Barn Cleaning

This past week of 60 and 70 degree days has lent itself well to getting the bull pen barn and my show barn mucked out.

For those who have followed my stories for a time remember that muck stands for mud + yuck, only there is not much mud at all when cleaning the barns as it is a very high percentage of yuck. It is messy, and at times really stinky, but it is a job that needs to be done. Poop is a natural by-product of our cattle eating so well, it is a valuable by-product. We use the poop/muck to add nitrogen and other goodies back into our soils around the farm.

Mike is in charge of running the tractor with the front-load bucket to scoop huge piles and dumping them into a honey wagon/manure spreader.

When the spreader is full he drives it up the road with a different tractor. As he goes around the field, the manure is conveyed to the back of the spreader where whirling tines fling it into bits and scatter it through the field. We only distribute the manure onto fields that will not be in use for a couple of months so the waste can breakdown into nutrients and soak back into the soil before we use the grass as grazing or feed for the cattle.

With the main fields already prepared for the grass-growing hay cycle, Mike spread the manure in a small upper field used only for grazing and will keep the cows out until the manure is all dispersed into the soil.

Barn cleaning is a full day chore since the spreading field is so far away from our barns that need mucked out. Later on in the year we will have to get into the barn across the river where Pente and her twins are currently housed but that barn is not nearly as wet or full of muck. We will hold off cleaning this barn until summer or fall because it is not used for the main herd except when transferring some of the herd, or when giving ear tags to the new calves or using for a nursery/hospital.

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