Muck sweeping uses a towed paddock sweeper or vacuum to pick up droppings across a whole field in a fraction of the time it takes by hand. It’s for horse owners who can’t keep on top of poo picking, or who want a field cleared before resting or reseeding it.
A sweeper is towed behind a quad or compact tractor. Rotating brushes flick droppings into a collection hopper; a paddock vacuum sucks them up instead. The hopper is emptied at your muck heap or wherever you choose.
Picking up droppings is the most effective way to cut the worm burden on a paddock, because worm eggs pass out in the droppings and the larvae move onto the surrounding grass. It also reduces the sour, ungrazed “roughs” horses leave, so more of the field gets grazed.
Sweepers also pick up leaves, twigs and fallen seeds. That makes them useful in autumn for reducing acorns and sycamore seeds in a paddock, though they won’t clear every last one.
All year, as often as needed. Droppings are ideally cleared at least once or twice a week in a grazed paddock; a contractor visit suits people who can’t manage that or who have let it build up.
Sweepers work best when droppings and grass are fairly dry. In very wet weather, droppings smear rather than lift, and the machine can mark soft ground. Frozen droppings can also be hard to shift.