Pasture tow for cleaning up horse manure

[Ernie-32]

Did a bit of research on what to do with horse manure in our fields. Doing nothing means loss of grass and ugle stains in your terrain. Here's what I discovered:
1- Mowing it over with a flail mower distributes alright, but also takes away the grass you so much like to keep.
2- Picking it up with a manure collector build in the UK, is very expensive (new 8000€, refurbished 3000€) but you'll loose the good effects of manure too.
3- Did some testing with a pallet fork lift and old upside-down harrow with chains, that worked pretty good.
4- Disadvantages of improvising; too much weight to drag around and ripping up good grass unnecessairely. So I bought the real deal a meadow tow.
I'm very enthousiastic about this cause it also helps cleaning up. It removes moss-covered patches in the corners of our fields and levels the terrain often dug up by molls, wild boars, hares all creating dangerous potholes for horses to break their legs in...
Have a look ;

 

[Farmer495]

Looks nice. I had made a drag out of old wagon wheel bands for cow manure levelling, worked best when manure was dried out. Really spread it out

 

[Ernie-32]

Looks nice. I had made a drag out of old wagon wheel bands for cow manure levelling, worked best when manure was dried out. Really spread it out

Thankyou, I doubted for a long time to keep on improvising or buy something used or new, but prices are unbelievably (unreasonably) high. In the end it was cheaper and much quicker to buy this piece of galvanised steel in the Netherlands and have it transported within a week(!) all the way down to the Pyrenees (1500km), then to buy a painted-only-version in France and have to wait for more than a month in (promised) delivery.
So after "bleeding for it" to pay, I'm now very very very happy it seems to do the job beyond expectations.

 

[9035768HM]

3pt chain harrow. I bought mine ised at a machinery sale several years ago. It needed some torching and welding but i only paid $300 for it. The chain is made of 1/2” round stock with 2” that sticks down to rough up the ground. We use it in the spring when the ground dries up. It flattens out manure and works it in a bit

 

[Hoss710]

A friend of mine uses a fence panel from tractor supply, and drags it behind a 4 wheeler. seems to work very well and doesn't damage the existing grass. thing it's a 2x2 opening fence 6x 16 ?? I saw a video from someone else doing it and it works well.

 

[Egon]

Anyone try a diamond tooth harrow?

 

[zzvyb6]

My solution was not to redistribute it, but to collect piles of it and burn it. Smolders un til just ashes remain. Smells like burned cork. Residue works really well as fertilizer on my pine trees, plus weed seeds in it are eliminated. I use a rolling hot wire fence to cordon off my horse pastures into 3 sections: operating, being cleaned up, healing.

 

[Ernie-32]

My solution was not to redistribute it, but to collect piles of it and burn it. Smolders un til just ashes remain. Smells like burned cork. Residue works really well as fertilizer on my pine trees, plus weed seeds in it are eliminated. I use a rolling hot wire fence to cordon off my horse pastures into 3 sections: operating, being cleaned up, healing.

Yep that's a good tactic as well, it depends on the surface how much work it is. At our 7 hectares (17 acres) of terrain we needed a mechanised solution, because manually on a slope it is simply undoable and takes way too much of our time. We do change fields every week, so with 4 fields the average cleaning work has now become done in under an hour per week.

 

[5030]

I have been using a Fuerst pull behind Tine Harrow and have for years now. Pull it behind the ATV. You can set the penetration by flipping it or reversing it No animals left so it sits by the barn now. Also good for 'roughing up' gravel drives.

 

[jaxs]

I clean stalls and pens but pasture is being overgrazed if manure piles become a problem. As for "ugly stains in the terrain" I'd say terrain is sorely lacking in fertility so time and expense better spent fertilizing. I do worry my bull might be charged with lewdness or indecent exposure when he's on pasture next to public road.