Well this cold snap really helped us out. We where able to get all the bedding pack manure hauled out. The wet weather really created a mess in the sheds. So we already had large storage piles of manure. So with the warning we had of the cold snap we rented two extra manure spreaders, Hagedorn 550 bushel units. It got hard enough to drive on the ground Friday morning at around 3 AM. So we started spreading manure. We had two skid steers and one tractor loader loading with four tractors and spreaders hauling. After they got started my second oldest son and I did the feeding chores. While the cattle where at the bunks we cleaned the sheds. At around 8 Am My oldest Grand daughter and one DIL started running the disk rippers working the manure into the ground. I really do not like ripping frozen ground but it was the only way to get the manure incorporated.
We ran continuously until 8 PM last night spreading manure. I am not sure of how many loads we did haul right now. I will have to get each driver's load counts. Have to have that for our good old Government red tape/manure management plan. 2-3 people running spreaders with two of us loading. Come to the yards empty an jump into a loaded tractor and spreader. I ran the JD 6400 most of the time. Let the skid steers push manure up into pile and then I loaded the spreaders with the loader. I have an over size bucket on the tractor so I can lift more and reach higher/further than the skid steer loaders can. They are faster on cleaning the sheds but load slower.
We had to quit deep ripping Sat. morning around 2 Am. The ground got too hard/frozen (12 degrees) and the rippers where taking a beating. At about dark last night we where able to start ripping again. The temperatures started to rise. My youngest son got all the manure incorporated around 8 am this morning.
So we will take today and rest up. It is good feeling to know we have clean yards to go into the hard winter weather with.
Some side notes.
1) Emptied the 1000 gallon fuel tank twice.
2) The rented Hagedorn spreaders work fine but the two Meyers 3245s did a better job spreading the manure. I think we will upgrade to two Meyers 7500 spreaders before next fall. We just need some extra capacity and the additional ground clearance would be nice. The down side is the loading height is taller.
3) The Sunflower 4412 rippers will be gone before spring. The quality of the points/shanks is lower since AGCO bought Sunflower. We broke two Friday. At just under $800 each. We never broke a shank on the Landols we used to run. So they just will not take the hard use that they used to. More than likely will go back to the Landol weatherproofers.
4) The JD 4960 is officially not the top dog anymore. LOL the JD 8330s dusted it on the ripper Saturday morning. We had to switch it to a manure spreader. The JD 8330 was still going and the JD 4960 could not go. My oldest Grand Daughter LOVES that JD 4960. She was in high school when I got that tractor. She has spent hundreds of hours running it. She actually takes vacation time from her town job to run it on the finisher in the spring. So since she was going to help Friday I had "her" tractor on one of the rippers. She complained about the JD 8330 all day after we switched it. LOL
So we have finally turned the page on 2015 as far as serious field work. Livestock chores are all that is left now. The rippers will be cleaned up and put away. They will more than likely be done until next fall(next owner). It really was too wet for the rippers to do what they should but they where heavy duty enough to take the semi frozen ground. We will use the disk chisels in the spring. I have had ripped ground dry out too much in the spring and hurt the crop later in the year. So another year in the books.
We ran continuously until 8 PM last night spreading manure. I am not sure of how many loads we did haul right now. I will have to get each driver's load counts. Have to have that for our good old Government red tape/manure management plan. 2-3 people running spreaders with two of us loading. Come to the yards empty an jump into a loaded tractor and spreader. I ran the JD 6400 most of the time. Let the skid steers push manure up into pile and then I loaded the spreaders with the loader. I have an over size bucket on the tractor so I can lift more and reach higher/further than the skid steer loaders can. They are faster on cleaning the sheds but load slower.
We had to quit deep ripping Sat. morning around 2 Am. The ground got too hard/frozen (12 degrees) and the rippers where taking a beating. At about dark last night we where able to start ripping again. The temperatures started to rise. My youngest son got all the manure incorporated around 8 am this morning.
So we will take today and rest up. It is good feeling to know we have clean yards to go into the hard winter weather with.
Some side notes.
1) Emptied the 1000 gallon fuel tank twice.
2) The rented Hagedorn spreaders work fine but the two Meyers 3245s did a better job spreading the manure. I think we will upgrade to two Meyers 7500 spreaders before next fall. We just need some extra capacity and the additional ground clearance would be nice. The down side is the loading height is taller.
3) The Sunflower 4412 rippers will be gone before spring. The quality of the points/shanks is lower since AGCO bought Sunflower. We broke two Friday. At just under $800 each. We never broke a shank on the Landols we used to run. So they just will not take the hard use that they used to. More than likely will go back to the Landol weatherproofers.
4) The JD 4960 is officially not the top dog anymore. LOL the JD 8330s dusted it on the ripper Saturday morning. We had to switch it to a manure spreader. The JD 8330 was still going and the JD 4960 could not go. My oldest Grand Daughter LOVES that JD 4960. She was in high school when I got that tractor. She has spent hundreds of hours running it. She actually takes vacation time from her town job to run it on the finisher in the spring. So since she was going to help Friday I had "her" tractor on one of the rippers. She complained about the JD 8330 all day after we switched it. LOL
So we have finally turned the page on 2015 as far as serious field work. Livestock chores are all that is left now. The rippers will be cleaned up and put away. They will more than likely be done until next fall(next owner). It really was too wet for the rippers to do what they should but they where heavy duty enough to take the semi frozen ground. We will use the disk chisels in the spring. I have had ripped ground dry out too much in the spring and hurt the crop later in the year. So another year in the books.
