I was just wondering if anyone uses just a muck bucket for cleaning their stalls/pastures? Do I need to use a wheelbarrow? I have seen some people using them for cleaning stalls and know that it’s fine, but wanted to hear what others prefer and if they like using them instead of a wheelbarrow.
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Wheelbarrow. Rather dislike the muck buckets at the hunt club. One must lift them and dump them into the spreader --don’t like lifting that kind of weight (two repaired shoulders) and don’t like poop that close to my nose or muck-filled bucket rubbing on my formal coat.
Do you need the muck to move?
Then you need wheels to move it, as in a wheelbarrow, cart, manure spreader…
If the poop can just sit there, use a tub.
When full, they are heavy. And cumbersome.
How are you envisioning cleaning a pasture with a muck bucket?
I prefer picking poop into the front end loader of the tractor when I clean the pasture, but will take the muck cart out there sometimes, too. It’s a lot easier to have powered wheels for the space & hills. Can’t imagine not having wheels at all. Poop is heavy!
Why would anyone want to use a muck bucket and haul it around bodily rather than a wheelbarrow?
Even when using a wheeled muck bucket cart, you still have to lift and dump it.
I have a dump cart hitched to a 4x4 that I use to pick paddocks. In the barn, I muck into tubs and dump tubs in the cart. For me it is easier on my shoulders to only lift the fork tub high and not wheelbarrow high. The dump cart is not as tall as a spreader (we don’t spread) to lift the tub. And I don’t fill the tubs as full as I used to. If you are picking stalls with horses in, you can close the door so no escapees! And I hate pushing wheelbarrows, love the 4x4! It just depends on your set up and personal preferences.
Wheelbarrow for doing stalls. Muck bucket for picking up poop in cross-ties, aisles, random piles.
Fortunately, it wasn’t one where I was working at, but I’ve been at barns where the paddocks were so muddy, there was no way you were getting a wheelbarrow or even a gator in there with buckets to pick.
From my own experience, when I didn’t have a say over my own equipment, please make sure that your wheelbarrows actually wheel and can move in something of a straight line for barn staff.
Small UTV with a powered dump bed was a life changer for me. I realize that is not an answer to the original question. What works, though, depends on your stage of life and diminishing physical capabilities . I cannot lift a full muck bucket any longer but I can shovel individual manure piles into the dump bed and flip a switch to dump the whole load out.
Wheelbarrow all the way, but I use my the bucket on my tractor for stalls and picking poo in the pasture.
My shoulder says H to the No on a muck bucket. I do keep one in the wash stall for random piles.
I mean, you can… 
Straight manure from the pasture is pretty heavy, though. It’s easier to clean pastures into something you don’t need to lift.
Have both, done both. I couldn’t download your video, so I may have missed your intended layout.
Depends on the destination and what you are comfortable with. When I had a standalone pile, I used a wheelbarrow. Two wheeled wheelbarrows are less tippy, definitely recommend. Now that I have compost bins, I use the muck bucket with a cart. For me, I find the muck bucket / cart easier to get in and out gates when cleaning up dry lots and areas near gates in other paddocks (the rest of the paddocks get dragged), also easier to get in and out of stalls. My bins are located in a bank where over half is below ground level on the side where I’d be dumping, so I only have to lift muck bucket about waist high. I could remove the boards that are above ground and use a wheelbarrow, but I like the muck bucket better, don’t mind and for now am able to do the lifting. I also have a couple spots where I need to go up/down a step or two, I find this easier with the bucket/cart.
Muck tub slides into the front end loader. Wheelbarrow does not. I stopped using a wheelbarrow when I got a tractor/ acquired a third horse. Too old to push a wheelbarrow up the hill and to the back corner of the pasture. Less flies having the manure off away from the barn. No contest.
FWIW, @huntergirl998, I flat out hate that muck bucket you linked here. It’s got a rim on the bottom, which means it doesn’t slide across the ground well at all. If you never want to pull it anywhere, maybe that doesn’t matter.
But if you do, the horseman’s pride tubs have a smooth bottom, and I’ve found them to be more durable, too.
Something I learned on this forum, everyone has their tools that they prefer. So use what you like best and do not worry if others like to use something else.
I personally hate cleaning into a muck tub because I have to aim too much. I like my two wheeled wheelbarrow.
11 stalls done into between 22 and 33 filled, stood on so more will fit in full muck tubs, most of them cracked… Each loaded into a cart behind a quad, driven uphill to the container then each muck tub (between 22-33) hand dumped into the container. 🤦
24 stalls done into wheelbarrows that had to be wheeled uphill to empty into the container. The guys could do almost two stalls before dumping, I could do half a stall before dumping because any fuller it was too heavy to push uphill.
The wasted man hours of doing it this way was $$$, not to mention exhausting.
Hay carts too.
Moving bales of hay in carts with flat tires is not fun, makes the job unnecessarily harder, and makes staff want to do the absolute minimum.
Any job that is set up such that it’s harder than it needs to be insures workers will do the bare minimum of it.
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Yes, at one barn, there was a rickety wooden plank you had to wheel the barrow up to dump it–full–and did I mention the barrow’s wheels were misaligned and often flat?
It’s like some people design their barns–if they aren’t doing the work themselves–as some kind of personal physical and moral test of the staff.
Absolutely. I can’t imagine doing either of the setups you describe. I have a kid who has worked for me since he was 14 (now 18) - first job was mucking stalls at another barn and no matter what it was terrible. They had a tractor but it was muddy, and slippery, working around horses that couldn’t be turned out yet, etc. Just a nightmare.
I only ever saw one really good setup, and I’m sure it had all to do with having money. Two or 3 people worked together, sometimes 4. 1-2 picked stalls and put dirty bedding in the doorways, 1 person drove the gator with auto dump bed. The extra person just shoveled into the gator, whose driver would drive to the pile with a ramp, and dump from above. They also had an excavator to level the pile so it could be filled evenly.
I’d never seen stalls done so quickly. If they didn’t have extra people, they would still use the same method, just slower. Pick into the entry way, and pick it up with the gator. But also importantly, they had a system for turnout that unless that absolute worst weather, at least half the barn would be empty all at once to make this process easier.
The first place, had they bought a quad dump trailer with what they spent on dozens and dozens of muck tubs, that needed replacing frequently, well the job would have been way easier.
Absolutely wheelbarrow. Go try and move and lift a full muck bucket by yourself and you’ll understand why.
A 2 wheel wheelbarrow is also far superior and worth the cost than a single wheel one as well.
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