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Vera
Membership Moderator
 United Kingdom
8652 Posts |
 Posted - 17 Feb 2007 : 10:57:00 PM
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What does yours look like? Do you keep it tidy or not?
An old fashioned horseman once told me that you could tell everything about a yard and the way the look after their horses by their manure heap. Whilst I know this isn't strictly true it is something I have never forgotten.
As I only have 5 horses at my yard I find looking after the heap quite easy. I make banks using straw and put the rest in the middle. It is longish with a ramp so the heap is constatly being walked on to compact it. Every 4 years I get rid of the whole thing and start again. As Dennis has been on box rest for 7 months I think I may have to get rid of it after 3 this time!
So here it is
What's your like?
Vera and Dennis
Expecting the men in white coats any minute......... 
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Hampshire |
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Fee
Platinum Member
2601 Posts |
Posted - 17 Feb 2007 : 11:00:15 PM
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Wow! So neat! Never thought I would EVER say this, but that's a nice manure heap 
We have 10 liveries and the heap is a mess 
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NPA Arabians
Moderator
United Kingdom
2980 Posts |
Posted - 17 Feb 2007 : 11:09:17 PM
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We tip into a speader and spread on the "unused" fields every week! where does that put us in the "ASSESSING" yards scheme?
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Jayne Armstrong - NPA Arabians
:-) :-) :-) :-) |
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Vera
Membership Moderator
United Kingdom
8652 Posts |
Posted - 17 Feb 2007 : 11:09:31 PM
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My heap is neat and my yard tidy but my house, well its tidyish and cleanish but lets not go there shall we!
Vera and Dennis |
Hampshire |
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Deboniks
Platinum Member
England
3776 Posts |
Posted - 17 Feb 2007 : 11:26:42 PM
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I admit I spend more time doing everything else than the heapI'm lucky there is loads of room where I am and it's taken away regulary. It's sort of the same shape as yours but without the hanging baskets
I've seen Vera's heap and you couldn't get it any neater even if you used a ruler |
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Lori
Platinum Member
England
1829 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 12:04:57 AM
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No lets not talk about manure heaps!!! Lol XX
At our yard we have a muck truck that isn't emptied regularly enough and today when i had eight to muck out, guess what, yes it was full and YO was not around to empty it!! 
This means a trek down the fields to the manure heap, when you have a few barrows full it gets beyond a joke believe me!!!! 
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Lancashire |
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Zoe Tyzack
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4047 Posts |
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Grey Girl
Platinum Member
England
1554 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 11:46:51 AM
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Ours is the farm slurry muck heap so it looks a bit revolting at the best of times. I don't use it much cos Amelia is out but when I tip the poo collection in I do try and shove the wheelbarrow as far in a possible. It gets tractored out fairly often.
Best part was a few years back during a hot patch of summer when someone came to try a ride on someone's horse, thought they'd take a short cut back to their car by running over the muck heap (daft thing to do anyway!) - and didn't realise that what was an apparantly a patch of grass in the middle was really the top of the slurry runoff... hee hee, she sank and emerged looking like the Swamp Monster! Well, ok, it could have been quite serious but even she was laughing as we hosed her down. She didn't half ponk though! |
 Said the little eohippus, "I´m going to be a HORSE"  |
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heatherr
Platinum Member
England
1882 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 3:07:34 PM
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| It's great exercise and a good way to keep warm, keeping a muck heap tidy 20+ full liveries and 10 DIY's make for a big heap! Ours gets taken and spead on fields every 6 months or so |
Heather 
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Lanabanana
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
2691 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 3:22:05 PM
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LOL Grey Girl
It reminded me of when we were kids, our friend's pony was kept at her Aunt's pig farm, it had a slurry ditch running round the outside of the pig pens. In the Summer it used to get a hard dried crust on top and we used to have competitions to see who could walk the farthest on top of the crust before falling in (it wasn't deep) our Mum must have loved doing our washing
I love a nice tidy muck heap, just a shame ours isn't. |
     
Hampshire. |
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jaybird
Gold Member
France
1192 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 3:23:35 PM
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Hi
Mines about 500 steps away from the barn hid behind oak trees, I do this as I have guests staying and it's not something that I want on view, I keep it very tidy and packed down, then every Autumn it's spread around all the shrubs and flower beds, veg patches and anything else that needs a feed, all friends are welcome to take some for thier veggies, so it's delt with on an annual basis, and so far working fine.
B (France)
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Sarah L
Silver Member
England
408 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 4:37:13 PM
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I used to help out at my local RDA and the worst job you could be givenwas to tidy up the muck heap bearing in mind they had around 30 horses.
A few of us Saturday Volunteers would go and do it but have poo fights at the same time.....the mess we used to get in was disgusting and more often than not my dad would refuse to let me in his car when he picked me up until I had been hosed down!!!
It sounds absolutely vile now but we were only 14 or 15 at the time!! |
Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and spurs excite me! |
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Pashon2001
Platinum Member
3575 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 5:43:39 PM
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| Yikes my muck heap would be the size of Everest after 4 years!!!!!!!!!! No matter how tidy I kept it lol!!! Mind you I do have 25 not 5 horses, I just push mine up with a tractor, maybe not terribly neat but stops it spilling out all over the yard, its taken away regular anyways. |
     
www.jarvastud.com http://hocon.webs.com/ |
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Honeyb060674
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4301 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 6:12:11 PM
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| Cor Vera I have to say thats one seriously impressive pile of poo! Ours is 'contained' in a big trailer, but as soon liveries think its beneath them to chuck it back, it develops a life of it own! YO has it moved at least once a week god knows what would hapen if it had to be left Ponies would be buried under tonnes of their own poop! |
      
Claire & Sunny x
http://sunnyandclaire.blogspot.com/ |
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Judith S
Platinum Member
Wales
15686 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 6:49:54 PM
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| Vera - your heap is a thing of beauty! Mine isn't........thats all I will say! |
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arabic
Platinum Member
England
4562 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 6:50:38 PM
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| Ours is ok - ish but doesn't come close to yours Vera!! |
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Timberwolf
Gold Member
England
726 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 7:43:26 PM
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Hi Vera,
WOW your muck heap is a work of art, it looks like a nice oval menage!! Mine is so tiny this year so I have to keep it tidy and me and my daughter do a dance we call the Muck heap stomp most days which is ammusing, we have a barn conversion going on next door and all the builders think we're nuts. As I only have the two I dont need it to be as big as yours.
Jackie. x |
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Lindsay
Gold Member
Scotland
944 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 8:02:18 PM
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| I'm SO jealous. I'm in the process of trying to sort out the muck heap at the yard but have to do it by hand. I'll look like Arnie by the end of it. Oh well at least I'll be fit. |
   
Paidir dóibhsean le fiántas ina gcroíthe acu, atá coinnithe i gcaighin |
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Rach1
Gold Member
England
735 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 8:27:06 PM
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| Vera your muck heap should be in the Tate Gallery! you'd deffo win a prize!!! I put the straw beds on a trailer that gets emptied a couple of times a week on a huge pile about the size of 3 single decker busses and the shavings get put in bags and put down by the road (about 20 a day) and the "poo fairies" come and take it away!!! It's so bizarre they come within the hours of darkness and by the morning all the bags are gone. Honestly it really is unbelievable what people will take for free!!!! |
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Big Mover
Gold Member
United Kingdom
999 Posts |
Posted - 18 Feb 2007 : 9:43:53 PM
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Hey Vera
Your muck heap is a work of Art, i am lucky because our small holding has a HUGE muck heap pilled really high (with the help of my fiance's excavator) it rots down for around a year and then we spread it. It resembled (spelling) the Derby Bank last year ha ha. Had a good half it spread last year so its small ish at the moment. I throw it the poo up the heap as best I can but after mucking out my four and the farmers two eveyday my strength gets a bit weery by the last barrow ha ha. \Thank god for Excavators they make it compact and neat every few months ha ha.
Sarah |
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Ady
Bronze Member
England
161 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2007 : 08:34:01 AM
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Hi Vera
Yes that is a real neat muck heap, but not the most amazing I've ever seen. We used to share a yard with a lady who probable spent half her time sculpturing the heap at one time I thought the Incas had moved in, having become a step pyramid. Think she probable would of won muck heap of the year or Britain prettiest muck heap award.
Now we are just lazy and pile it up until its taken away which is on average every 3 months. |
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