Build Your Own Drag Chain Harrow (Manure Rake for Your Pasture)

We have small pastures on Our Tiny Farm, so good manure management is very important.  For several years, we managed manure by regularly walking the pastures with a wheelbarrow and fork and transporting it all to our compost pile, just like we do with the manure from the barn and paddock.  The manure based compost is one of the keys to our productive gardens, and collecting manure is good exercise (I tell myself as I do it), but it is a time-consuming process and hubby has a bad back which is not cut out for this kind of activity anymore.  During the growing season in particular, there just aren't enough hours in the day, so we began looking for other ways to manage the horse and donkey manure in our pastures.

I learned that if you break up the manure piles and spread them thinly across the field, the manure dries and breaks down quickly, fertilizing the pasture and killing most of the parasites.  Then I looked up "drag chain harrows" and found a great selection available to pull behind a tractor, ATV, or riding lawn mower.  But the prices were $200 and up.  There was no way I could justify that kind of expense.  So, I showed pictures of those drag chains to my son and hubby and they created one for us that didn't cost us a penny.  I love it!  It might not be pretty, but it works great.

We use the drag chain from early spring through late fall.  Once the temperatures are cold enough that the grasses and clovers aren't growing anymore, we resort back to collecting the manure in a wheelbarrow and hauling it out to the compost pile.  This is much easier and faster to do in the winter, however, because the grass is short, the ground is hard, and the manure piles (which are often frozen) are easy to scoop up.

Here are some pictures of the drag chain my we built and us using it for the last time this season.