Beth Glover wrote:
>Okay you fascinating people out there in snowy America.
>What do you do with the manure when it is twenty below?
>Does it freeze into lethal rock hard hockey pucks and roll
>all over the ice? Of course it wouldn't smell, but I
wonder....
Why do you wonder about this subject during this holiday season?
I guess non of us horse owners can escape the manure issue.
Here in Northern Vermont it freezes rock hard, enough to break the
shear pin in my snowblower, Other than that, the snowblower
makes
an excellent manure spreader. I do have the problem explaining
to
summer visitors how some of the stuff got so high in the evergreen
trees. Someone suggested that I explain that Pegasus
occasionally
visits Meshack.
It is much easier to separate from the wood chips when frozen hard.
Interestingly enough, my Arab has free run and does not poop
much
in his stall during the winter. I suspect that he does not enjoy
sleeping
on oversize golf balls.
When he poops on the snow and ice, it melts the surface then freezes
solid. It is really tough to pry loose. I use a steel manure
fork, then pile
it up for the spring thaw.
So what else do you want to discuss? Have you ever lived
downwind
of a dairy farmer who spreads his winter accumulation of cow manure
on the first nice spring day? Vermont is not quite perfect but close
to it.
I