Barn Chores - How long does it take you?

[WNT]

We’ve got seven on approx. 12/12, and two full time out (one horse, one mini). Out of curiosity I timed today’s morning chores. It is on the fast side as I picked stalls into a corner about 3pm yesterday, which I don’t normally do, and one was only in to eat breakfast and dinner. It took two hours almost on the dot including the following:

“Presetting” feed: mixing in beet pulp and pre soaking two with Coolstance. Feed cat.

Seven stalls took 40 minutes, and consisted of the piles skipped into the corners yesterday and 1-3 newer piles and wet spots. One was out yesterday, too. Also dumped waters.

Ten minutes to throw down, stack a couple days worth of hay and set in stalls.

Fill water, wet down and throw feed in stalls; twenty to bring in two at a time and strip rugs and feed the outside horses. Another twenty to put up rugs, set feed and supplements, and miscellaneous little things (meds, leg checks, hock boots etc). I allowed myself one five minute restroom break. There was also time spent on dumping cross tie muck tubs, blowing the courtyard, putting tools away, texting update to BO, etc that filled the remaining time.

TL;DR version: 9 horses, 7 stalls in unusually clean condition, hay, feed, bring in, pull rugs, reset feed, little things; 1 person, 2 hours, 5 minute break.

A normal stall runs closer to 8-12 minutes if early piles don’t get pulled aside because our guys are active and some are big and only one cares if he steps in and drags around his poo. If they leave hay, add five minutes to try and salvage the good stuff. We also use pelleted bedding, which is more like cleaning a cat box than dealing with regular shavings.

[Sansena]

Just going to add; Just because OP is comfortable bringing in 2 at a time, does not mean worker will be. And this of course will mean things take longer.

Unless you’re providing health care for that torn rotator cuff or separated shoulder for those few hours of work a day, I humbly suggest you not ask any help to do that. It’s terribly bad horsemanship and is inviting handler injury.

Having said that… I do this with MY horse and his turn out buddy all the time. However, I refuse to do it for client’s horses any longer since I suffered an injury that kept me --self employed farm sitter-- out of effective work for about 5 weeks. It’s just not worth it. And no, I don’t work for that customer who INSISTED that’s they way I MUST turn out/ in those two horses.

A year after I quit she called me asking if I’d consider coming back.
During her recovery from a shoulder injury.

headdesk

[GraceLikeRain]

Good point. I won’t led in two at a time either. My beloved late mare suffered a horrible SI injury when being led in with another horse. She was a rock solid girl on the ground but the other horse spooked and literally slammed into her. She pulled away and went down. It was a 4-figure vet bill and months of rehab.

[spacytracy]

For efficiency’s sake, these are a few feed suggestions:
Either start soaking the feed at the feeding prior (ie - start soaking the pm feed in the am), or purchase a small plug-in kettle. As soon as you walk in the barn, turn kettle on. Feed other horses. By the time you’re done feeding, the water will have boiled and you can have the beet pulp fluffed in just a few min.

I would also prep the smartpaks ahead of time. have the feed for the “special” cases already measured out in a spare bucket, with the smartpak already dumped on it. Do that at night, when the workload is lighter, in prep for the am shift. Makes it alot easier than fumbling with smartpaks in the am.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=ncsuequine;8364190]
I am reconfiguring out employee hours and duties. I think our current staff is taking too long to do their barn chores, but I’d like to get other opinions first.

How long should it take for the following scenarios:

Scenario #1 -
Hay/Grain 16 horses in stalls and 2 minis outside
Water/Hay 4 turnouts
Turnout 16 horses
Clean/rebed (as needed) 16 stalls
hay/water stalls for evening crew (16 stalls)

Scenario #2 -
Bring in 16 horses from turnouts (leading 2 at a time)
hay/Grain 16 horses in their stalls
Blanket 16 horses
final hay/water check[/QUOTE]

First, do not base how long it should take on what other people says it takes for THEIR PARTICULAR layout.

Do all of the chores yourself one day. Time yourself.
Then, the next day, do it with yourself and a helper. Time the two of you.
Then have two helpers do it themselves.

Honestly, people don’t take into account the configuration of their barn. If paddocks are not immediately adjacent to the barn and you have 20+ horses, yeah, it’s going to take you 30m-90m to turn them all out. Ask me how I know – and I’m a brisk walker/worker.

So, whatever the answers are, they are completely irrelevant to your situation because their layouts and barn configurations are going to be different than yours.

[findeight]

Blanketing 16 horses is going to add considerable time to the PM list over what it takes in summer. Even at 2 min a horse that’s 35 min and don’t think 2 minutes per head in 16 stalls is realistic. More like 5 to move from each stall to the next, Open the door, get it on and latch the door…if there are no complications. That’s an hour.

Have you considered or do you already have one of those big carts to reduce the trips to the manure dump?

Still hard to say how long it should take with so many variables including how motivated the staff is and how many staffers are performing the chores. Is this all one person or two?

[spacytracy]

[QUOTE=GraceLikeRain;8365595]
Teach me your ways! Busting my tail multi-tasking and working at top speed I could do the above scenario #1 with EIGHT horses in 3 hours without blanket changes.

Even doing a speed picking at 10-15 minutes per stall came out to at least a hour and a half for mucking. Adding in more shavings, dropping hay, sweeping back shavings from stall door, refilling water buckets, blowing out the barn, easily added another 30 minutes. Turnout, checking outdoor troughs, blanket changes, and grain prep was 30-60 minutes. It also wasn’t a big facility and had easy to manage horses.[/QUOTE]

A few differences that may have contributed

• we did not have to do blankets for the horses, with few exception (owner hadn’t been out and weather was changing dramatically, or blanket was wet, etc)
• the spigot for the field was right next to the trough. So there was not fumbling with hoses.
• Stalls were level, and had the perfect amount of pelleted bedding. and we used a spreader.
• hay for fields was on pallets right next to each turnout, with a tarp. so no lugging hay from the barn. Hay was also on the same level as the stalls, so again, no dropping hay and maneuvering/making a huge mess

Honestly, it was just an easy setup. Turnouts are close. Horses are well-behaved, barn was setup compactly.

[amastrike]

This is fairly similar to chores I do at my barn, though of course how long it takes depends on a lot of things, like how far you’re lugging horses/hay/grain/manure/bedding, and how easy stalls are to clean.

@ncsuequine;8364190

Scenario #1 -
Hay/Grain 16 horses in stalls and 2 minis outside
Water/Hay 4 turnouts
Turnout 16 horses
Clean/rebed (as needed) 16 stalls
hay/water stalls for evening crew (16 stalls)

3 hours

Scenario #2 -
Bring in 16 horses from turnouts (leading 2 at a time)
hay/Grain 16 horses in their stalls
Blanket 16 horses
final hay/water check

1.5 hours

[BigMama1]

I usually estimate 10 minutes per stall, including sweeping aisle. Haying and graining that number of horses could take anywhere from 20-40 minutes, depending on the set up. Turnout depends on how long the walk to the paddock is, and whether staff are allowed to take 2 at a time (this is forbidden at our barn and I have refused to do it at other places I work.)

Realistically I think scenario 1 is 4-5 hours for most people making a solid effort to be quick and do a good job.

[Hulk]

I would do as Beowulf said and time yourself at it. Also I believe if you are in a hurry its never turns out well. That’s when things get missed and accidents happen.