Did you know that a single horse manures as much as 20kg a day, or 140kg a week? Much as we love our four-legged friends, they certainly make us work hard picking up after them While a lot of people continue to the slave after their horses with a rake and wheelbarrow, more and more horse-owners are investing in a paddock cleaner to collect the manure for them, saving their spare time, their backs, and ultimately their bank accounts.
There are a few different tools to make paddock cleaning easy, but the easiest and most cost-effective cleaner is a towable manure collector called the Paddock Blade. This is a steel tray with a universal tow loop so that it can be towed behind a car, ATV, or ride-on mower. It has been specially designed to collect manure while being towed, at the same time coping with the rough and uneven ground of a horse paddock.
How is a paddock cleaner used?
The Paddock Blade paddock cleaner holds about 3 times as much as your large, 100L wheelbarrow, so depending on the size of your paddocks, you don’t have to head out there nearly as often. When it is time to clean your paddock, all you need to do is pop the tow loop around the tow ball of your vehicle, tow the Paddock Blade around your paddock until you’ve collected all the manure, and then empty it by tipping the Paddock Blade tray onto your muck heap (or shoveling it out if you prefer).
When you take the Paddock Blade between paddocks, you can tow it more easily over different surfaces by putting it in ‘trailer mode’ – switching it around to tow in reverse. It’s always a good idea to store a Paddock Blade in a shed to keep it protected, but other than that, no maintenance work is needed. It really is the definition of paddock cleaning made easy!
Does a paddock cleaner only collect horse manure?
They might be known as a paddock cleaner for horses, but it turns out Paddock Blades can be used for much more. While people use them for cleaning up after other livestock like sheep and cattle, they have also been known to use them outside the paddock altogether. If your clean-up requirements extend beyond horse pasture cleaning, these are some of the other things people use Paddock Blades for:
- Collecting sheep and alpaca poo
- Collecting cow manure
- Clearing vineyards
- Clearing orchards
- Collecting golf balls
Towing hay bales and other heavy items in ‘trailer mode’ (towing the Paddock Blade in reverse)
Where do I buy a paddock cleaner?
If you think you’d like to spend less time shoveling and more time riding, it might be time to invest in a Paddock Blade. The easiest place to find one is on the website, or by emailing hello@paddockblade.com.au. Because they are shipped all over Australia and internationally, it doesn’t matter where you are based to have easy-to-maintain pastures.
