Manure

With many of the calves out of the feed yard, it's time to clean it up. How do you clean a feed yard? I admit this is a subject I never even considered until I moved out here. It's a fairly simple process to clean. A loader is used to scoop up the manure into big piles. When the manure spreader truck is ready, the loader fills it, and then the truck takes the manure out to the fields for fertilizer.

Here's a pile in another corral. Although it might look like a lot, it's not very concentrated in nutrients, so it can take several corrals' worth to fertilize one pivot.

This is the manure spreader truck. It has extra tall sides so it can hold more.

Along the bottom is a conveyor-belt type of contraption that slowly moves the manure out of the truck and onto the field.
The manure spreader is not a new concept by any means. Hidden in the sagebrush is an old manure spreader. This one was pulled by a horse.

The concept was still the same, though, and on the right hand side of the wagon you can see the old chain used to slide the manure out of the wagon at a steady speed.

I always try to get some of the manure for my garden--the older stuff doesn't have quite the potent odor but still helps things grow.