Spreader Manure Spreaders

[RichZ]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[gvw]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[cowboydoc]

Couple things to answer your questions.

1. You can put horses or any animal on the pasture right after you have spread manure with no worries. Usually though a horse will not eat where there is manure. That's the main reason you see that horses don't eat in certain places, it's where they've defacated. Now the only worry that you have is worms. Worms can live in manure and reinfect your horse for up to two weeks. Therefore the best manure management is to spread the manure and wait two weeks for better worm control but nothing else really. You certainly can leave manure sit for awhile but I can pretty much guarantee you that it's not going to spread very well at all. If you have it stacked it will start to compost and that makes for a very difficult job with a manure spreader.

As far as spreading the piles of manure in the field it's considered good management but again remember when you do that you are infected the area that you spread the manure to for up to two weeks. This is one reason why pasture rotation is so beneficial.

All in all spreading manure won't hurt horses except that it's going to make for more worms if it hasn't sat for two weeks.

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Other than the worms, as mentioned by Cowboydoc, a number of people recommend composting manure and spreading it later, if the bedding is sawdust or wood shavings. Those actually absorb nitrogen as they break down, releasing it only after complete decomposition. We toss in a little ammonium nitrate and compost or spread, and either works. If you're spreading two or three horses worth per acre, probably the amount of shaving or sawdust doesn't even need additional nitrogen. I have an old ground driven spreader - so rusty I can't read a name anywhere. When properly adjusted, it spreads everything from fresh to completely composted with no problem. Spreaders vary considerably in capability to break up and broadcast.

Charlie Iliff

 

[polaris]

What do you use to break up the horse droppings in the pasture?

 

[MikePA]

Usually, my shoe. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

But seriously, they get broken up when I mow the pasture.

 

[cowboydoc]

Polaris,
Just drag a harrow over them.

 

[BrianC]

Cowboydoc,

Is it a required practice to put a harrow over the pasture or is it just a good practice, and does it vary depending on the amount of available pasture for the animal..... You once said you loved to talk about horses...hope I dont abuse your offer, if I do just say back off, otherwise keep talking and I will listen.

Many Thanks

Brian

 

[cowboydoc]

Requied? Definitely not. The manure will decay on it's own and decompose into the soil with no problems. All the harrowing does is speed that process up a little bit. It really doesn't vary according to the number of animals. If you have too many green apple piles then you probably have too many horses on your grass anyway so harrowing those isn't going to make alot of difference. NOPE don't mind talking about horses at all!