Q&A: Tough Manure & Serious Ground Work

The answer… great, great. No, this is, this actually something that we get all the time because there are so many different bedding options for your stalls, for your horses, for your, for your cattle. And we deal with all kinds of bedding around here when it comes to manure spreaders. And actually, perfect timing on this question. It was actually last week, I took a little ABI field trip. We were out to a local, some local friends here around the corner that have just an eight stall barn.

They spread with, or they bed their stalls with sawdust, and they’ve got a little, a little tiny manure spreader, just a little guy. And it’s not one of ours, and that’s okay, totally fine. But we noticed, we took the time to take a look at the spreader, that it has kind of these rectangular shaped paddles to kick what’s in the manure spreader, out of the manure spreader. But there’s nothing to break things up. And so that’s why we here at ABI very much prefer to have that in-line shredder bar. That’s why the in-line shredder bar is standard on all of our manure spreaders, no matter what size you’ve got. And on the bigger manure spreaders, it actually comes with a second shredder bar to really work down the big piles that you can load up the big spreaders with.

But we’ve said it for years around here, we shred before we spread, especially if you’ve got straw, and you’re using the straw in your, in your stalls or for your cattle, for your animals, you really need to do your best to chop that straw up, because remember, the name of the game is Pasture Health. It’s not just about getting poop out of the stalls, it’s about actually turning that manure into something that is valuable for your pasture. And to do that, you need to break those clogs up. So thank you for asking the question when it comes to how the straw spreading is handled, different bedding conditions, especially straw spreading, the answer is, we specialize in it. That’s what those straw spreaders are for.

Great question. We love comparing and contrasting our products to other products in the market. And there are great products out there. Specifically, when you say rear mounted scraper blade, first up, Gravel Rascal Pro is a pull behind attachment. We specifically designed that years ago for the ATVs, UTVs, as a pull behind piece of equipment as opposed to the three point attachments for your tractor. So when you say rear mounted scraper blade, the first thing that comes to mind, there are a number of manufacturers on the market who have tried to work on getting a rear blade behind an ATV. So when I say rear blade, imagine basically a snow plow blade that is on some kind of mounted system so that it can pull material, you can pivot, you can, you can move a lot of material. Those are most common, and have been used for years as three point attachments on tractors. There’s a lot of folks out there trying to put them on the back of ATVs. Rear blades are great pieces of equipment. We’re big fans of rear blades here at ABI because you can pull so much material. The trouble is, when you put a rear blade, and that’s what I’m using as here to answer your question, rear mounted scraper blade. If you’re trying to put one of those in the back of an ATV, you’re gonna come into a little bit of conflict when it comes how to raise and lower it out of position. Remember, that’s why we’ve made the option of an electric actuator on the Gravel Rascal Pro because then as you get to the end of your drive, you’ve gotta push button on your handlebar or on the dash of your UTV, you can get all those ground engaging components outta the ground for that Gravel Rascal Pro, make your turn and drop ’em back in. That way you’re not tearing the daylights out of that lawn that you work so hard for, or equally bad, tearing up your road as you get to the end of your driveway. So that’s one problem that those rear mounted scraper blades face behind a pull behind tool. Another issue you’re gonna run into, is that while big heavy blades like that can move material, they’re not always equipped to decompact or finish the kind of material you’re working in. So I’ve said this before around here. I love talking about potholes. You need a decompaction function to really tear up potholes. That’s where the scarifiers and the Gravel Rascal Pro come in. And, after you’ve torn up material, you need to bust up clods, and leave a nice finish. And that’s what the finish rake is for on the Gravel Rascal Pro. So, we’ve specifically designed the Gravel Rascal Pro to be an extremely efficient kind of one pass gravel grading machine. And that’s where the rear blade or the rear mounted scraper blade typically has a single function rather than a multifunction. It’s a question.

Yes. Yes we do. We love dirt. In fact, remember, the, the founder and CEO of ABI attachments is the son of as SOD farmer, grew up, literally grew up on a SOD farm working the soil, and his first few companies before he started inventing attachments here at ABI, were companies in landscape and C-prep, and seed installation, lawn installation. So we love dirt, we love soil. But this does bring up an interesting point that many of you, you hear about our products maybe from a friend, or you see something online that brings you to take a look at these, these attachments that are specifically built for you, but you don’t realize all of the other attachments that we have available for your property management purposes. So if you’ve never been to our webpage, if you’ve never been to our website at ABI Attachments, check it out. Click on the products tab, and take a look at the variety of product lines we have available. We might actually have something for you that you didn’t know we had.

Yes, possibly. And I wanna qualify that, because it depends on the size of your UTV, and it depends on the size of water trailer you’re pulling. So, this actually word of warning, which is great, I really appreciate the person who put this here, wanting to keep the rest of us safe. Thank you for that. But this is actually a great example of why we really prefer for you to call us. I know that sometimes, sometimes we leave you frustrated that there are no prices online for you just to see the price tag and hit a ‘buy now’ button. I understand that can be frustrating. I do. I also know that in a situation like this, if you have a UTV, and you need a water trailer on your property to take care of your animals, to water your arena, to keep the dust down in your driveway, to take care of the garden or landscaping, if you could benefit from a water trailer, and you’ve got a UTV, before you hit the ‘by now’ button, we prefer you to call us, because we want to connect you with one of our product specialists to help you stay safe when you’re working with attachments. We’ve got some pretty big attachments. And when you connect our, even our smallest water trailer at 340 gallons, multiply that by approximately eight pounds per gallon, you’re talking about 1600 pounds or so of weight, plus the weight of the trailer behind a UTV. There’s a lot of details there to make sure that we’re compatible between what you have, and what we have available to take care of you. So yes, completely agree with this statement that if you have an underpowered tow vehicle, and it might just not be underpowered, it might be too light, it might not have a strong enough braking system, it might not be 4-wheel drive, if you have an underpowered, under spec tow vehicle, even a compact water trailer can be dangerous, which is why we love it when you call us, because when we can ask a lot of questions to make sure that we’re matching you up with the attachment that, that suits your needs.