Spreader Manure Spreaders

RichZ · Oct 9, 2001

I am planning on turning at least two dozen acres of pasture that has not been maintained for about 3 - 5 years into a hayfield. I know I will need a manure spreader, but I know almost nothing about them, so I have some questions.
Can I use the manure and urine soiled straw from my horse stalls in a manure spreader? They ought to make great fertilizer, and I sure have alot of it. I know there are ground driven manure spreaders and pto driven manure spreaders. I assume pto driven ones are more powerful. Are there limitations for tractor size to run them. My tractor has 25 hp at the pto. Is this powerful enough to run most manure spreaders? Are ground driven ones any good?
I intend to get a used one at either an auction or privately. I seen some real old wooden ones. Are these effective?
I told you I knew little about them!
Thanks for any answers!!

Rich

art · Oct 9, 2001

Rich being in the northeast I would say to get a pto drive spreader. If the need came to stack manure you can only do that with a pto drive. The pto drive gives you more gearing change ability than the ground drive to better top dress your field with the manure,

MikePA · Oct 9, 2001

Stack the manure?

Also, is 4 acres enough land to spread the manure from 3 horses on and still use it for pasture?

Thanks,
Mike

cowboydoc · Oct 9, 2001

Rich,
If you have good even ground with little hills and you can go reasonably fast then ground driven are just fine. Now if you're like me and have alot of hills and such where your horses are then the pto driven ones work better. I'm not sure about the minimum hp you would need on one but I can't imagine that it would be much. I have a full size one that I use at my one place and I can easily pull it with the 4600. Now granted that is bigger than yours but I don't think you would have a problem with it either. Personally I like the pto ones for large operation. It does a couple extra things. One you have more beaters on a pto driven one so you get much better spread. Also if you stop or slow down the tractor, provided you have live pto, then you keep spreading the manure. With a ground driven one it tends to spread out very thick when you aren't moving. This is bad in that it can kill your grass in that area. Also with pto drive you can just engage and disengage from the tractor. With ground drive you have to get on and off the tractor to engage or disengage it.

With regards to straw pto will work better because it will beat it better and you will get a much better spread. Now with that said you also have to look at another aspect as well. Alot of the ground driven manure spreaders are small enough, need 48" clearance on sides, that you can just drive them right up to your stall and clean your stall right into the manure spreader and drive out and spread it. Very time efficient.

Those are the basics. If you have any other questions let me know.

Anonymous Poster · Oct 9, 2001

Have a look at www.easternfarmmachinery.com they sell a complete line of mini manure spreaders that would work for you.

gvw · Oct 9, 2001

Rich - keep in mind that if you go the PTO rout - and use one tractor to load-spread you will have to connect /disconect the PTO ea time . With the ground driven - the PTO connection is not an issue just hook up and go.

Youare · Oct 9, 2001

I looked at small used manure spreaders for quite a while. They all come sized by bushel capacity, never filled a bushel basket to check it out. I found two old red ones melting back into the enviroment which I kind of made one out of. It is ground driven. I could back this one right into the barn and clean my hores stalls right into it. I used dry pine shavings for bedding which spread pretty good but if there was any amount of hay in the mix the beaters didn't have the speed to fling it.

A PTO driven spreader would no doubt give you more consistant results.

Randy

BrianC · Oct 10, 2001

I am also curious on how long you should keep a horse off a pasture which has had manure spread on it?

Also is it important to break up the horse droppings in its pasture?

Kind Regards

Brian

MikePA · Oct 10, 2001

Along BrianC's questions...

All these scenarios show dumping into a spreader and putting it on a pasture almost immediately. The picture at Country Mfg shows someone spreading manure on what appears to be a lawn.

I was under the impression that it should sit for one year (?) before spreading?

Can someone refer me to a manure mgmt site?

I vaguely remember using 3 different piles, fresh, medium and ready to spread. Can anyone fill in the details or point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Mike

bgott · Oct 10, 2001

When I was a kid we used to spread everything except chicken crap right away and never had any problems. You need to let chicken crap set for a while. It has a high ammonia content. I never did any hog crap so I can't tell you anything about that.