- Location
- Acton Scott, South Shropshire
Do many farms run their own umbilical slurry spreading setup rather than getting contractors in?
On an organic dairy farm where one would like to have a slurry (dirty water) spreading session at least every week to follow the cows on the grazing paddocks - could one justify ones own umbilical setup? Also need to spread dirty water on 150-170 ac of silaged ground cut 4 or possibly 5 times with a dose of dirty water after first four cuts. 2 - 2,500,000 gallons spread annualy.
160 hp tractor available for most of grazing period to pump plus contractors tractor (with duals on when required) to operate dribble bar.
Cheaper alternative could be large tanker on floatations pulled by the 160hp tractor but dont like the idea of all the wheelings and associated compaction. We have been using a 2000 gall tanker with dribble bar but thats a minimum of 4 loads per day just to keep up which worked out cheaper in terms of cost/ cubic metre than umbilical but just struggled to find time all the time. Would probably still need to pull in umbilical gang to follow the silage cuts as farm labour couldnt cope with that acreage in a short time.
Thoughts please
On an organic dairy farm where one would like to have a slurry (dirty water) spreading session at least every week to follow the cows on the grazing paddocks - could one justify ones own umbilical setup? Also need to spread dirty water on 150-170 ac of silaged ground cut 4 or possibly 5 times with a dose of dirty water after first four cuts. 2 - 2,500,000 gallons spread annualy.
160 hp tractor available for most of grazing period to pump plus contractors tractor (with duals on when required) to operate dribble bar.
Cheaper alternative could be large tanker on floatations pulled by the 160hp tractor but dont like the idea of all the wheelings and associated compaction. We have been using a 2000 gall tanker with dribble bar but thats a minimum of 4 loads per day just to keep up which worked out cheaper in terms of cost/ cubic metre than umbilical but just struggled to find time all the time. Would probably still need to pull in umbilical gang to follow the silage cuts as farm labour couldnt cope with that acreage in a short time.
Thoughts please