VII Cleaning and Sanitaf-ion 



Under cleaning and sanitation are 

 grouped six tasks that are concerned 

 with removing material from the gut- 

 ters, maintaining clean and dry 

 bedded stalls and clean alleyways. 

 These are: 



1. Manure disposal — moving ma- 

 nure out of the stable; 2. Hoe to gut- 

 ter — scraping manure from stall to 

 gutter; 3. Scraping alleyway — clean- 

 ing the alleyway back of cows; 4. 

 Preparing bedding — getting sawdust 

 from storage to stable; 5. Bedding — 

 distributing bedding to stalls; and 6. 

 Superphosphate to gutter — distribut- 

 ing superphosphate into the gutter. 



There is some difference of opinion 

 as to how often and how well some of 

 these individual tasks should be done. 

 Most of the farms are subject to rigid 

 inspection by health boards of the 

 markets served. Better dairymen 

 wish to maintain a presentable ap- 

 pearance, have the stable sanitary 

 and free of odors, and the cows com- 

 fortable. This induces some of the 

 men to do some phases of the clean- 

 ing operation more frequently than 

 is essential for practical wholesale 

 dairy farming. 



With wide, deep gutters, the clean- 

 ing of gutters and the spreading of 

 sawdust bedding once a day should 

 be adequate and practical. Operators 

 are using more sawdust than former- 

 ly. Consequently there is less need 

 for frequent distribution. 



Manure Disposal 



In the winter stabling season ap- 

 proximately 50 pounds of feces and 

 20 pounds of urine are discharged 

 daily per cow. About 10 pounds of 

 sawdust per cow applied as bedding is 

 eventually added to this, making a 

 total of about 80 pounds of material 

 which must be removed daily from 



the conventional stall-type barn. 

 Thus in a 40-cow stable, about one 

 and one-half tons of material must 

 be moved from the gutter to the ma- 

 nure spreader or to the manure pile 

 daily. In the course of the year ap- 

 proximately 300 tons would be moved. 



The complete task of manure dis- 

 posal involves the work of transport- 

 ing to the fields and distribution to 

 the land. But since this project is 

 limited to barn chores, the work as- 

 sociated with spreading was not in- 

 cluded. The work of filling the 

 spreader direct from the carrier or 

 the barn cleaner was included. But 

 not included were the time required 

 to get the tractor started and at- 

 tached to the spreader and the actual 

 travel to and from the field and 

 spreading. 



Most of the dairymen with modern 

 stables were spreading manure each 

 day throughout the barn stabling 

 season. In fact, about one-half of 

 the operators allowed themselves no 

 other alternative. They had no pro- 

 vision to pile the manure. So it had 

 to be carted away from the barn 

 every day. Some of the operators 



Minutes 

 100 



75 



50 



25 ■ 



mm 



m 



SWEEP 

 ALLEVW4V 

 HOE TO 

 GUTTER 



MANURE 

 DISPOSAL 



12 3 4 5 

 Farm Number 

 Fig. 36. Man minutes spent on the 

 daily routine of cleaning 

 cow stables on five farms in 

 1948. 



40 



