Anyone have any experience with mechanical poo pickers? sweeper or vaccum? how much do you think the sweepers increase grass sickness risk? any other unexpected risks?
Poo pickers
- Thread starter Jessey
- Start date
Ooh one of the places I worked in New Zealand had a poo-picking vacuum which I used to pull with a quadbike. I could muck out 4 paddocks (2 horses per paddock) and the big field (4 horses) in around 2 hours, it was great! You can't use it on a steep hill as it will just topple over but slight hills were fine as long as I drove up and down the slope rather than along it. The toughest bit was emptying it onto the muck heap when it was full - did break a bit of a sweat shovelling it all out!
The poo hoover looks good. YO got one of the sweeper variety last year but found it only worked on very level ground and short grass. As most of the horses seem to poo in patches and the grass grows longer there because they don't eat where they poo, it turned out to be not so very useful and she sold it on.
I had one and sold it, useless on anything other than very level fields. Can turn over quite easily. Keep jamming all the time and doesn't save any time as you have to hoover up the poo and then what to do with it? We have a trailer to take it away, you can't unload into so you have to just dump it in a big heap and then you need machinery to move it etc. so until they develop one where you can reverse the suction and throw the stuff out where you want it, it only works on big yards where they have machinery to shove and handle the heaps it creates. I have found using my 4 x 4 with a long standard trailer and skips and bags is more efficient, I can fill the skips and bags, drive the car down to the muck trailer or garden and tip them straight in where they need to go.
My old vet had one and loved hers. I have read in some of the horsey mags that they can increase the grass sickness risk, but I suppose it will depend on your area and the incidence of the disease?
newrider.com