Landscape Rake for Manure Collection

[Veteran Farmer]

Does anyone have experience using a landscape rake in a pasture to collect horse manure?

I have struggled keeping up with collecting the manure of our horses, who are pastured 24/7, and am considering purchasing a landscape rake with gauge wheel. I figure the rake itself can be used for multiple purposes, leveling gardens, finishing touches on driveway touch-ups, ....

I am not sure of the following though:
1) will a rake pick up a large portion of manure effectively from a pasture (with short grass)?
2) Does manure need to be fresh? Still in large clumps or will stepped on manure and/or poultry scratched manure also get raked fairly well?
3) How critical is a gauge wheel for this task? It seems essential to me but I have never used one. The other tasks I don't think require the wheel but the pasture raking is the primary function that I need it for.

I am not expecting 100% collection of the manure but I do need to collect it for use elsewhere on the farm. Hand collection is surely more effective but I've got too large an area to cover.

I do understand that I can harrow it to spread it around so it does not need to be collected but I need the manure elsewhere, that was a primary reason to get the horses

 

[old and tired]

My experience is with cow paddies, which may be apples to oranges... the rake works like a harrow, it spread it around.

It does work nicely on the driveway!! Don't know about wheels, don't have any attached but I do have all the parts, just need time to build them.

 

[scootr]

I'm thinking the rake would serve to break up the manure and spread it around more than gathering it. Also it should have some moisture to breakup, Maybe rake old manure after a rain ?

 

[oldnslo]

Are you trying to windrow the horse apples or drag them a significant distance to create a pile?

 

[zzvyb6]

This definitely works. Sht Happens, Sht burns, and Sht now flies. Don't use max rpm on the pto. Makes nice windrows from multiple passes, then a pass with a bucket. I suspect that a traveling grain elevator (with paddles) could make a neat pick-up device going into a trailing gravity wagon after its windrowed....

 

[MtnViewRanch]

I will say this, if you purchase a landscape rake, be careful of what you get, they are not built equally and some are only good for very light loads to be put on them intended to be used with a smaller light weight machine, otherwise they will twist like a pretzel if a decent load is put on them.

Good luck.

 

[Veteran Farmer]

Are you trying to windrow the horse apples or drag them a significant distance to create a pile?

Doesn't matter to me as long as it reduces the manure labor time to clean up. I envision raking straight into a pile, lifting rake and beginning again, not a long distance just long enough to have a decent pile, then I can scoot around picking up the piles.

 

[Veteran Farmer]

My experience is with cow paddies, which may be apples to oranges... the rake works like a harrow, it spread it around.

It does work nicely on the driveway!! Don't know about wheels, don't have any attached but I do have all the parts, just need time to build them.

That is what I was worried about, just harrowing instead of collecting, thx!

 

[oldnslo]

Not sure if you could lengthen the top link enough to make a landscape rake work like an old hay dump rake. I suspect that trying to move the apples very far will turn them into dust but have no actual proof of that theory.

 

[dieselscout80]

I don’t want to collect the manure I want to break the clumps up and scatter it.

So I’m thinking of getting one to breakup the manure.

I’m thinking of turning the tines rearward like for pushing going in reverse sine most have the ability to reverse the tines.

However, I would pull it forward with the tines rearward in order to breakup the manure clumps.