Boarding Barn - dry paddocks no picking all winter....

[candyappy]

@Milocalwinnings

Think about this… if the poop was all picked up daily, it’s still going to rain and snow, and then you are left with mud. Which gets slick and dangerous at its worst and choppy/uneven, just like poop, at its best. You are going to have shitty footing either way, so I don’t have a problem with pastures not being picked often in the winter. I would rather have some traction with choppy poop/mud mix than slick footing of just mud.

I think your one post you read about people picking their fields every day is the exception, not the norm.

The thread has “degraded” from your original post because you continue identify a perceived issue, give sarcastic responses about how everyone must be okay with their horses living in shit, and not accepting that your perception of how everyone cares for their horses is just not the norm.

You do realize that if your 30X80 dry lot turnout is covered with gobs of manure it will never drain or dry under all that ?? Then you have not only slick on top you have ground that will not dry for a long long time.

Yes, you have mud when it rains and snow thaws, but that ground if NOT covered with months worth of manure will dry and smooth out as it dries and the horses walk on it.

OP is paying for a service and always has a right to speak up when something does not seem right. It may not change the outcome but it is better than becoming someone who just accepts what others consider the " norm".

Which in this case is undesirable and unhealthy especially when it gets above freezing consistently.

[McGurk]

Just one more contribution to add. Yesterday we had a brief window where it was above freezing but the ground was firm enough to drive on without tearing up the pasture. I had a really hustling, hard working teenage helper; I drove the tractor while he picked the manure into the FEL. This is a 3 1/2 acre paddock that has had 2 1/3 horses on it since November. It took us over three hours to pick the paddock, or 6 - 7 man hours. And the kid was hustling. I also was dumping the manure in a compost pile close by, I wasn’t spending a lot of time driving back and forth, We didn’t pick every pile, just the mess around the hay feeder and the horse’s favorite bathroom spots.

Soooo…7 man hours, plus 3 1/2 tractor hours plus diesel fuel. We compost the manure; it doesn’t have to be hauled off or spread.

Unfortunately, this meant we lost our window with good ground to put another round bale out; this means we will have to wait until the ground freezes solid again to put another round bale out, which means the horses are eating the much more expensive square baled hay in their clean paddock.

I believe, based on the limited information that the poster has given us, that the board price she is paying simply does not allow for this level of service, plus which, there are some real logistical obstacles to getting it done.

There was an earlier poster, a barn manager, who talked about provided this level of service, when a later barn manager hadn’t. While I’m sure the boarders were happier with the pens being picked, I wonder about whoever did the books - how did they handle the extra labor cost? Boarding barns run on a tiny margin, if there’s a margin at all. There’s no mention of what the higher standard of care did for the profit and loss statement.

[Sannois]

@Jealoushe

Why don`t you spend an afternoon picking the paddock?

Or hang some hay nets for your horse when you are there?

Yup! I LOVEd to pick paddocks in the winter!

[HungarianHippo]

OP, you’re not wrong to ask the question, please don’t take it badly that you’ve gotten answers that don’t validate what you had thought. No biggie, COTH is a great place to hear how other folks do things.

Persistently soggy ground and ingesting manure are your hazards here, and the potential results would be thrush, parasite loads, or weight loss due to unpalatable hay. None of which are irreversible or hard to spot. So that’s part of why folks are a little <meh? not a biggie> . It’s not the same as, say, a fencing hazard where just one incident could be catastrophic/permanent.

So:

1. watch your horse’s weight-- if not losing weight, then that tells me your BO is putting out enough hay to let your horse eat off the ground while nuzzling aside any gross hay. Horses can eat with near-surgical precision. effortlessly picking this yummy bit of clover while avoiding that stemmy bit of weed. They’ll do the same with hay on messy ground. But if his weight starts to drop, then you hjave a clear signal that this style of horsekeeping is not working for him.
2. check fecal counts more often, to see if parasite load is an issue, and address with de-wormers
3. check hoof condition frequently to monitor for thrush and scratches

If you’re not seeing health problems, then you can breathe a bit easier that this is not a health risk, just an aesthetic issue,

The suggestion to put hay on stall mats is an excellent one. This would give a clean ‘landing pad’ for the hay piles, and it’s quite easy to pick frozen manure off them (may require a pitchfork if it’s frozen solid) You’d need 1 mat at $35-45 each, for every hay pile they normally put out in the 30x80 lot. If the BO is open to this idea, maybe you and the other boarders could chip in to get those. The mats will affect BO’s ability to scrape the paddock in the spring, so it is not unreasonable if you get turned down.

Congrats on your first horse and don’t hesitate to keep asking questions like this! It’s easy for long-timers to forget how much we didn’t know when we first started out–try not to hold it against us .

[ladyj79]

Just fyi, in my experience, throwing mats on mud inevitably ends up with muddy mats buried in mud as horses walk on them and they sink.

we tried various incarnations of this.

maybe other people have better experience with this.

[Hopeless]

Do you have a photo? It is really difficult to tell what is the issue with actually out seeing it with our own eyes. Just a description is very subjective.

Pens get messy during the winter. They are hard if not impossible to clean. There are so many variables. The best situation would be a huge pasture where horses could range freely, but that rarely is the case for most places. We change the ideal environment for our own convenience. Your correct that you don’t have the ideal situation right now, but most people don’t. As has been mentioned, you need to decide what is important and what you can compromise on and then find a place that can meet those needs.

[WBmare]

@trubandloki

I agree with @halt on this one (it is winter, the manure is frozen, etc).

@firsthorse where are you in the world? (general vague answer is fine)

Let me tell you about my horses, at home.

All spring, summer and fall I pick my paddocks 2x per day. Pasture gets picked once ever week or at most every other week.
In other words, I like this tidy. I like things manure free.
I have limited space and sticky soil and manure only makes things more yucky.

It is winter now.

I am out there, in the dark after work every night picking paddocks by head lamp until it happens… It being the weather causes picking to be impossible. That is usually snow. I am pretty determined so I go out there with a claw hammer when it is just cold but there is no snow, and spend endless time freeing those darn manure piles from the ground. (I am sure at this point my neighbors think I am nuts.)
Once it gets to the point that I can not pick, the battle is lost until spring. Right now my paddocks look nothing short of disastrous to me. I cringe when I see the mess (when the snow melts off).
Though it looks like an easy fix (with about nine million wheel barrow trips to the manure pile) it is not. What looks like innocent manure piles and manure pile messes every where is a frozen block of mess that I would spend more time trying to free parts of than I would getting anything up.
Take my word for it, I have tried.

Winter sucks.

I also want to comment on the rotation thing you mentioned.

My horses spend all winter in the sacrifice area. No pasture. It (the pasture) looks big and open and inviting to someone who does not have to fix it if it gets ruined. I could see someone wondering why I am not rotating using that space.
I would rather may horses ruin one area (or four if you count their private paddocks) and I have a good pasture to use next year.

Horse care is a balance of things that are not always obvious at a quick glance.

I do the same. I’m out there with a head lamp picking poo when I get home from work. Shoot I was out there in the snow pitch fork and muck bucket picking poo. I too like things tidy. But with just two at home it’s easy and doesn’t take but a few minutes if I stay on top of it.

[firsthorse]

@HungarianHippo

OP, you’re not wrong to ask the question, please don’t take it badly that you’ve gotten answers that don’t validate what you had thought. No biggie, COTH is a great place to hear how other folks do things.

Persistently soggy ground and ingesting manure are your hazards here, and the potential results would be thrush, parasite loads, or weight loss due to unpalatable hay. None of which are irreversible or hard to spot. So that’s part of why folks are a little <meh? not a biggie> . It’s not the same as, say, a fencing hazard where just one incident could be catastrophic/permanent.

So:

1. watch your horse’s weight-- if not losing weight, then that tells me your BO is putting out enough hay to let your horse eat off the ground while nuzzling aside any gross hay. Horses can eat with near-surgical precision. effortlessly picking this yummy bit of clover while avoiding that stemmy bit of weed. They’ll do the same with hay on messy ground. But if his weight starts to drop, then you hjave a clear signal that this style of horsekeeping is not working for him.
2. check fecal counts more often, to see if parasite load is an issue, and address with de-wormers
3. check hoof condition frequently to monitor for thrush and scratches

If you’re not seeing health problems, then you can breathe a bit easier that this is not a health risk, just an aesthetic issue,

The suggestion to put hay on stall mats is an excellent one. This would give a clean ‘landing pad’ for the hay piles, and it’s quite easy to pick frozen manure off them (may require a pitchfork if it’s frozen solid) You’d need 1 mat at $35-45 each, for every hay pile they normally put out in the 30x80 lot. If the BO is open to this idea, maybe you and the other boarders could chip in to get those. The mats will affect BO’s ability to scrape the paddock in the spring, so it is not unreasonable if you get turned down.

Congrats on your first horse and don’t hesitate to keep asking questions like this! It’s easy for long-timers to forget how much we didn’t know when we first started out–try not to hold it against us .

Thank you for being a voice of reason. I clean his feet every day and his stall area is ok as far as being clean it’s his daytime outside sacrifice paddocks (long thin) outside time that is the issue. Thanks for the reminder about deworming and samples will do!

I think I have said all I can say on this topic. I view picking the paddocks as akin to weeding a garden, if you let it go for months it will take forever to do (I am NOT talking large fields here). If you stay on top of it and do it every day it’s do able. I understand everyone doesn’t agree. I understand that it’s above the pay grade of the place I am at. By the way for anyone interested they would not have much room to increase the price as there are quite a few places cheaper. One day I may have something a bit closer to it though.

[firsthorse]

@candyappy

You do realize that if your 30X80 dry lot turnout is covered with gobs of manure it will never drain or dry under all that ?? Then you have not only slick on top you have ground that will not dry for a long long time.

Yes, you have mud when it rains and snow thaws, but that ground if NOT covered with months worth of manure will dry and smooth out as it dries and the horses walk on it.

OP is paying for a service and always has a right to speak up when something does not seem right. It may not change the outcome but it is better than becoming someone who just accepts what others consider the " norm".

Which in this case is undesirable and unhealthy especially when it gets above freezing consistently.

I appreciate you sticking your neck out. I think a few have a guillotine on hand. It all comes down to the horse for me and that’s where it ends.

[OneTwoMany]

@ladyj79

Just fyi, in my experience, throwing mats on mud inevitably ends up with muddy mats buried in mud as horses walk on them and they sink. We tried various incarnations of this. Maybe other people have better experience with this.

Totally agree. Mats on dirt turn into mats buried in mud when it rains or the snow thaws. If you put mats down on 6-8" of gravel or crushed stone, that is a different story.

The only way we have successfully gotten rid of mud is to remove the topsoil, add 6-8" of crusher dust and compact. All of our sacrifice paddocks were built in this fashion. The low spots may pool an inch or two of water on the wettest days of the year, but mud is a memory.

[Kyrabee]

I have an approximately 10’ x 14’ pad of mats where my horse eats. In her roughly 30 x 90 foot dry lot (or mud) run. B.O. will not allow gravel or sand in there (another story). I use shavings. If you build up a nice ‘deck’ of shavings (usually 5-6 bags for that sq footage) they usually are just fine and stay out of the mud. Caveat…best done when the ground is dry. It isn’t as permanent as gravel or crusher dust. I try to redo the shavings in the fall before the weather goes to he**. This year, I hurt my back unloading the shavings :dead:. I ended up just putting some under the back edge so they wouldn’t slide down the hill (pen slopes away from the front). They have stayed fine. Hopefully, by next fall, I can do a proper job. A few people have tried to just slap a mat or two down and yes, without some kind of base they will “go south”.

Susan

[Bogey2]

It’s been a tough January in the Boston area to keep up with paddocks…melting, freezing etc. equals frozen poop. I do the best I can but chiseling 15 horses worth of poop is impossible. It won’t kill a horse but it is frustrating!

[skyy]

Yes, hay on poop is gross. We feed hay out of 100 gallon Rubbermaid troughs in winter paddocks. Some of the horses will eat it in there and some pull it out and eat it off the ground. You can only do what you can do.

[Limitless]

@Bogey2

It’s been a tough January in the Boston area to keep up with paddocks…melting, freezing etc. equals frozen poop. I do the best I can but chiseling 15 horses worth of poop is impossible. It won’t kill a horse but it is frustrating!

Truly! We had a foot and a half of snow melt here in 24 hours, then 4 inches of rain on top of that, then a flash freeze which completely made my field unusable since it was a sheet of ice. My “dry lot” suffered icing as well, and although I’ve been able to keep up with poop for 2 horses in there, I couldn’t keep up with the ice and hay leavings as well as shavings that get dragged out from the stalls. We were just starting to dry out, and then this week another inch and a half of rain in like 4 hours. I spent pretty much this entire weekend raking hay, chopping and carting away ice and actually using a sump pump to get as much water out of there as possible. And that’s for two horses. I can’t image the work to keep up with more than that.

[LovieBird]

I agree, I wouldn’t want my horse standing in muck. If it is possible for the barn to pick it, I’d like for it to be done. Yes, I have done this myself and yes I know it is hard and takes time. Some people just have totally different ideas as to what is acceptable in terms of hygiene.
If there aren’t better options in your area, you may have to pick your battles here. No place is perfect, but I think it comes down to what you are willing to compromise on.

[Draftmare]

In areas where it snows, I think this is pretty normal. The snow covers up the poop, and nobody is going to go digging through snow to find it. When it melts it is often too wet get equipment in to drag the area without sinking. Even if you can get to the paddock, manure management (getting it to the poop pile, or taking care of that poop pile) is often difficult if not impossible.

[Simkie]

@candyappy

OP is paying for a service and always has a right to speak up when something does not seem right. It may not change the outcome but it is better than becoming someone who just accepts what others consider the " norm".

The OP is not paying for the service of having the dry lots cleaned regularly in winter. She’s made it clear that it’s not a question that was asked until she started to notice the accumulation of manure, and it’s not something that the barn owners would have promised, had she asked–because they’ve made it clear that their process is to deal with it in the spring.

Cleaning the paddocks in the winter isn’t a service this barn offers. Sure, she can ask if they’ll include it gratis–no harm in asking–but a “no” answer isn’t surprising. Maybe the barn owners would consider it for some more $$. Or the OP can clean it herself (seriously, the “I want this done but ew, it’s hard work and I can’t possibly do any of it myself” is just so tiresome.) Or she can leave, and make sure she asks that question of future boarding barns.

Guess this is a good learning experience for the OP–ASK ABOUT how things work before agreeing to board your horse at a facility. All of the things. There a million roads to Rome on how to safely and effectively manage property and horses, and probably 10 times as many on doing it poorly and dangerously. So you have the conversation about winter when you’re there in July, and you ask about pasture management if you’re shopping in January. The barn owner wants that conversation just as much as you do, because they don’t want you in their place if you’re going to be constantly griping about their care, just like you don’t want to be in a place where you’re going to be constantly unhappy and irritated that “they’re not doing it right” even though they never said they’d do it your way to start.

[SnicklefritzG]

Regarding the line I highlighted, asking questions is good, but that doesn’t always work. In my thread on “winter water woes”, I did ask questions about handling water in the winter and received what seemed like a satisfactory answer. They told me that they cannot run electric to the fields, but they go out and break the ice daily. Their contract also stated that fresh water would be made available at all times. Nothing could have been further from the truth this winter.

So even though I asked the question, and the BM’s had an answer, they didn’t live up to the commitments they were making to the boarders.

OP, the only way to truly assess what a place is like is to watch them over a period of months or a change of seasons to see what they actually do. Or talk with boarders. You may or may not get a straight answer from them, but if you have a friend of acquaintance on the inside it might help to find out what a place is really like.

@Simkie

The OP is not paying for the service of having the dry lots cleaned regularly in winter. She’s made it clear that it’s not a question that was asked until she started to notice the accumulation of manure, and it’s not something that the barn owners would have promised, had she asked–because they’ve made it clear that their process is to deal with it in the spring.

Cleaning the paddocks in the winter isn’t a service this barn offers. Sure, she can ask if they’ll include it gratis–no harm in asking–but a “no” answer isn’t surprising. Maybe the barn owners would consider it for some more $$. Or the OP can clean it herself (seriously, the “I want this done but ew, it’s hard work and I can’t possibly do any of it myself” is just so tiresome.) Or she can leave, and make sure she asks that question of future boarding barns.

There a million roads to Rome on how to safely and effectively manage property and horses, and probably 10 times as many on doing it poorly and dangerously. So you have the conversation about winter when you’re there in July, and you ask about pasture management if you’re shopping in January. The barn owner wants that conversation just as much as you do, because they don’t want you in their place if you’re going to be constantly griping about their care, just like you don’t want to be in a place where you’re going to be constantly unhappy and irritated that “they’re not doing it right” even though they never said they’d do it your way to start.

[Abbie.S]

@firsthorse

I appreciate you sticking your neck out. I think a few have a guillotine on hand. It all comes down to the horse for me and that’s where it ends.

Oh heavens, dear, no one has a “guillotine on hand”. If you think any of the responses here have been that harsh, I invite you to read around. There are far more contentious threads than this one. A thicker skin may be in order ;).

You admit to being a first time horse owner. You’ve been given a lot of excellent suggestions on how to handle things currently or in the future instead of, as you stated, assuming something was the norm. We all understand there is a learning curve with horses and years of ownership tend to include learning a few things here or there and making many mistakes along the way. Embrace it.

No one is suggesting a “put up or shut up” route - you may of course ask, but be prepared for a “no” and be willing to accept that your standards may be different from those of your BO. If it is egregious enough to you (and I say this genuinely, no snark), be prepared to rest on those laurels and find a new place. Whether it’s “normal” or not is only an indicator of how difficult it may be to find a place that does the kind of job you’re looking for, not whether or not it’s necessarily good or ideal practice.

[Simkie]

@SnicklefritzG

So even though I asked the question, and the BM’s had an answer, they didn’t live up to the commitments they were making to the boarders.

Absolutely. But there are so many more options if the question has been asked and there’s a contractual obligation.

Don’t ask and just assume something is going to be a certain way? You’re pretty much SOL when the barn doesn’t meet your expectations. Give your 30 days (or whatever the contract obligates you too!) and leave.

Ask, get the answer you like, make sure it’s in the contract? Leverage, ability to leave without notice, ability to sue for breech of contract.

Ask, don’t get the answer you like? Avoid the whole thing entirely.

No saying at all that asking the questions guarantees that the barn owner will keep his or her word I think all of us who board have been somewhere that something discussed hasn’t been provided as promised. But hey…if you don’t even ask, then don’t be surprised later when it’s not what you assumed. “Some people on the internet who have a couple horses and do it this way” isn’t exactly leverage to make it happen :lol: (And I’m talking about the manure in this thread, not your water, Snickle ;))