Author Topic: Poo picking? (Read 5115 times)

SallyintNorth · « **on:** October 28, 2016, 09:29:50 pm »

I've never done it.

But, now we're in Cornwall, the grass is too good fer me natives, so they're in a much smaller field and will be getting non-grazing exercise.

There's quite a lot of poo already....

And we grow vegetables here, compost on a fairly grand scale, so there's a good use for the picked poo.

But, before I start on it, can folks please fill me in on the why's and wherefores of it?

CarolineJ · « **Reply #1 on:** October 29, 2016, 05:44:11 am »

It'll help keep the worm burden down (although if you're cross-grazing with other animals that'll help too) and stop the grass souring - mine are reluctant to eat anything a few inches around a pile of poo that I've missed for a few days. On the minus side, you're not getting the nutrients from the digested grass going back into the ground if you're picking it up, though if it's currently too rich for them, that may not be a bad thing. Could you set up a track system for them for summer? I think that's going to be my last option before I have to resort to a muzzle for my Welsh D next year!

With one 14hh native and one 15.3hh Hungarian something, I'm doing about two wheelbarrow-loads a day. In summer, I am a very sad individual and poo count as a way to help keep an eye on their weight. Fewer than 13 poos between them in a 24-hour period and they need more grass or some hay, 13-18 they're in the weight-loss zone, 19-24 they'll maintain and 25 or more they'll gain. Peak poop count hit 36 this year the day they broke through the electric fencing into the ungrazed section of a new field overnight!

Buttermilk · « **Reply #2 on:** October 29, 2016, 07:39:33 am »

I count the piles too, I like to get 8-12 per animal although the donkey does more than the others as he likes to drop a pebble or two on top of everyone elses piles.

The main reason for doing it is to prevent getting the lawns and roughs through taint, then parasite control. As I have been grazing 5 all summer I use a quad bike and trailer, the muck heap is quite a distance from the field. I also have the bedding from the sheep when housed for lambing on the same heap and once rotted it is well mixed and gets spread on the hay fields. The sheep rotate round all the fields and I do not poo pick after them so some nutrition is getting replaced in the soil.

Penninehillbilly · « **Reply #3 on:** October 29, 2016, 10:46:06 am »

Quote from: CarolineJ on October 29, 2016, 05:44:11 am

Could you set up a track system for them for summer?
quote]
What's a track system Caroline?

Fleecewife · « **Reply #4 on:** October 29, 2016, 12:55:38 pm »

Horse dung - brilliant. Think of all those wonderful veggies and fruit you can grow with composted horse manure Sally

For anyone who thinks I'm being

, I'm absolutely not - FYM from horse dung is the best (as long as they've not been wormed with persistent chemicals)

landroverroy · « **Reply #5 on:** October 29, 2016, 03:52:30 pm »

I never do it because I have enough diverse animals and land to rotate the stock round. I have about 20 cattle and followers, 24 sheep, 8 donkeys, 1 mule and 1 cob pony. If I only had equines on limited land I would collect the manure to keep the parasites down and stop the land getting sour. Also horse manure normally takes a while to rot down. However, I find that I never get a build up of equine manure - I believe because there is always a rich supply of insects to break it down as they're present in large numbers to deal with the cattle and sheep droppings. When you collect the manure regularly you don't the same build up of dung beetles etc to break down what's left.

I would imagine Sally that you have enough animals to move them round so you don't need to pick up the horse droppings unless you actually want the manure.

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about the volume of grass this time of year as there's not that much goodness in it. I find my donkeys and mule are ok with autumn grass and they are even more prone to laminitis than native ponies.

CarolineJ · « **Reply #6 on:** October 29, 2016, 06:46:55 pm »

A track system is where you section off a track around the field rather than allowing them access to the whole field or strip grazing. The absolute ideal is to get it going over lots of different surfaces, so if you had the space, you might set one up that went round the outside of a field, down to your field shelter, over some hardstanding, through some trees. It encourages the horses to move more (the rehab people at Rockley Farm have an amazing one). If you do a Google image search for Paddock Paradise you'll get lots of layout suggestions.

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #7 on:** October 30, 2016, 12:58:48 am »

Thanks, everyone.

Yes, we do have other livestock - 2 Jersey cows and 2 Dexter cows (soon to be one), 5 calves, a heifer and a bullock (though he'll be away soon); 26 fleece sheep and 6 Zwartbles ewes plus 3 Zwartbles lambs for a few more weeks.

Thankfully, the ponies must both have learned about electric fence prior to coming to me, as both are fine with it, so we can section off smaller parts of fields for them as we need.

We were all out walking the farm yesterday, planning the tracks

. They're required for ease of moving livestock about without risking escapes into the holiday accommodation gardens, and will double as constricted grazing for the ponies in spring / early summer. Some of them will be used as dog walking routes around lambing areas, and so on, too.

I'm also currently shopping for a stable block / field shelter plus store (which we will site on a hard base) so I will be able to bring the ponies in for the daytimes and let them roam the tracks at night, should it be necessary.

The ground the ponies are on now is pretty covered in poo already, after only two weeks. I think I probably will need to pick for a while yet, even though we rotate, or we'll start to get wastage. There's about 18 acres of good grazing for all the stock I've listed, plus lambs (likely to be 15-20; we won't breed all the ewes every year) and the occasional batch of bought-in weaners. And we try to make most of our own hay. Once the grass is getting less as winter sets in, hopefully I'll be able to move the ponies around more - at present, I don't want them on the lovely fresh grass we have everywhere else!

The idea of counting dungs and correlating to gaining / losing condition is very interesting; thanks for that CarolineJ and Buttermilk

. They've arrived all geared up for a Cumbrian winter, and I really need them to lose quite a lot of condition over winter, so I'll use that trick to keep an eye on things from that end, too!

sabrina · « **Reply #8 on:** November 07, 2016, 07:24:05 am »

I do it in the paddocks which are near the stables as they can be used all year if we get a bad summer. I have 3 paddocks on the hill which I don't poo pick as pushing a barrow up and down there is a killer. I find by resting these paddocks for around 6 months of the year where no ponies are on it the birds break up the poo and the rain does the rest.

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #9 on:** November 25, 2016, 05:03:50 pm »

Turns out there's another reason for poo-picking, too - thrush.

Davy was not himself at all this morning, I actually feared colic initially. He was very reticent to move but then seemed lame. Picking his feet found nothing except impacted Cornish mud, one small stone which could have been the culprit, and one frog flap that I'd trim if I had the skill and confidence.

Picked out and walked about he was much improved, but not 100%. Reading up to see what I might not have thought of, I came across thrush. I hadn't really twigged they could get it in small, muddy, un-poo-picked paddocks... Where we were before, although it did get very muddy and I never picked poo, it was peat mud, which doesn't cling to surfaces, and they had loads of acres of extremely poor land to run about in. This is more clayey, they're on a much smaller area, and although I have been picking up I had got very behind due to the rainy weather we'd been having.

Went back later to get another couple of barrowloads; he's walking much more freely now but is not quite right.

Daily poo- and hoof-picking from now on, methinks. Plus will put them on cleaner grass for a few days while I get caught up in the field they've been in.

Must get some panniers for them - this barrowing poo across the site when I've got two strapping great Fell Ponies standing around is bonkers!