Barn cleanout, bedding management, manure handling, and biosecurity — the real-world attachment guide for Canadian swine and poultry producers.
Hog and poultry operations have specific demands that set them apart from general farming. The confined spaces, hard concrete floors, biosecurity requirements, and sheer volume of manure and bedding material all affect which attachments work and which create headaches. A skid steer is one of the most versatile tools on a swine or poultry farm — but only if you've got the right buckets, cleanout tools, and spreaders for the job.
This guide covers what Canadian producers are actually running, the biosecurity considerations that affect attachment selection, and the tools that speed up the worst jobs on a livestock operation.
Concrete floors, tight turning radiuses, low clearances, and corrosive ammonia-rich environments are the reality in most confinement barns. Manure pits, slatted floors, and mechanical ventilation systems all create constraints that standard construction-focused attachments don't account for.
Rubber tracks or foam-filled tires are often required in finishing barns and broiler houses. Steel tracks tear up concrete. Smooth concrete floors also mean traction is limited — high-floatation rubber matters here more than it does outdoors. Many Manitoba and Saskatchewan hog producers running Bobcat S590s or New Holland L213s have switched to foam-filled tires specifically for barn work after blowing too many flats on equipment debris and metal floor grating.
Size matters too. A full-sized skid steer — say a 74-inch wide machine — won't fit through a standard 72-inch barn door. Compact machines like the Bobcat S450 (55 inches wide) or Kubota SSV65 (57 inches) are popular for operations that need to work inside buildings. Compact track loaders may be too tall to clear low feed lines or ventilation equipment.
The single most important attachment for any hog or poultry operation is a good cleanout bucket. You need to scrape manure and compacted bedding off concrete without gouging the floor, but you also need aggressive enough contact to actually clean. That's a narrow window.
A 66-inch or 72-inch low-profile bucket with a bolt-on cutting edge is the standard choice. The bolt-on edge lets you replace it when it wears — and it will wear faster on concrete than on dirt. Weld-on edges are a liability in barn environments because once they're gone, you're into the bucket itself.
Reversible cutting edges are worth the small premium. Run one side until it rounds off, flip it, get twice the life. For poultry houses where you're scraping litter (a mix of wood shavings, manure, and feathers) off concrete, a flat-bottom bucket with a tight cutting edge angle works better than a general-purpose curve. You want to scoop and carry, not dig.
Skip the serrated or rock-tooth cutting edges unless you're doing heavy compacted pile removal outside. Inside a barn, they'll catch on floor cracks and sealant seams and make the job miserable.
In swine operations with pit storage, the skid steer typically handles solid pack manure from gestation and farrowing areas rather than slatted barn areas. That solid pack — a combination of straw or shavings bedding and hog manure — compacts over months into a dense, heavy material. A standard GP bucket works for this. Grapple buckets help when the pack has dried and broken into uneven chunks that won't scoop cleanly.
For broiler and turkey operations, the post-flock cleanout is the major labor event. A full 40,000-bird broiler barn will generate 100–150 tonnes of spent litter per flock. That's typically two to three flocks per year. Getting it out fast matters. A 72-inch cleanout bucket on a mid-frame machine can move a barn in four to six hours when the material is loose; compacted caked litter near waterers takes longer.
Once litter is outside, many producers use a skid-steer-mounted manure spreader to direct-apply to nearby fields. The Vredo and Teagle skid steer spreader bodies — typically in the 0.5 to 1.0 cubic metre range — are designed for exactly this. They run off auxiliary hydraulics and can achieve reasonable spread patterns for row crops and forage fields. Check that your machine's auxiliary flow meets the spreader's requirements; most need at least 15–20 L/min.
This is the piece that most equipment guides skip, and it's the one that can cost you a flock or a barns-worth of pigs if you get it wrong. Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv), Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), and Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) have all caused catastrophic losses on Canadian farms in recent years. Equipment moving between operations — or even between barns on the same site — is a documented transmission vector.
Biosecurity basics for skid steer operations: Establish a clean/dirty line. Barn-specific attachments should stay in the barn. If you must use an attachment across operations, pressure-wash and disinfect before entry — and let it dry fully. Most disinfectants require contact time and a dry surface to be effective. Running a wet pressure-washed bucket directly into a barn defeats the purpose.
Consider keeping a dedicated set of "dirty" attachments for barn cleanout and a separate "clean" set for anything that goes near feed, bedding, or live animals. Color-coded pin-on buckets make this obvious for employees. Several Ontario Mennonite operations and large-scale Quebec poultry integrators have formalized this into written SOP — CFIA's on-farm biosecurity resources for pork and poultry outline the framework.
Attachment design matters for cleanability. Fully welded closed bucket bodies with smooth interior surfaces are easiest to disinfect. Open-throat grapples and buckets with internal ribbing or exposed hardware are harder to clean thoroughly. If biosecurity is a real concern at your operation, factor cleanability into every attachment purchase decision.
Many bedded pack hog barns — popular in Western Canada for gestating sows and weaners — require regular fresh bedding additions throughout the cycle. Straw bale processors that mount to a skid steer quick-attach are available from Haybuster and Jaylor, among others. They shred round or square bales into fine straw bedding and blow it directly into pens.
These units run off high-flow auxiliary hydraulics — most require 30–45 L/min — so verify your machine has the capacity before buying. Most mid-size skid steers in the 70–85 hp range can handle it; compact machines often can't. Some processors work as pull-behind units that the skid steer tows; others are true carry attachments.
For poultry, the pre-placement litter management is just as important as cleanout. Fresh wood shavings (typically pine, in 3.5 cubic foot compressed bales) need to be distributed evenly across the floor. A manure spreader attachment can do this on a small scale; on large houses, operators typically use the bucket to dump and distribute by driving the machine in rows across the house.
This isn't a barn-specific application, but hog and poultry operations constantly need new posts — perimeter fencing for biosecurity buffer zones, pen dividers in outdoor areas, support posts for feed bins and lean-tos. A 9-inch or 12-inch auger in rock-free soil goes fast. For clay soils in Manitoba and heavy clay zones in Ontario, a 12-inch hex-drive auger with a fishtail bit handles most fence post applications without drama.
See our full guide on skid steer attachments for farm use for more on general agricultural applications and fence installation work.
Many operations use a skid steer to manage bulk feed deliveries, move totes, and handle ingredient bags. Pallet forks are obvious here. Less obvious: a grain bucket — a high-capacity, smooth-bottom bucket designed to handle loose grain without spillage — is useful if you're managing ingredient storage in bins or moving distillers grains, screenings, or other feed ingredients. A 60-inch grain bucket typically holds around 0.8 cubic yards and handles free-flowing material cleanly.
Light-material buckets (also called mulch buckets or compost buckets) with a higher sides-to-floor ratio work well for light, bulky feed ingredients like beet pulp, haylage, or wet distillers grains. The extra volume helps when material won't pack dense.
Nobody likes to talk about this, but mortality handling is a real operational task on any livestock operation. Skid steers are used to move carcasses to composting pads, mortality storage, or rendering pickup points. A solid grapple works for individual animals; for mass mortality events (a barn fire, a disease event), a larger clamshell grapple or a rock bucket handles volume without the mess of a standard bucket.
Biosecurity is critical here — the bucket or grapple that handles mortalities should be cleaned and disinfected before it goes near live areas. Ideally it's a dedicated piece kept near the composting area.
Ammonia and manure are corrosive. Hydraulic cylinders, pins, and exposed steel all suffer faster than they would in construction or landscaping work. Grease all pins and pivot points more frequently — weekly in heavy barn use, not monthly. Touch up paint chips immediately; bare steel rusts fast in a confined barn environment.
Wash attachments after every shift. A pressure washer with 2,000 PSI is adequate for most barn work. If you're using disinfectants (quaternary ammonia compounds are common in poultry; aldehydes and oxidizing agents in swine), rinse them off thoroughly — they'll attack seals and rubber components over time.
Store barn-use attachments in a dry location between uses. Leaving them in the alley or outside during Manitoba winters means frozen pins and cracked seals by spring.
A 66-inch cleanout bucket suited for barn use runs $800–$1,400 CAD in the aftermarket. Straw bale processors range from $4,000–$9,000 depending on capacity and whether they're carry or tow style. Skid-steer-mount manure spreaders start around $3,500 CAD for basic units. Pallet forks in the 4,000–5,000 lb capacity range — adequate for most feed tote and supply work — run $600–$1,100.
Used attachments are common in agricultural areas. Farm auctions in Saskatchewan and Manitoba frequently have barn cleanout equipment that ran for a few seasons and got replaced. Inspect cutting edges and pivot pins carefully on used buckets — pins that have been run loose will have worn bores that create sloppy attachment connection.