Removing poo pickings from field - ideas please!

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now_loves_mares

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OK I can't decide which is the best option! My field is about 3/4 of a mile from the house. It's a 10 acre field with only one TB and a shetland pony in it. It's also very wet :( I don't poo pick it all as it's just not practical, but the shetland spends her days in a small paddock area which I do poo-pick, plus I also clear out my shelter.

However my problem is disposing of the poo pickings. The muck heap is by the house and no chance of wheeling a barrow up and down every day. So I think my options are:

1. Buy an agri trailer to leave in the field, for my friendly farmer to empty once in a while. Best option but can't find an affordable one!
2. Buy a tipping trailer to leave in the field, fill up during the week and tow up to the house behind the 4x4 to tip on the muckheap. Second best option but also very expensive. Can't find one for less than £1k so far
3. Buy a bunch of trugs, fill them up during the week then take horse trailer down at weekend to collect them all. The thought of doing this makes me shudder. Plus I suspect my nosy TB would empty them
4. Buy a non tipping trailer and fill it during the week then shovel it out at the
weekend. Or still use trugs but load them in to the trailer during the week - easier to empty them at the other end. Probably the most cost effective but if it's rained it's going to be quite a bit of heavy shovelling to empty
5. Leave a muckheap in the field for farmer to collect once in a while. The wet field makes this a problem, plus the landowner will hate it, and I'm not keen on the flies etc it will attract, as it would have to be right beside gate/shelter
6. Use large builders bags for farmer to collect. I just don't think the farmer will do it often enough - I've been waiting 4 months for him to empty my muck heap

The other complication is that I will be replacing my trailer with a lorry soon, and not sure my 4x4 will get through another MOT. I'm considering replacing it with a quad, but that isn't decided yet.

Basically I can't get my head round how to do this, and every option seems to be expensive or impractical! What does everyone else do? Can anyone stop my head hurting :rolleyes:
 
If you can wait and get it removed annually there is bound to be a farmer near you who will collect it for cash.

I have more horses than you, but pay £50 twice a year for my muck heap to be removed. They need access and you need to keep it high and tidy!!
 
I've considered that, and in fact tried it. The problem is, it's back breaking manky work, and every time I do it, it literally makes me cry :(. I've even tried doing it daily into the back of the landrover, but as everything is so wet, the bags end up covered in mud, I end up covered in a nice mix of mud and muck, the landrover ends up covered in it...etc etc.

I'm basically trying to get the right balance between spending a not silly amount of money vs not becoming the thing that makes me hate having horses! I've been looking for a decently priced agri trailer for 3 years now, and the cheapest so far was £1500 :eek:
 
My local farmer will leave a big trailer for muck, then when it's full up come and take it away, leaving an empty one in it's place. It might be worth making some enquiries.
 
canteron said:
If you can wait and get it removed annually there is bound to be a farmer near you who will collect it for cash.

I have more horses than you, but pay £50 twice a year for my muck heap to be removed. They need access and you need to keep it high and tidy!!
Click to expand...

I have a farmer who takes me muckheap away a couple of times a year already. It's not the muckheap that's the problem - it's getting the muck TO the muckheap in the first place! The man that owns my field would have a fit if I left 6 months of muck piled up. Also there is a stream that runs right alongside my field, so I don't think I could leave my muck on the ground in the field anyway.
 
Tinypony said:
My local farmer will leave a big trailer for muck, then when it's full up come and take it away, leaving an empty one in it's place. It might be worth making some enquiries.
Click to expand...

Really? He lets you use his trailer, basically permanently, for free?! That's amazing :) My friendly farmer has left it before, when I've had a specifically manky mucking out job (when we had all the snow, I gave up skipping out the shelter, hence it needed a big clear out); but that was only for a day or two. He didn't charge me, but he needs his trailer so I don't think I'd feel right asking him if he'd lend it to me permanently!
 
If you get a quadbike,AGRIFAB do a small tipper trailer for quads. Mine was about £170.....Quadbike a little more,but there are some good second hand ones around.
Its probably better not to leave the trailer where the horses can get at it,but the quad+trailer thing is so quick and easy(and fun:D) that you will probably do it everytime you poo pick...and its a great way to carry hay to the field!
 
Ah ok just had a look on ebay. They do look good, the main problem is that I need to tow it on a road (need a road-legal quad) and i think that means the trailer has to have brakes and lights?

I might have to go and investigate that option further though, thank you :)
 
Tinypony said:
My local farmer will leave a big trailer for muck, then when it's full up come and take it away, leaving an empty one in it's place. It might be worth making some enquiries.
Click to expand...

I was just going to suggest this. G is so approachable and lovely and if he had one spare I am sure he would do it. He is lovely. Nip round with a bottle of Vino (they are partial to this and chocolate). :D
 
LOL we borrowed his fence post driver to make M's paddock (which you may have noticed we still have :D ) and gave him a bottle as a thank you! I need to get back in touch to chase him up about my muck heap, so can certainly sound him out. I just feel a bit cheeky, but I guess if he only uses it sporadically he might be ok with it!

By the way, seeing your name come up I've just remembered I owe you money for the last few times you fed M. I'll leave it in the usual place for you to swing by and collect whenever you want. I'd forgotten in the haze I was in after she went :(.
 
Artificial fertiliser is about £350 a tonne at the moment. I'll be around with the tractor in the morning!:D

But, seriously, put it in builders' bags and stick an advert "free to collect" in the local free ads paper. Someone will take it. Mine is heaped and put back on the fields when it has rotted down -- and a very good fertiliser it is to!
 
My daughter used to ride a Sec A that was kept with a TB - so similar amount of poo. Lady there bags it up in feed bags (she is v good and poo picks twice daily, into a feedbag in a wheelbarrow), and leaves the bags by the gate. About every 3 weeks or so an oldish chap comes with a car and trailer and takes all the bags for his gardening business/allotments.

Try asking gardening people, you might find a regular outlet
 
Another vote for selling it! Put it into old fertilizer/feed/bedding bags and stack it by the road for people to pick up. Either have an honesty box (but collect the £ each evening) or just get people to take it for free. Do you have allotments near you - see if you can pop down there one day to see if people would like it. Esp at this time of year I expect they would be wanting to dig a load in to land resting over winter.
Places round here sell it for £2.50 per feed bag, I couldn't believe the price!!
 
Have you considered harrowing - your horse is grazing in a large area so it is perfectly safe to just harrow. You already pick up after the shetland and his/her contribution won't be much.

Harrowing puts fibre back into the soil and also some nutrients. You certainly won't make the pasture horse sick.

I collect mine in a laundry basket on a rope with a rubber glove and a dustpan - I drag the basket around. At one place I grazed at I was allowed to tip dung into the fence line under the trees.
 
One field I use is about 1/2 a mile away from my muckheap, it is also up hill to the muckheap so it is totally impossible to do with a barrow even a big one as it's back breaking (I HATE poo picking anyway but only tried doing that field once with a barrow - like you I was literally in tears afterwards).

I bought a quad to do it on earlier this year and it is sooo much better now, sometimes I harrow the poo in (with a small harrow I bought on ebay) if I am going to rest it afterwards and sometimes I take a small trailer down (which cost about £100 from an agricultural place) and poo pick into that and zoom up and down the lane. I didn't realise that the trailer needed to have lights etc, whoops but my lane is very quiet and I have never had a problem yet, the quad is road legal though.
 
I think the easiest option is to get a little trailer for the quad or 4x4. fill a trug or trugs place in trailer and take to house daily. or you could maybe tie a trug onto the quad and so save the trailer expense. is the field hedged? I chuck most of my muck under the hedge rows as I go along poo-picking.
ETA I find one of those menage poo-pickers fantastic for poo-picking. [those scoop things with a handle and little rake thingy.]
 
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I don't have a muck heap at all. I have a 4 acre field which is split into sections, and I use a section during the winter to muck out onto and then harrow it in and leave it to rest before the horses go onto it.

I tried having a muck heap but the ground gets so wet even my 4wd quad couldn't get to it after a couple of weeks!
 
Easiest solution is to buy an agricultural tipping trailer and put the poos straight in it and then get your local farmer to empty it when full. Make sure that the escape end flap of the trailer is hung very high so that when you are tipping that even if the dung is piled high it can be tipped. We use Easterby trailers to manufacutre the tipping trailers that we use.
 
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