilizer is poor spending, may not be what your soil needs to grow pasture well. You really don’t get that much “fertilizer benefit” spreading manure on fields, they still need fertilizer applied to get specific needed minerals in the dirt. I do disc lightly to open the packed soil before fertilizing. This helps by cutting grass clumps so they grow better, gets air, fertilizer and rain down in the soil, not sheeting off the packed dirt.
Maybe I am lazy, but I NEVER do wheelbarrow hauling if the tractor and spreader can do it. I have machines to make life easier, which lets me have more time to ride or drive the horses!
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I wish I could use a tractor, waaaay too wet though. I do it by hand. Its tiring but good hearty work that I find strangely fulfilling. : )
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I’m with @goodhors. I muck directly into the spreader, add lime and fertilizer after every stall, and spread directly on my fields. I occasionally have to wheelbarrow and pile, but usually only in the winter if we have a bad cold snap and the dirty bedding in the spreader freezes.
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How long do you keep the horses off of the area after spreading?
I just use my tractor’s front-end loader. We run a 3-bin system with about a 6 month start-to-finish, rotating bins every 2 months. The bottom of my compost pile tends to be too wet for my ground-driven Newer Spreader to handle, so the front-end loader was the way to go. I just dump slowly while driving, then come back and chain harrow over what I’ve spread. It’s super easy and there is no reason not to have the horses right out on it afterward. The grass looks a whole lot better for our efforts too!
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I would agee with FoxChaser, spread the compost using the manure spreader, or the loader and drag it after for a more even layer. Properly made compost, as she describes hers, should be finae to have horses on it right away. If you could spread just before rain, let the compost get wet and settle, that will have it disappear quickly. Again, horses should be able to go right on it after application.
Doing compost “right”, with regular turning, big volume to the pile, getting it really hot to kill seeds, reduce the volume, is not like spreading wet manure from the pile. Not all manure piles get hot enough to kill all the seeds from manure weeds or hay, break down the stems of hay or straw. We can use composting in our State to breakdown carcasses of dead animals because the pile is expected to get so hot! We had a manure pile self-combust from the inside heat, way back before I started daily spreading. It burned 3 days!! We were out there watching it the whole time with a hose and rake because we had no machinery to break it up with. Keeping your compost pile in cement bin is highly recommended, it can manage the heat.
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I would like to know this as well.
