Cow manure delivery

[rary]

AP the ones that I have used had six tines on it, though a lot of them had been made by a local blacksmith, sadly gone now, it also had a different name, but can't put it on the forum

[nickdub]

Of course farmers are working on a different scale but even if the muck heap is 9 ft tall, the top 3 ft doesn't get discarded because it has got wet. The wet doesn't take anything away. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make about the weight. The whole heap isn't going to be moved at once. It will be one forkful after another into a barrow and when the barrow is full, the barrow is full but it will still be possible to wheel the load around the garden to where it is needed. If one's muscles can't cope, there are two remedies. The first is to get a smaller barrow and the second and less expensive is not to fill it so full .

I also read a lot of gardening books and I may not agree with a lot of what is written in them but it is easier if up to date books are used as reference .

I'm making a couple of points a) if one heap is 3' tall and another 6 then the smaller heap will get roughly twice as wet per forkful because of the surface area to volume ratio b) if you have manure delivered its rarely dumped on your garden, so usually you have to barrow it to where you want it . In my case that means a roughly 100 yd trip for each load, so if each barrow is a third heavier I'd rather keep it dry for a few minutes putting a tarp on it.


I'm not trying to dictate how others garden, just saying what I think from about 40 years experience. To my mind the less strain you put on your back when you are young, the less aches and pains you'll have in it when you get old :-)

[Aberdeenplotter]

AP the ones that I have used had six tines on it, though a lot of them had been made by a local blacksmith, sadly gone now, it also had a different name, but can't put it on the forum

Rary, I've only used 4 tined ones but since I was a wee lad helping muck out the cattle in the byre of my Gran's farm. To get the beasts to move their feet to clear the soiled straw beneath them, I was taught to carefully place the outside tine gently on the beasts leg just above the hoof. The beast just moved it's foot out of the way. Never ceased to amaze me.

I was never fussy about the graip I used but my late uncle discarded a new one bought for him when the tines of his using one had worn down. The tines of the new one were too thick and the tool was too heavy and cumbersome. I inherited it 40 years later. It is heavy and cumbersome but I like it

[Aberdeenplotter]

I'm making a couple of points a) if one heap is 3' tall and another 6 then the smaller heap will get roughly twice as wet per forkful because of the surface area to volume ratio b) if you have manure delivered its rarely dumped on your garden, so usually you have to barrow it to where you want it . In my case that means a roughly 100 yd trip for each load, so if each barrow is a third heavier I'd rather keep it dry for a few minutes putting a tarp on it.


I'm not trying to dictate how others garden, just saying what I think from about 40 years experience. To my mind the less strain you put on your back when you are young, the less aches and pains you'll have in it when you get old :-)

Nick, the OP's question was " It's become very difficult to shift being so wet but besides this I was wondering whether there's any other reason to cover the heap while it sits ?"

She also said. "Hi everyone, I've had a delivery of cow manure which is sitting outside in a heap waiting to be spread" She hasn't said it's waiting outside waiting to be barrowed in to the garden which is a completely different issue.

I have addressed the question she raised whereas you have addressed another hypothetical situation.

I will not be commenting further.

[SarrissUK]

We used to have a fork with only two, slightly bent tines for gathering up loose hay, and for the bales and they were very light, tines very thin.



We used to call them "tjuga" or "högafflar" (literally means hay forks), but interestingly they can also be called a "grep", similar to greip and similar pronunciation too - I wonder if that's something that came here with the vikings?

[Nicos]

^^snap!
We called them pickles . As in pie-kl

Nice and light!

[Aberdeenplotter]

We used to have a fork with only two, slightly bent tines for gathering up loose hay, and for the bales and they were very light, tines very thin.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]84529[/ATTACH]

We used to call them "tjuga" or "högafflar" (literally means hay forks), but interestingly they can also be called a "grep", similar to greip and similar pronunciation too - I wonder if that's something that came here with the vikings?

Pitch forks

[4Shoes]

I would have called it a muck graip but that's maybe just down to the local vernacular. But in essence a graip used for working with muck.. Unlike an ordinary garden fork, it will have curved round tapered tines

https://www.fanevalleystores.com/pro...t-handle-graip

Aye it is a much lighter form of fork for Cattle Manure. The 5,6,7 tine forks used for Horses. You also get an almost 90 deg curved fork for pulling muck off the back of a waggon/trailer.

https://equestrianco.com/products/fy...ant=9465992453

[4Shoes]

Pitch forks

Funny that... I've also got one of them - left in the byre - except it has a thick shaft for pitching "Small Bales" of straw. Could you imagine asking people to do that these days

The lighter fork shaft was for tossing sheaves

[4Shoes]

Rary, I've only used 4 tined ones but since I was a wee lad helping muck out the cattle in the byre of my Gran's farm. To get the beasts to move their feet to clear the soiled straw beneath them, I was taught to carefully place the outside tine gently on the beasts leg just above the hoof. The beast just moved it's foot out of the way. Never ceased to amaze me.

I was never fussy about the graip I used but my late uncle discarded a new one bought for him when the tines of his using one had worn down. The tines of the new one were too thick and the tool was too heavy and cumbersome. I inherited it 40 years later. It is heavy and cumbersome but I like it

Quite right. The Shaft length and weight of the fork can make a easy job a thankless back breaking task.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Aye it is a much lighter form of fork for Cattle Manure. The 5,6,7 tine forks used for Horses. You also get an almost 90 deg curved fork for pulling muck off the back of a waggon/trailer.

https://equestrianco.com/products/fy...ant=9465992453

We call that one a drag up here

[Snadger]

Tattie lifting fork here.

[veggiechicken]

I have addressed the question she raised whereas you have addressed another hypothetical situation.

I will not be commenting further.

...........except to talk about different types of agricultural implements.

I thought I was the Tangentiser around here.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Excuse me miss <puts hand up as I used to do in school> It wasn't me who tangentised, I have only reacted to the original tangentiser and following comments

[Aberdeenplotter]

Tattie lifting fork here.

Snadge, The link indeed shows a fork similar to what I would have called a tattie graip except that a tattie grape would have had metal grape shapes on the end of each tine to prevent the spuds being speared, Btw, I wasn't saying I called that type of graip a drag, I was referring to the one with the right angled tines.