Rake Can a rake do this?

[farmboy12]

Ok, we have been looking at cattle for a while and been getting help on countrybynet.com, but want to know if a york style rake can rake dung into rows to make it easier to collect. Like angle the rake, and get closer in every pass. Do you know if they would perform this task? Has anyone tried this?


Kyle

 

[john_bud]

Never tried that trick, so you will have to try it and see. I think it would just bust it up and spread it fine. Who knows? Give it a whirl and let us know.

jb

 

[farmboy12]

We don't have cattle yet, so can't try it. Maybe somebody else has. But if you put it just above/barely resting on the ground it might work. Hope someone tries it b/c the cattle deal may not follow through, but I still want to know the answer.


Kyle

 

[dirtworksequip]

You might be able to rake frozen cow chips into a windrow or pile with a landscape rake, but I doubt it will work that well on fresh stuff.

Sincerely, Dirt

 

[farmboy12]

Yeah, it probably wouldn't work. But I was thinking, maybe breaking it up would be good. Being able to fertilize, but without the clumps of "what did I just step in" lying around. If we were to take it out, we wouldn't spread, but compost, that's why I wanted to rake them. Any input on someone who has tried it please let us know! Thanks!


Kyle

 

[ToadHill]

Look at a chain link drag, it should do the trick for you.

 

[farmboy12]

Look at a chain link drag, it should do the trick for you.

As I said, I do not want to break up clumps. I want to put them in a row to make it easier for clean up. Now that I thought about it, instead of fertilizer in the garden, if I break it up, I'll fertilize the pasture.


Kyle

 

[amashinga]

You know that cattle dung was used as a flooring material in a traditional African adobe hut ?. Why is that relevant ?. Because you are talking about a substance that varies in consistency from soft and mushy to hard and round, so raking it will be tough.

 

[KHNewman]

probably tough to do if it is mushy but at the least you would need gauge wheels to not collect a huge pile of dirt along with the cow patties...

 

[bjcsc]

I use my rake to windrow horse manure and move into compost piles. It works great. You'll want to angle it all the way to get it to move along the rake. I don't see any reason it wouldn't work for cow...

 

[farmboy12]

Cool, maybe we should take the rake to a ranchers house and try it out. By the way, I recently became a member of countrybynet, and they have less members, but give just as good info as TBN if anybody has thought abouat a membership...


Kyle

 

[RobJ]

Your gonna have to stick you finger in the piles to test first. Warm and steamy...to fresh, scabbed over on top but a soft middle, not yet. Can't put a finger in...just right.

You just have to keep the cows from stepping on them and messing them up. During this time of year...even down here, the piles are all around the food source.

 

[GinNB]

You know that cattle dung was used as a flooring material in a traditional African adobe hut ?. Why is that relevant ?

Inspired choice! No need to sweep, because everything you drop is cleaner than the floor! Wish I'd thought of it!

 

[53gravely]

I spent my summers as a kid around a dairy farm. Cows#$!, is mushy when new, gets a crust over it when the sun gets on it a couple days but it's still mushy at the core. By the time it becomes "just crust" it's a month old and two thirds of it has returned to the soil.

A rake would just tear up good grass and make more of a muddy mess of your grazing area without moving the mush very far. It might handle horse apples in a riding ring but not cowship.

If you have a feedwagon in the pasture, cattle will congregate around it and that area WILL be a sea of mud and doo-dee.

You clean out the drops in a dairy barn and use a tractor bucket to clean a barn yard but if you're worried about cow crap in your pasture, either you have too many cattle per acre or you should think about another kind of pet.

 

[Reg]

Horse manure ? Yes.
Cow flops ? I doubt it.
Just too much mass, too flat, wet and spread out.

Horse manure rakes because it is mostly round balls that just roll.
Even horse manure gets hard to rake once it freezes and it does freeze and stick to the ground.

 

[farmboy12]

Yea, I guess it ain't happening...


Kyle

 

[groundcover]

I have seen a lot of old loader tires cut to muck barns but that is on concrete,not sure that helps, Advanced Comfort Technology, Inc. - Manure & Feed Alley Scrapers

 

[farmboy12]

Thanks. It looks cool, but as said, it will probably spread out wet pies as well as it might hurt grass. Thanks for the link though!


Kyle