Gathering Pine Needles for Animal Winter Bedding

Rain's coming, can't let the needles get soaked.

Fall, ie fallen Pine needles and leaves, is always a perfect time to gather up my stockpile of future bedding for the animals. Every winter the animals pens get to be a mucky mire of messy mud, so I keep these Pine needles each year to lay down atop the gnarliness. It has helped the animals have a modicum of protection from the cold mud and ice.

Mid winters are always a pain as the snow cover and biting cold temps can give the sheep some distress, while the chickens just stay inside, the sheep and alpaca have to be more exposed. I try to lay down the Pine needles for them at various points to give their toes a bit of reprieve. That is where my needle reservoir come in handy. I have a stub road, past my dead end, and it is a perfect collection point for the Pine needles each year.

"THIS IS MY RAKE! There are many like it but this one is MINE!"

It is a truly awesome rake and was left with the house when we bought it. I presume it is a type of hay rake as the tines are a bit flimsy, but I have been working on a way to insert some stronger tines into the bar. This rake is very similar width to a landscaping rake, about 36 inches wide.

I use the rake to not only pull or rake debris but also to push it as well. After years of landscaping work I have figured out a bunch of ways to save myself work, and one is that almost no tool is single purpose. Every tool can be used in different than intended ways that will make the job far easier.

The old road side gathered up to the fence. It made a fairly large pile about 8 by 8 feet by 3 feet tall.

My supervisor had to spend a fair amount of time testing the depth, softness, moisture content, and appearance of the Pine needles. It's the supervisor so I kinda have to let him do what he wants. 😉

I raked the round about side of the fence up into a pile and pushed it towards the fence to more centrally locate the piles of needles.

Pitchforking the needles into the bed of my truck is a fairly quick method of moving them and is my largest sized "container" to haul with.

My storage space for the Pine needles is 2 old truck bed liners nested in each other. I have pallets backing them so I can easily pile the needles against them.

First batch unloaded into the storage, the second got piled on top. Last year I only had the one bed liner which allowed more of the needles to get ruined by weather. This year looks to be far better for being able to maintain the entire batch in a useable state.

The pile looks good. I have until about noon tomorrow if I want to gather any more needles before the weather moves in and soaks everything still out. We will see what I can get done tomorrow since it is time to go make dinner, I won't get a chance to rake anymore today.