any tips on making poo picking easier?

J

Jericho

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I currently poo pick 3 horses daily, 2 of which are turned out 24/7 on 4 acres. At the moment I get up at 6am before the children and spend 30 mins with the horses doing the jobs and poo picking - which usually takes 20 mins and 1 wheelbarrow load. Obviously when winter comes it will be too dark to do any poo picking at that time of the morning so does anyone have any tips as to how to make this easier.

I was thinking of just halving the field during winter and not pick up any poo, then come spring, getting the field harrowed, fertilised and rested for a few months - would this work with just 2 acres during winter and 2 during spring? Would the winter 2 acres just end up looking like one big poo pile and completely ruin it? How long does a field need resting to recover from 6 months of winter use / no poo picking

The other option is do a mammoth job every weekend taking 7 0r 8 wheelbarrows which would probably take me 2 hours, very sore hands and not give me any time to ride.....

How else do you all manage in winter?
 
i got a head torch
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then you can poo pick in the dark lol!
 
No getting out of it then! ;-) I had a headtorch last year and it wasnt very good, perhaps I need to look for a better one..
 
You poo pick 4 acres!?

I harrow anything bigger than an acre. It depends how muddy your field gets in winter, I'd half it, 3 horses in 2 acres should be fine.

Winter, I don't pick up at all. It is frozen to the ground like blocks of concrete, plus I can't see it anyway because my fields tend to look like this for three months. In Spring I scrape the feed areas with the tractor.
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now that is a good idea - I will advertise on local shop, maybe someone who is retired might like to do it for some fresh air!
 
Hi Enfys - can I pick your brain a bit more? So say I halve the field so that the 2 horses out 24/7 have 2 fields of 2 acres. How often should I rotate the fields during winter and during summer and how often would I need to harrow / spread the poo?
I actually think the grazing would benefit from having a bit of manure put into it as I have poo picked religously for 3 years now and not fertilised so it must be pretty poor in nutrients. unfortunately with the xtra horse I think that it is going to be too biiger job to keep on top of it on a daily basis.
 
My philosophy is that life is too short to be spending you time poo-picking.
When I was on a yard where it was mandatory then I paid a teenager to do it, otherwise harrow and rotate and do regular worm counts.
 
I poo pick 2 acres its a tough job! Keeping on top of it is paramount so I suggest paying a local kid to do it
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No minimum wage, no contract and they are nimble enough to do it... simples
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I poo pick in summer - used to harrow a lot more, but since the horror of grass sickness raised it's head, I try to harrow as little as I can now, so maybe once of twice in the spring, keeping the horses off the freshly harrowed bits for at least a week.

In the winter, we don't pick poo - I sacrifice a strip down the edge of the field, as we get so much rain here in the winter (Cumbria) that if we let them have the run of the whole field, it would be completely trashed by spring. So the strip turns into mud and you wouln't find the poo even if you tried! I find that giving them a 10m wide strip down the whole of the field works ok, we look after it in the spring, usually rolling, harrowing to grade it, and then seed it, and it comes back ok.
 
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