Dragging Manure piles

[tncattle]

Can we do this now and then right before spring? Or should we wait until right before spring only?

 

[JW IN VA]

No reason not to.Neighbor was spreading poultry litter last week

 

[farmerjan]

If you aren't going to make a mess and leave ruts or anything you can do it whenever you want. Most people don't do it too often since it uses fuel and time and most of us just don't want to spend that extra money. But if you do it now and we have some milder weather, it will work it's way down through the grass blades to the soil and the organisms will start to break it down sooner.

 

[pdfangus]

observation at my place....

on the cow side....since I rotationally graze pretty heavily......
for the most part I do not have pies....with the increased protein we have more splats spread over a wider area and generally they disappear on their own pretty quickly...

was just talking with the neighbor about grass this morning and we decided that while we are not our of grass yet that we ought to put some hay out. So we will start haying this week...big round bales in the feed rings....i would rather unroll it but he prefers the rings and most are his cows and his labor.

on the horse side...I have two mini donkeys and they have influenced the horses to be pile poopers as well....so I generally drag paddocks with a tire when I am mowing them after grazing. They don't all poop in a pile like alpacas but they will all use the same section of the field. usually not much sign of it when they come back to that paddock but it is a fairly long time before they come back....

 

[ClinchValley]

I just went about yesterday dragging the bad areas near their water and where i have been feeding. Drought toasted the grasses, and protein wasn't up to snuff or too much fiber for a bit and they were stacking up. I used our lightest 4 wheeler and three semi tires chained together. Didn't make a mess as long as I took wide turns.

It can only help so long as we aren't tearing up the ground. Surely.

 

[ClinchValley]

since I rotationally graze pretty heavily......
for the most part I do not have pies....with the increased protein we have more splats spread over a wider area and generally they disappear on their own pretty quickly...

How quick do you rotate?

 

[pdfangus]

since I rotationally graze pretty heavily......
for the most part I do not have pies....with the increased protein we have more splats spread over a wider area and generally they disappear on their own pretty quickly...

How quick do you rotate?

usually about every three to five days depending on what is left in the paddock and the season.

I have a lot of small paddocks....

 

[ClinchValley]

One day….

Been cutting them in half as often as we can. Water is our limiting factor. Going to try and cut them twice this winter/spring.

Do you have pretty soil?

 

[ClinchValley]

Can we do this now and then right before spring? Or should we wait until right before spring only?

What do you drag with? Or plan to drag with?

 

[greybeard]

I drug one of mine yesterday with a 10' long telephone pole that had been split in half longways. Drug with flat side down--worked great. Hits anything solid, it flipped over on the round side, and jumped over the short stumps, but then plopped back down on the flat side like it started off. Worked pretty good for clipping off the tops of fire ant mounds too--not that it does any lasting damage to them..
Have in the past, used an old tube gate with a cross tie tied to the top of it for added weight. It worked good too.

Tried some old chain link fence once--didn't do a very good job and it tried to bunch up too much when turning.

The dang commercial pasture drags are pretty expensive for what they are...

 

[ClinchValley]

The dang commercial pasture drags are pretty expensive for what they are...

I agree. Do you think the chain link section would work better if a wooden frame was built for it? Wood on top of course.

I have a chain link section i was going to try to make a drag out of. The tires are heavy for an 4 wheeler when more than two or three are put together.

 

[farmerjan]

Saw a chain link fence section that someone had attached a couple of pickup truck tires to and drug that around. Made the chain link part a little heavier and it seemed to work okay. Just attached them to the end so the chain link was followed by the tires. Tell you what we used to use...find an old set of bed springs...the metal ones. Just drag them around. Heavy enough to drag the ground but not a ton of weight. Used to use them all the time.
Have also used a 16 ft fence panel, heavy enough to lay on the ground but not too heavy to pull like the set of 3 big heavy tires that we've used. They're 20 bucks at TSC.

 

[M-5]

2 - 4' x 16' hog panels wired together makes a good drag for a 4 wheeler or utv. I have tons of them so its pretty easy to cobble up a drag. I prefer my drag of 3 tractor tires but I do have a panel under them on the front to help with banking up in the middle. I use a tractor to pull it.

 

[pdfangus]

I have seen folks cut down a medium sized cedar tree and drag with that by putting a chain around the butt end.

 

[M.Magis]

I made one out of heavy chain link. I attached a 10' piece to a 10' pipe. The pipe has an approximately 13' chain welded to the pipe, end to end, and the chain is what's used to pull it. The pipe keeps it from bunching/folding, and I've wired some old tires on top of the fence for weight. Works decent, but doesn't do a great job on hard piles. The chain link really does a good job of breaking most piles into very small pieces, but needs something to help with the older piles. I have an old spike harrow I always think about stealing the spikes from and welding them onto the drag, just never get around to it.

 

[wbvs58]

Do you people have Dung beetle programmes to get the manure piles buried deep?

Ken

 

[M-5]

Do you people have Dung beetle programmes to get the manure piles buried deep?

Ken

I made an observation yesterday that the beetles were more prevalent this yr . every pile was being worked.

 

[Lucky_P]

Drag if you must, but the only real significant benefit to doing so is as a method of wealth transfer - paying your offspring to drive the tractor.

 

[pdfangus]

my observation is that the beetles do not work the horse manure as well as they work the cow manure...

 

[ClinchValley]

Drag if you must, but the only real significant benefit to doing so is as a method of wealth transfer - paying your offspring to drive the tractor.

Idle hands, right?

My mind figures it spreads the fert around and keeps the grass from getting choked out near the water. Seems to me every weed in some places has sprung from a pile.

Since our rotation is slow, there are a good amount of piles. Not to mention they were very tall this fall with the drought.