No poo picking for months what would you do?

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Hi folks some may be familiar with the saga of my ex groom who didn't like yard chores etc but liked to overcharge for doing them.

Well I walked all the land last week (i've been working away and she was on point) and it's clear that at the back fields that you can't see from yard that no poo picking has been done for months.

Obviously my worming plans are vital now now but aside of that how would you manage this?

Should I try and pick - looks like a week or so work 2 hours a day. Or am I best to start fresh and harrow once the land is dry enough for a tractor?

I have 4 acres the horses are in two small paddocks at the moment because one is a new companion and they are slow to bond.
 
I guess it depends on how soon you need the grazing really? As no telling when we'll have some decent weather.

I read your original post and couldn't believe the attitude of the groom!
 
I would harrow and start afresh but it depends on your land, how it lies and if you have to push barrows up hill or long distances! Weigh up the costs of harrowing v poo picking inc chiro and physio for yourself! Or find willing young volunteers in return for a ride!
 
Can you get a dropside trailer onto your field? It might mean shovelling it in, but at least it saves trekking to the muck heap each time your barrow is full!
 
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Perhaps make a 'muck heap' in the corner of one & barrow it there, then when its a drier time of the year you could get farmer with tractor (& bucket on it) & trailer to remove it?
Thats what I had to do 6 years ago :rolleyes: - have about 4.5 acres & I got a local teenager to help me barrow a lot of it over a week & then just added 2 barrow loads a day till it was done :)
 
I would ensure I have a bit of ground that is clear ie do you have some space that is clean for future use?

When it is frosty ie harder ground I would either poo pick up ie a section of your back paddock ie clear some of it in one area and then chain harrow the lot in. OR chain harrow the lot.

If you chain harrow it will take a long time to truely rot in. BUT keep poo picking what they are on now as most important.

You could poo pick current field and then just do a bit of the other field until its gone.

I have even poo picked before and tipped it onto another poo field and chain harrowed the lot at some stage.
Lots of options! But at end of day you are going to have to keep an area of poo!
 
Harrow it and rest it - too much poo picking removes all the goodness from the land anyway. I don't poo pick in winter, the fields are too big and too wet and muddy, it would do more harm than good.
Your worming won't be an issue if you have a decent worming programme - clean horses can't contaminate and anyway, unless you follow horses around removing as soon as it is dropped, the contamination will have happened in the up to 24 hours before you get to it. I only poo pick so that I don't get that sour rank long grass that they won't touch because it is contaminated.
 
Another vote for harrowing, will solve the problem, and I would have thought most of it would have been washed through by now, with the wet we have had!
 
Having had a similar situation ('friend' brought her 5 ponies here for a 'few' weeks and promised to poo pick - she didn't at all and they were here for 5 weeks on 2.5 acres - you can imagine how much there was). I started but it was completely impossible to get on top off, so I've just harrowed and won't use the field for at least 6 months

We've had some good frosts that should kill the eggs, and if it was only your horses on the land (and you've managed their worming to date) there shouldn't be a huge number of eggs in the poo anyway. You can harrow in frost and it's due to get cold again so might be worth considering rather than wait for it to dry up enough to get a tractor on (who knows when that might be!!!)
 
As already said if you have a good worming programme it should be less of an issue but the remaining poo can affect the new grass coming through so if you do want to get it up there's a couple of options I would be looking at - firstly, is there anywhere local to you that rents out the poo picking machines? They're basically like massive vacuum cleaners crossed with ride on lawnmowers which hoover up the poo and are fab but can be expensive, even to lease. Other option would be if you have a tractor with a bucket, or can borrow one from a friendly farmer for a few days. Means hopping in and out of the cab a few times but rather than wheelbarrowing heavy loads of muck from fields all the way to the muck heap you can barrow it straight in to the bucket then drive it away.
 
Personally, I would poo-pick.
Harrowing at this time of the year will just spread the larvae all over the field. The only sensible time to harrow is in the height of summer when its very warm and dry, allowing the heat to kill the larvae.
 
Harrow, graze with cattle (& sheep to help fertilize, can you 'borrow' some from local farmer in return for free grazing?) then harrow again. But then I live of the top of a valley with very steep fields so pushing a barrow of muck isn't overly easy.
 
pip6 said:
Harrow, graze with cattle (& sheep to help fertilize, can you 'borrow' some from local farmer in return for free grazing?) then harrow again. But then I live of the top of a valley with very steep fields so pushing a barrow of muck isn't overly easy.
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Ditto this. The very best (and cheapest) thing you can do, plus will save you a helluva lot of work.

The problem with chain-harrowing poo is that all you're doing is to spread it (and everything in it including worm eggs) over a larger area. My local vets did a clinic on worming & pasture management; and they said that the ONLY time you can get away with harrowing to disperse poo is when its really hot (like over 80 degrees, which kills the eggs etc apparently) - 80 degress ain't gonna happen at the mo tho!!

Sheep are the best thing if you can "borrow" some; can't be bettered. Their feet will tread in all the poo nicely, plus they'll eat off the grass and improve your pasture no end.
 
Does anyone actually know how long larvae lingers in the poo before it dissipates?

I've never actually been able to find that out?

So once it leaves the dung and 'infects' the surrounding grass - how long does it survive there?

Because, if it leaves the dung within 24hrs, unless you literally follow the horse around the field picking up the poo, surely you're too late anyway?

And how far does it travel from the dropping?
 
Its highly unlikely that if you worm regulary that harrowing a field is going to cause a problem if you harrow, and fertilise. I can not poo pck when the ground gets wet so come the spring I divide the field in to sections and do a section at a time keeping the ponies on the clean section until I have fertilised and harowed the next. I have never had a high worm count they have always come back low and I have a very small acerage.
 
Ditto honeypot, my land is se tioned into 4 they graze one section which is harrowed straight after they move onto the next, they terefore get fresh grazing And the muck is allowed to fertilise the land, had v low worm counts done for the 8 years Ive owned it and good soil sample analysis too, much easier than pushing barrows uphill :) 4x4 pulls the harrows and takes an hour to do the lot once every 2 weeks , leaving time to enjoy the beds :)
 
Thanks I'm on top of worming but given the state of the pastures I'd have to say that the worm larvae will already be all over the top paddocks. The old stuff is really dessicated so if I cant pick I may have to harrow that and keep them off it just poo picking and keeping the current grazing up to date. I had another look last night the poo is all over and there are 3 or 4 latrines where the grass will grow soon if I'm not careful in spring

I would be interested in sheep but I have no stock fencing just post and rail. I assume I would need stock fencing which would be a worry with the horses legs? How to others do this? Can't do cows scared of them:o
 
If you are going to harrow at this time of year you'd be best leaving the field to rest or borrowing some sheep to get it grazed. Just been to a vet/worming company seminar and they are now concerned regarding resistance to wormers and saying field management is vital. They felt harrowing was better than not harrowing if the field would be rested or grazed by sheep for a while. If not then they recommended poo picking so as not to spread the problem. They thought horses chose to eat away from a pile of poo whereas if it was spread they would not make this choice and that encouraged the cycle.
 
JillA said:
Harrow it and rest it - too much poo picking removes all the goodness from the land anyway. I don't poo pick in winter, the fields are too big and too wet and muddy, it would do more harm than good.
Your worming won't be an issue if you have a decent worming programme - clean horses can't contaminate and anyway, unless you follow horses around removing as soon as it is dropped, the contamination will have happened in the up to 24 hours before you get to it. I only poo pick so that I don't get that sour rank long grass that they won't touch because it is contaminated.
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This.

Constant poo picking leaves the soil impoverished, and liable to erosion/compaction. Harrow, roll, and rest. You could always top the field in spring once it was rested to help it recover - I was once told the larvae migrate to the top of the leaves and topping will mean they get chopped off and fall to the ground and die, although not sure if that was a scientific truth or a load of codswallop tbh, but it sounds good!


Much better for the long term health of the soil as you are putting something back.
 
Do the job properly. Pick up the poos or get someone else to do it or get a specialist grass land contractor in. That way you have got rid of it. Poo's cause worms and also prevent the grass below them from growing killing off the grass and causing weeds to grow. Good field maintenance is essential for healthy horses and grass.

Once all the poos have been removed then in spring harrow your field using a harrow with sprung splines on it as this massages the grass and promotes healthy grass growth.

Then if required over-seed and then roll the field .
 
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The droppings have already been in the field for a while, over a week at least. Any worm eggs will have already passed into the pasture. Wait until the ground is hard ie heavy frost/ice or its dry enough to get on without causing damage , this may take a few weeks. Then harrow. If therer is very sparse cover then overseed and roll ; or if decent coverage of grasses apply fertilizer and grow for a hay crop; or simply harrow and rest a while before turning horses onto the pasture.We find spring harrows to be quite severe and it can rip up too much grass and/or soil. We always use chain harrows on our pasture often upsidedown so as to be even less harsh.
BTW my husbands does contract work for pasture management , haymaking etc.
 
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Also, as these are just your own horses, kept at home and regularly wormed/ counted then there will not be 1000's of eggs in the poos to start with. It might be a different situation if you were a livery yard with lots of different (unknown worming background) horses coming and going all the time.
I'd harrow to stop the grass dying underneath whole poos as much as to break them open to allow frost to get to the tiny number (if any) worm eggs.
 
If you can find someone to bring you some sheep, and you do it for nothing, you might find they will set up some temporary electrified sheep netting to keep them contained. Leave it to them, they will know how to keep their sheep in. Worth following up, although the couple of times I had sheep on mine it made it difficult to have my dogs loose around the place.
 
A few factoids I have picked up along the way....;)

Worm eggs hatch in warm damp weather which we are not going to get at this time of the year.

Frost does not kill worm eggs. I will be prepared to believe it does when someone can produce scientific studies proving it!

Horses will avoid grazing near their own dung unless forced to it by hunger. So, harrowing in winter is not a good idea because it spreads dung and horses have little choice but to eat contaminated grass.

Horses pick up worms by eating both worm eggs and/or larvae as they graze.

Larvae in a hot dry summer will get little protection from drying out in short grass. On the other hand, they can become exhausted travelling up and down the stalks of long grass in their efforts to find a host as conditions (temperature and humidity) vary.

Equine worms can be controlled by other livestock (sheep and cattle) but there are a few worms that infect both or all three. (Life is probably too short to worry about worms to that extent!).

If you give your horses too much wormer, it will certainly kill the worms. On the other hand, if they have a moderate infestation, they will build up a resistance to worms -- so do what it says on the packet and don't over do it.

Worm counts are a good idea but be aware that worms don't lay eggs methodically like hens but in fits and starts. A horse can have a low worm count one day and a high count the next day. So another thing to be aware of but not to worry about unduly.

If you make a muck heap, the chances are that it will generate heat by way of bacterial action which will stimulate worm eggs to hatch into larvae. As the larvae have nothing to eat in a muck heap, they will eventually die. So that muck can probably be safely applied to the land after 12 months.

I am sure there is a lot more to it than that but I think most of the above is true!:D
 
DR - interesting.

I think individual horse resistance is an interesting topic as I've had 2 here that never had a single egg in a count over several years, one of which had a companion from a rescue center that often had counts over 1000 initially (a whole nother subject of whether poor worming in youngters can make them perminantly prone). The nil count and the 1000 count horse were out 24/7 for years and never grazed more than a few meters apart (we called the companion his shadow)

Other random fact is that in humans they think the lack of worms currently is the cause for lots of allergies (ie our bodies are designed to be fighting a low level of infestation and have gone 'wonky' when we are not) and indeed they are trialing allergy treatments that involve giving people worms again as a few worms causes a lot less damage than nasty allergies!
 
Thanks all advice greatly appreciated as ever. I'm going to pick as much as I can and harrow when dry and leave the fields for a while. I might advertise for sheep and say it's post and rail so they know to come prepared:)

Edited - now have the local farmer asking about for me re: sheep.
 
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