Getting Rid of Your Muck Heap

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Hairy Horror

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Hello, I am back with my newbie questions. I have recently started to keep my horses at home, I was wondering how you manage your muck heap.
We have thought about buying a second hand tipping trailer and seeing if we could pay a local farmer to take it to his/her muck heap.
Any suggestions welcome.
 
Ours gets transported down the village allotment, they love it. It's usually mostly gone within the hour after it's been dropped of.
When it was free standing and transferred to trailer we shared the cost of the guy taking it there. Said guy was then going to sell his trailer as didn't use it for much else so we bought the trailer and now he just moves that.
Previously we have had a farmer take it too but everyone is happy with this option.
 
We (farmers) have a quid pro quo arrangement with our neighbouring livery yard. We take their mainly straw muck heap for free, do fieldwork (topping, harrowing, rolling) and remove any mouldy haylage in exchange for winter sheep grazing on their summer fields and taking a cut of haylage off their winter fields (they get 10% of the bales) plus they will look after my horses if we go away.
It's always worth seeing if you can offer something in exchange, you might get a better deal than you thought possible!
 
I also used to take it to the local allotment but these days I have 2 heaps - 1 in current use and the other rotting down. After 5 or 6 months I chuck it out on to my flower beds (a good thick 3 or 4 inches, the plants love it) and anything left over gets chucked back out over the field. Then I start a new heap and leave the other one to rot down.
 
It is worth mentioning that if you want farmers to have it you are better off not using wood-based bedding products as they won't want them.
 
When I had 2 horses I would bag the muck straight from the stable and leave it in a corner of the front yard. I have one regular family who took most of it. The rest was taken in small amounts.
Originally I mentioned to a few people and local allotment holders that the muck was available, word of mouth did the rest.
I make sure everyone knows to return the undamaged bags.
 
We spoke to a local farmer. He would charge to uplift it or we could dump it for free in his fields.

Dad bought a tractor and trailer and we use the trailer as the muck heap so it's really easy to manage
 
Meredith said:
When I had 2 horses I would bag the muck straight from the stable and leave it in a corner of the front yard. I have one regular family who took most of it. The rest was taken in small amounts.
Originally I mentioned to a few people and local allotment holders that the muck was available, word of mouth did the rest.
I make sure everyone knows to return the undamaged bags.
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Is that not hard work, I see a few people do this and it just seems like effort to me, I muck out the guinea pigs into rubble sacks to take outside and still manage to get a fair amount over the floor in the kitchen when it bends as I'm transferring a dustpan load.
 
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ester said:
Is that not hard work, I see a few people do this and it just seems like effort to me, I muck out the guinea pigs into rubble sacks to take outside and still manage to get a fair amount over the floor in the kitchen when it bends as I'm transferring a dustpan load.
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If I make a muck heap it would be inaccessible except by wheel barrow. This would mean barrowing it to the heap to rot and the shovelling it back in a barrow or bags when rotted and wheeling it to the front to be removed. It is easier to bag it straight from the stable and put it out. The gardeners make their own compost with the muck and garden stuff ready for the next year.
 
Ahh that makes sense :) thanks for replying.

On one pick up session the tractor guy at the time made a lovely earth bank on 3 sides of ours with his bucket. Unfortunately the return of Frank to the fold meant it filled up rather more quickly!
 
We have 2 heaps and when one is getting full we spread the older one on the fields as gentle fertiliser - you do need to feed grass if you want it to remain productive.

I've also done pre-loved ads and had allotment holders in the 100s come and collect and had a farmer who lent us his trailer for us to fill then he put it on his fields as free fertiliser (in agricultural Lincolnshire with lots of arable crops) in grazed Yorkshire that wouldn't be so tempting an option for them.
 
I know someone who borrows a trailer and pays £80pm for the farmer to empty it ?.

I just have mine in two sections and one side normally rots down sufficiently so that I can use it again once the other side is full. I’ve been here 20 years and aside from the odd gardener, I’ve never actually removed any.
 
I have a pile in every field (4) and they just rot down. I've never moved or removed any. This year I would like to spread it on the fields but I don't know if there is enough to do it.
 
mine are on cardboard which rots almost as quick as i can stack it, and then once every 2 years farmers takes the remains for £30 as its so black and rotted it can go straight on the fields.

i muck out by hand so its 99% pure poo and only the odd forkful of wet.
 
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