Cleaning and mucking in the winter-How do you guys do it?

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I don't. I have raised walkways in the rabbit barn and, just leave the droppings to compost under the cages. The smell is not bad and, it adds a little warmth to the barn. Come spring, I'll muck it out for the garden and keep it mucked until about October, then let it be til spring again. I have as many as 30 at a time, if there are some in grow out. Summer when it's too hot to breed, just my core 8 breeders that are in rabbit tractors as long as a storm isn't brewing. Not a lot to muck in summer, but I have to clean it up 3-4 times over the summer.
 
For horse stalls we had a cheap plastic cart and heavy work 4 wheeler. When the snow got deep and the 4 wheeler couldn't go through it we dumped it just outside the stable doors. Only like 4' away and then in spring used the tractor to shove it farther away so we could fill the area next winter.

For rabbits, chickens, and the full horse stall cleanings we would strip it out every fall right before freezing weather would hit and every spring just after the freezing weather left. Then pile on the bedding for winter. We didn't change bedding in the winter. We only raked out the manure piles for the horses and added more bedding for everyone as necessary to absorb moisture.
 
I use a couple of 55 gal. plastic barrels with lids kept close to my rabbits. It's easy to dump the catch pans into them and then haul the barrel farther away to the garden or wherever I need compost as needed.
 
I just shovel it into a wheelbarrow and dump it
over the steep cliff nearby. When people ask for
a few bags or buckets full, there it is! The problem now is:
I've got to wait for warm :laugh2: day to enable it being done.
Ottersatin. :eek:ldtimer:
 
I don't clean in the winter, -- I clean in the fall before it all freezes solid, and haul it to the garden in a wheel barrow, or tractor scoop, then in the spring when it is all thawed out again, I clean it all up and put it in my proposed corn, and squash, garden location , -- I clean from time to time in the summer based on my garden requirements, and not really on how big the pile under the rabbits is getting. [I plant garlic in oct, this year I planted 8000 sets,-- so a good cleaning is done ,hauled to, and tilled in the field, just before garlic goes in the ground.]
 
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