What does your muckheap look like?

[Ravenwood]

Do you pyramid it or do you plateau it or what shape is it and what do you think is the most effective shape?

The last couple of weeks I turned mine (shavings by the way) into a plateau and just keep forking it up straight from the wheelbarrow and then get onto the top and tread it in flat every now and then.

At a yard near me they dig a spiral from bottom to top and wheel the barrow up as far as possible and tip.

I really hope that one day a nice friendly farmer will come and take a bucketload away!

 

[Jemayni]

Ours is more of a cliff, the groound is dug away, so you just tip you muck over the edge!

 

[lisaward]

don't have one as horses out 24/7 but my old riding instructor always taught me "you can tell a good yard from it's muck heap" and i am always fanatical about them since.

she always had hers in layers/tiers and we'd have to walk it flat.

 

[fizz-tally]

we just dump it & the farmer scoops it all up into a big heap

 

[Frankstown]

i was told the same as horsenut, so I have a tidy plateau,

I get mad when the hens come and scratch it up

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

We don't have one really, the barrows go up a ramp & we offload into a large trailer & it gets taken away when full (every other day). It gets dumped in a field & a farmer uses it on his fields.

 

[Christmas_Kate]

Just tip it into a pile and my dad scoops it up with the JCB and tips it onto the field . i sometimes have a go at tidying it up a bit but always lose heart....

 

[Ravenwood]

I wish I had someone to take my muckheap away!

 

[Torryvald]

We have meet some local organic gardeners. They have a poly tunnel and our desperate for our poo!! How lucky is that!!? They are even grateful and will give us veggies in return!! Maybe put up a notice locally.........

 

[SpruceRI]

Sell it! Mine's straw which rots really quickly. Gardeners love it.

 

[Bosworth]

- mine used to be taken by an organic place and they never asked what the horses were on drug wise. I love the idea of organic gardeners taking away horse poo - but to be honest will never buy organic food as that horse muck has wormers, flue and tet, antibiotics, steroids and anything else we feed our horses in it.

We have concrete bays and have bought in a whol eload of worms so ours break down to the most amazing compost that the local gardeners take away with glee.

We are just starting to make muck bricks as well as they are apparantly brilliant on the wood burning stoves when dry. Burn for far longer than well seasond wood. Then the ash can be used on the veg patch

 

[hairycob]

How do you make muck bricks? We have woodburner so could be useful.

 

[WelshRareBit]

Ours atm is a mess lol. Apparently gardeners prefer straw to shavings

 

[showjump2003]

Mine's just dumped at the bottom of a field in a heap then every now and again my dads best friend comes up with a tractor and trailer and takes huge amounts

 

[Bosworth]

we have some wood moulds - sort of loaf shaped, just put in raw poo press down hard, Leave for a couple of weeks until nearly dry then tip out and stack to finish drying - you need to paint the inside with grease so they just drop out. We have just made a couple of dozen - now in process of drying so see how it works. But seen some sweriously good articles about how it is far better heat and burns longer than seasoned wood, and the ash is seriously good fertisliser

 

[catembi]

My muckheap has gone mental & is prob the only manmade object visible from space...

 

[Enfys]

I seriously can't find mine

It's buried under about 5' of snow drift, it was a square with a ramp dug in at the back. After years of sharing muckheaps with people who didn't fork it forwards or tread it down it's bliss to be King of my own Castle and do what I want with it.

 

[riotgirl]

Ours is layered and we flatten it once a week to compress it even more.

 

[Thunder]

Oh the memories

Where I used to work we held courses in the holidays for children to ride and learn to care for the horses (ie [****] shovel for 4 days!)

The sight of a dozen children all jumping up and down valiantly on the muck heap (by now compressed to the density of lead) and the sound of their parents howls of disgust having to transport them in the car at the end of the day.... Oh, those were the days....

Mine at the mo is a heap, I do try and fork it up and back and get it neat, but the farmer just appears and either sets fire to it or takes it away in a trailer.

 

[SpaceMolly]

We step ours!

 

[Chex]

I chuck the muck into the cows bed, but at my old yard there was a proper muck heap that was stepped, with a ramp leading up to the layers.

 

[spooks]

ours is currently chucked onto a trailer which i always end up sorting out, i usually layer it or step it as its emptied once a fortnight..in the summer each field has a muckheap which is cleared fairly reguarly

 

[JustKickOn]

riding shcool i go to do a sort of sloping hill thingy, and start off at the back and then tread it down and gradually built it up, farmer takes it awya every couple of months. they can't have it too big though as health and safety issues or something like that

 

[Hannahbone]

We've got a trailer that takes ours away for us! woo! its a sausage when its full and the farmer aint coming for a while!

 

[hairycob]

Sounds interesting. I shall try & make some moulds to give it a go.

 

[ru-fi-do]

We tip ours over an edge onto lower ground that has railway sleepers about 7ft high around it then in spring time the farmer comes and takes it all away. At my old stables we used to have a Very neat muckheap that was like steps and we used to tread it down everyday.

 

[jcberry]

like this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAdbTuvp-s

 

[paintsplat05]

ours is a muck trailer-we just fork it back and tread it down as much as possible then every week it gets taken away.

 

[vickers22]

[ QUOTE ]
we just dump it & the farmer scoops it all up into a big heap

[/ QUOTE ]
but ours only gets done every week or so and it just makes a big piled up mess, or sometimes stretches really far out as some people just cant be bothered to put it on top they just dump it on the ground next to it, so it just gets into a mile of muck....those people are so annoying!

 

[Ravenwood]

I have never heard of the fuel moulds before - would be very interested in more information on this - can anyone provide a link to a website on it?