Taking out slurry without agitating first

The Cuban

Guys Ive taken out a few Tanker fulls from both ends of a slatted tank as the tank was full. This is my second time so far in the last month. With the way the ground is at the moment I cant empty the tanks so if i repeat again in say a week or two. i haven't agitated the tank at any time, is this going to cause problems when it comes to emptying the tank fully???

farmerjj

The Cuban wrote: »

Guys Ive taken out a few Tanker fulls from both ends of a slatted tank as the tank was full. This is my second time so far in the last month. With the way the ground is at the moment I cant empty the tanks so if i repeat again in say a week or two. i haven't agitated the tank at any time, is this going to cause problems when it comes to emptying the tank fully???

I did that last year and turned out to be a disaster, one tank needed 10loads of water to be added later on in the spring to be able 2 agitate it properly,even though some times its impossible 2 help.

The Cuban

farmerjj wrote: »

I did that last year and turned out to be a disaster, one tank needed 10loads of water to be added later on in the spring to be able 2 agitate it properly,even though some times its impossible 2 help.

I could be in trouble so

djmc

Talking to a contractor one day he said every load that comes out has to go back in and I agree with him.
No big deal really I have done this most years
I just leave trough pipe off over night in summer when I can travel ground stirr up spread a few loads and repeat
If you have a contractor do it it can slow things up a bit

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

The Cuban wrote: »

I could be in trouble so

afraid so, as the water is more dense than dung, it will sit at the bottom of the tank. all the water that was taken out will have to go back in, otherwise you will have big lumps in the tank. or worse, a lump could stick to the bottom of the tank.

grazeaway

Yeah very bad idea your actsullytaking out the watery stuff. Did a few years back and ended up with massive dry but in the middle that took ages to break up. Get some loads of water in and start agitating before it gets too late.

Zr105

If you can get it agitated now you'll be able to work away for a few weeks taking out an odd load, without it becoming to hard to mix.

Then again it depends wether its filling back up from cattle or if you have run off from yard going into the tank

blue5000

Anytime I did it I always regretted it:o

moy83

Its a needs must situation . But if worst comes to the worst when they are fit to empty you will have to top it up as much as you can with water and maybe get a contractor with a big agitator and tractor to mix it for you .
It all depends how watery the slurry is to begin with , you might be lucky hopefully

jp6470

My father would say, it's like a turf bank in there now..

Timmaay

UGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BALLs!

bbam

We do this most years.
It works fine as long as you add water back as soon as stock go out.

If you leave the tank with no liquid then it will harden and it's real hard to mix it up again.

The day the cattle go out we divert the down pipe from our water storage tank into the slatted tank and in this neck Of the woods that replaces the water quickly.

biddy2013

anyone see the article in the journal where a farmer near to me lost 5 cattle to slurry gases, i can not believe he was walking through the middle of the shed himself while the tank was mixing and to put it in a national newspaper that he did, is totally stupid

tanko

biddy2013 wrote: »

anyone see the article in the journal where a farmer near to me lost 5 cattle to slurry gases, i can not believe he was walking through the middle of the shed himself while the tank was mixing and to put it in a national newspaper that he did, is totally stupid

I agree that what he did was stupid, he could easily have died. But I think it took guts to tell the story in the way he did. If it stops other farmers from making the same mistake some good might come off it.

dzer2

Happened to a neighbour here a few yrs back.

He lost 5 and pulled 4 out ended up in hospital himself only his father stopped him he would have killed himself.

RoscommonTom

Youll need to fill her up ans agitate her like mad,otherwise itll be far too thick and cause you trouble down the line, you might have time to fix it yet , just make sure you agitate her free adding the loads of water to start breaking it down

RoscommonTom

Youll need to fill her up ans agitate her like mad,otherwise itll be far too thick and cause you trouble down the line, you might have time to fix it yet , just make sure you agitate her free adding the loads of water to start breaking it down

Good loser

Often do that. Will have to put back same amount and then, depending on size of tank and stock numbers, more loads of water.

getupthatyard

OP, how'd you get on mixing your tank?
Think i may have the same problem ahead of me!!

Reggie.

getupthatyard wrote: »

OP, how'd you get on mixing your tank?
Think i may have the same problem ahead of me!!

I'd be putting in the water for a while to soften up the muck before agitating

The Cuban

getupthatyard wrote: »

OP, how'd you get on mixing your tank?
Think i may have the same problem ahead of me!!

I got it emptied eventually, pure nightmare as it was gone into a bank of turf. I ended up adding back in even more water than I had originally taken out as it was very hard to get the center of the tank agitated.
On the plus side I got to cover nearly one and a half times as much ground with slurry this spring so I saved on fertilizer
It wont happen again though, last year I let in a contractor to empty the tank, the F-er left a good 18 inches of real thick slurry at the bottom and said he had job done.
Lesson learnt

J.O. Farmer

The 18 inches in the bottom of the tank would be good if it was thin. A load of water should be let in at the far end and the last load of slurry taken when he got the tank down to 18 inches. The extra water will help next year and helps stop slurry sticking to the floor.

allbuiz

Would u not use pig slurry instead of water?

Reggie.

allbuiz wrote: »

Would u not use pig slurry instead of water?

Brought in by the artic load..... nice

J.O. Farmer

allbuiz wrote: »

Would u not use pig slurry instead of water?

No personally I wouldn't. For a start the nearest piggery is 20 mile away whereas I can easily get water from a pond half a mile away when I'm coming back from spreading.
Secondly I'm not familiar with pig slurry and while I know it's supposed to help break down cattle slurry would it not go dry on its own in the bottom of the tank with no cattle in the shed.

allbuiz

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

No personally I wouldn't. For a start the nearest piggery is 20 mile away whereas I can easily get water from a pond half a mile away when I'm coming back from spreading.
Secondly I'm not familiar with pig slurry and while I know it's supposed to help break down cattle slurry would it not go dry on its own in the bottom of the tank with no cattle in the shed.

Lad, you don't need to have studied pig slurry to put it out, treat as Normal! At least u'll get more NPK than ur pond water. U would want to make sure ur not bringing in any aqua life in ur tank, if ya are the ground could smell a bit like this conversation, fishy! :-)

J.O. Farmer

allbuiz wrote: »

Lad, you don't need to have studied pig slurry to put it out, treat as Normal! At least u'll get more NPK than ur pond water. U would want to make sure ur not bringing in any aqua life in ur tank, if ya are the ground could smell a bit like this conversation, fishy! :-)

I don't have access to pig slurry with the nearest piggery 20 mile away and the point of adding the water at the end is to leave water instead of slurry in the bottom of the tank.

Farmer Pudsey

The Cuban wrote: »

I got it emptied eventually, pure nightmare as it was gone into a bank of turf. I ended up adding back in even more water than I had originally taken out as it was very hard to get the center of the tank agitated.
On the plus side I got to cover nearly one and a half times as much ground with slurry this spring so I saved on fertilizer
It wont happen again though, last year I let in a contractor to empty the tank, the F-er left a good 18 inches of real thick slurry at the bottom and said he had job done.
Lesson learnt

Yes you covered more groung but only got a little extra N. P&K would be diluted. For ever 1K gallaons of water you may have got 4-12 units of N depending on spreading conditions. Pricing it against urea at 400/ton and assuming you got 10 units /Ik Gallons ( i am allowing for extran N in other slurry as well) each extra 1K gallons of water was worth about 4 euro so 8 yoyo's for ever extra tanker

Last yeras contractor leaving 18'' in the tank was expensive if tank was 8' deep it took uo 19% of tank. Now there will always be 2-3inches at the bottom but an extra 15-16% is equivlent to 2 weeks in a thirteen day housing period or 3 in a twenty week storage capacity.

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

The 18 inches in the bottom of the tank would be good if it was thin. A load of water should be let in at the far end and the last load of slurry taken when he got the tank down to 18 inches. The extra water will help next year and helps stop slurry sticking to the floor.

I would always empty a tank to as empty as possible storage costs money and if you have to agitate and take out as unsuitable times or are taking out loads with out agitating it it costs anyway.

J.O. Farmer

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

I would always empty the tank to as empty as possible storage costs money and if you have to agitate and take out as unsuitable times or are taking out loads with out agitating it it costs anyway.

Storage is a fixed cost once the shed is built it's the extra agitating mid winter and damaging land if conditions are bad taking out loads that will cost. Storage won't cost any more or less whether the tank is full or half empty. It will still take X number of loads to empty the years slurry and it won't matter when the water goes in.
That said our tank will need water added
before agitating without taking loads out.
I would never take loads out without agitating enough so that I am putting out slurry not water.
The 18 inches might be a bit much but we empty the tank pretty much as much as possible and then flush in a load of water. Thick slurry flows forward we suck out a load and leave whatever depth of water in the tank.