WTH
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Not unless you want half (or more) of the clean bedding thrown out with with the poop. Ask me how I know! 
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I’d be a little less worried about poop left or clean shavings getting tossed and more worried about the “helpers” breaking my stall rakes.
I don’t even let my husband help clean stalls because of that.
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Forget mucking a stall properly without throwing out too much good bedding as a test.
Two absolute tests of barn worthiness.
1.) Take a metal manure shovel, and pick up poop in the aisle. Get all of the manure in one pass with none left behind. Yes, there’s a trick to it, and yes, it separates newbs from experienced horse people.
2.) Fill a haynet to capacity without making an unholy mess, close it and hang it correctly. I won’t judge you if you use a clean muck tub or trash can to accomplish this, but I’ll be more impressed if you do it without.
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I’'ve had horses at home 20 years, and horses both before and after in stables, and I couldn’t pass this test. Not that it’s a bad test!!! It would sure weed out the people you want to weed out!
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Agree. I can never get it all in one scoop. Some of us just aren’t very coordinated. Lol.
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I can get it in one scoop as long as I am allowed to use my booted foot to push some wayward chunks onto the shovel/fork…
I actually know a trainer who also will make use of her feet and the first time I saw her do that I said something because I had never ever seen anyone else do that and always felt a bit weird about doing it myself (I have never actually owned a horse and my leases have all been 24/7 turnout so I have had comparatively little poo picking experience, so kinda thought me using a foot was a sign of poo inexperience). And the trainer was like, ‘yeah, sometimes a good nudge with your foot makes it easier and if you wear the boots out to the field, they’ve already experienced poop, so…’
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Took me six passes to clear the arena poop the other day, of course we were trotting briskly with the carriage and I had to walk along the line of piles after we were done.
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Flat barn aisle surface? Pitted/pebbled, literally or figuratively? Concrete, rubber mat, or some artificial surface? 
Yeah I’d flunk, by miles. Shovel with a good edge, stiff broom, plus softer broom to perfect the surface. Maybe two or three trips to the muck bucket.
Maybe the horses here have bigger poop piles??? 
But — End result ‘like it never even happened’. 
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It’s all in the wrist flick at just the perfect moment!
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FEET, SHMEET!
You have perfectly good hands. 
Plus bending to put stray balls into the fork adds another dimension to the exercise.
Bonus Points if you don’t immediately wash your (ungloved) hands.
Double Points if you eat lunch before washing too.
WTH, it’s vegan manure, right?
Processed hay & grain, nothing to hurt you*
*I’m pretty sure horsepeople have natural immunity to equine e coli 
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I could do it – I aim for this pretty much every time I pick poop anywhere.
We’ve been using the slightly bent handle “ergonomic” forks ever since we discovered them many years ago. Once used to them, can’t go back to the straight-handled type, IME. They make picking poop much easier and less tiring, IMO.
Also, in the stall or gravel paddock, I make a point of switching sides to even the wear and tear on my body. But for the aisle test, I’d go with my dominant side.
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Yeah, but not to Giardia. Trust me on this.
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What size of shovel is this? I can’t remember the last time we had a metal shovel in the barn. The big green snow shovel was wonderful, you could fit about two good sized dumps in it if you were proficient. Some of those smaller metal ones I remember seeing around could hold almost one.
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I don’t have a metal shovel either.
I have a plastic coal shovel.
I assume that @McGurk is talking about something like this.
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That does look about the same size as the one we had. Unfortunately the last year we used it for shoveling the front steps and walk finished the poor thing off, it split up the middle. Unfortunately I’ve never seen one in the local hardware store since. I would so love another. The only problem with it in the barn, was the load could get pretty heavy. Poop or snow! 
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I agree, the nice big shovel makes for a heavy load.
Aisle manure piles I typically pick up the majority with the pitchfork and then sweep the rest into the shovel or the over sized upright dust pan.
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When I had horses at home, we composted our manure. We would only clean out the corral and sheds; the pastures just got harrowed. It was a harrowing experience. (don’t kill me!) My daughter and I would have manure flinging contests. The rules were you had to fling from where you found the pile, and you got points for style. The goal was to get it on the manure pile. I was stronger, but my daughter had better aim, so we were reasonably well matched. The horses looked at us like we were nuts.
As for harrowing, we started off doing it with our little John Deere. But then we bought a UTV, and discovered how much fun it was to use it to pull the harrow. Next thing we knew, all our neighbors wanted to borrow the UTV to harrow their pastures.
Rebecca
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My horses were convinced the reason we fed them was because we valued their manure. We picked it up every day, and carefully kept it on the property (compost pile) and checked the poop out when a horse was potentially ill. We must have thought that stuff was gold! One horse was very courteous, and would come to stand near us at cleaning time, and poop right onto the fork.
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I called it “mulching” when I mowed right over the piles 
Horses followed me when I mowed.
Like I was the Good Humor truck
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