getting the tractor inside the horsebox

[tatra805]

Manure handling evolution got me on to this project.

Without the Iseki we would empty the horseboxes into the aisle and from there push it with the 2 wheel tractor outside on a pile and store it about 1 month till a big tractor trailer could be filled, again by hand.

Filling a 2m high 12m3 trailer is not a joke and it was there people started to loose interest in our manure (no matter how many beers were offered, waiting time too for loading too long).

Then came the Iseki.

Now that i have a tractor with FEL and the manure loading onto big trailers is all of a sudden an easy job I start to dislike the fact that i have to clean the horseboxes itself by hand. I do have a FEL for something not?

Now the problem lays in the simple fact that a boxdoor is 1m wide and my tractor 1.25 m. hmmmm let me think

Here a picture when we were building our stable. Left and right 2 boxes and drive through from garden into paddock .

As you see the fronts of the boxes are galvanized panels with a sliding door. Weight about 250kg each.
As you also see a center beam is running from left to right side of the stable at ceiling height of 2.8 meter (temp supported with a beam in the picture)

Now if i would hinge the panels at the top and swing them up keeping them hanging horizontal over the aisle i would have 2.25m headroom and that is enough for the tractor to drive under.

Of course things will need to be beefed up enough to hold everything AND be safe. (a swinging 250kg panel would not be "open for argumentation" when it comes down)

Opening 2 opposite boxes at the same time would make maneuvering more easy.

So here we go. Pictures will follow with the progress and details how i did it.

 

[DWCox]

Nice livestock barn/stall. I am going to be building something similar soon to raise a steer a year (one on the property, one in the freezer). When shooting photos of your project, include one of the outside if you can.

 

[tatra805]

About the barn, it was build after second world war, size is 10x12 meter (roughly 30x36ft) with the poles standing on rocks. My neighbor (left one on the picture is dated 1911. most people in the vilage had one like this but they were burned down during second WW. (village was pro german during the war and therefore not liked very much...) We put in a concrete floor of 1 foot thick (no foundations possible without dismantling the building / expensive high tech building techniques) and then put in the horseboxes. Basically nothing was changed to the original construction.

Every winter it holds 7 ton of hay on the top floor and it is not moving anymore. (had to re-locate 1 side about half meter to make it square again before putting the concrete) Wing doors were converted to sliding doors, just because they are more convenient with animals around.

We also made an extentension on both sides (garage/work place and straw storage) but kept the same style

 

[DWCox]

Very nice! Interesting history also. Thanks for the pics.

When I was a kid growing up in rural upstate NY, the barns we used were all built during the 19th century. They were absolutely solid, crafted with beautiful hand-hewn beams (timber-frame construction). Many of them are still standing today, though one has burned down. When I do some remodeling of our house, I would love to have some vintage timber beams of that style to place within the house. To me, the beauty cannot be matched (except, perhaps, by stone construction).

 

[tatra805]

sorry, actually this was the picture with the old barn on the left. The paddock is ours.

 

[zzvyb6]

So what is in the stalls besides manure? Do you bed with straw or sawdust (for example)? If you have just clay floors and use sawdust, I've used a leaf vacuum attachement to suck up the desired content. Put the results in a trailer automatically. There is some wasted sawdust with this but, wet or dry, hot or cold, the result are what count the most. Plus the impeller from the vac turns solids into little oatmeal sized particles.

Another project I did for a fellow was to make up a special bucket that shoehorned into the stall. It has an extention on it that slides sideways so you don't have to park the tractor perpendicular to the aisle. Sort of like a pull out drawer. Using this technique depends on how many stalls you will be cleaning. 4 on each side was all I had to do. Its still manual shoveling, but the transport issue was solved. This "bucket-with a drawer" hardware was light, strong, easy to hose out and dumped nicely into a pile. I also found out that attemps to maneuver a loader bucket into a stall is hard on the front tires when the floor is brushed concrete (good for horse traction). BTW: I suppose that with the extra hydraulic circuit now available on many tractors for a grapple, the "drawer" push and pull could be powered. This would be a benefit if your pigmy ponies get into deep dodo if you get my drift....

 

[tatra805]

zzvyb6,

we use both straw and sawdust. We need to, just to stop our Shagia Arabs eating their bed every night and having colic symptoms in the morning.

Daily the droppings are taken out by hand (no, i mean using a shovel) an bedding material added. The bedding itself i want to take out as is necesary (our Irish Cobs take half the straw and maintenance just because they are more calm).

Till now we had to push it to 1 month as the tractor and trailer would only come every month at its best and wintertime every 4 to 8 weeks. That meant 2 hours per box of shoveling ****. (3mx4.5mx0.2m = roughly 3 cubic meter per box.... )

Hand work will still be necesarry and that is not my point but now i am spending a whole day on it which i'd rather be spending riding them.

I do understand your drawer concept and that could have been a first solution. Now i do see it possible to drive-load with the fell (normal concrete floor btw, sanitary reasons)