Horse pooped in her water bucket

[S1969]

That’s just bizarre. I think it would be weird if a horse didn’t occasionally poop in a bucket. I don’t think I’ve ever had one that never managed to land at least a turd in a bucket if not an entire pile. I mean, come on. Of all things to moan about – that would not be on my list unless it was all the time.

Personally, I hated boarders whose horses had poor ground manners more than anything else. And I owned one like that myself - it wasn’t a lack of training, just lack of spatial awareness, I think. Bull in a china shop. But that kind of horse was much worse than the occasional bucket of poop soup.

[FjordBCRF]

$h*t happens. Sometimes in water buckets. I could live with the comment if BO did dump and refill and didn’t let it be poop soup until you showed up. Thats not ok.

Our first barn we had a portagrazer, and he pooped in that once. BM text me a picture of it and I laughed and said to leave it and I’ll clean everything out when I get there. Thats less of a big deal than water though.

[findeight]

@Joanne

In any case, there were other deficiencies and I did decide to move out to a friend’s place

I think theres a clue there that she no longer wants you on the property. Soon as you get that feeling, you need to bail because, based on 50+ years experience, it NEVER gets any better once it starts down that slope. Good you got that feeling before it got any worse.

Any body calling my horse a pig would have me in full agreement as horses are messy and sometimes gross. But nobody ever blamed them for even a slight slip up in care by calling them a pig. Maybe she was drunk…good riddance.

[SusanO]

Mine was a pig and I let her know that. I think it was her passive/aggressive way of getting even with me. Still is a pig but not in her water bucket anymore. It was pretty gross when I would come down in the morning to find that and it was always on a morning when I was running late trying to get to work. Just dumping the bucket isn’t going to be sufficient. I bought a toilet brush so I could scrub down the bucket. Speaking from a caretaker’s point of view it is a habit that makes the horse way down on the favorites list.

I do not have her feed tub attached to the wall because I did not want to deal with an attached feed tub if they decide to poop there. So now sometimes if I do not remove her feed tub after she eats, she kicks it around and poops in it. So I have a spare for emergencies. Gross, but not nearly as disgusting as a pooped in water bucket.

[TheJenners]

Genius idea! Filing it away.

As to the original question as a BO who used to board others… sure frustrating but horses don’t learn like that and being snarky with a client over it is beyond stupid. And that was how I took it. When I was the boarder I had a horse who kicked his walls at feed time so she would take away his food, thus increasing his food anxiety. I told her to just feed him in a.pan outside the stall but those extra 29 steps were too much. I was glad when I “fired” her.

Regardless! The horse had water outside all day and I’d assume the BO would have cleaned it had I not come out. Maybe ask, “BO you would have cleaned this if I had something come up and couldn’t make it out though, right?”

[RMJacobs]

My mare pooped in the automatic waterer occasionally. It had to be her because she was the only one tall enough. The other two were ponies. Cleaning that up was pretty gross because it was a Hoskins waterer, and couldn’t be dumped like a bucket. I had to scoop out the big stuff then open the drain plug, and hope the rest went out the drain. I usually had to scrub it as well, while the water was flowing out. I don’t know if Her Highness was displeased about something or what. I never knew when she did it as there were long periods with no humans out there.

Rebecca

[Annie10]

I have my horses at home and occasionally take in a boarder or two. I have no staff, it’s just me and husband for a few days here and there when he’s not on the road.
I have a bucket pooper. Each horse has two buckets. As soon as I see the poop soup, I address it appropriately. Obviously I don’t sit in the barn every waking second just in case he drops a load in his bucket so he may have to just deal with it for a bit until I go back out there. But he does have another.bucket. That’s just horse life. I never even considered charging extra for that. Thats just part of horses
I can’t imagine anyone intentionally leaving it nasty in the stall with the horse in it and leaving him without water.

[Bogey2]

It’s not that hard to clean out a water bucket with manure in it. Dump it and rinse it…now a feed bucket takes a little extra work! I would never think of charging anyone more money because of poop in a water bucket.

[endlessclimb]

If the bucket is already hung high and they poop in it when it’s full, it’s a real treat to clean.

The barn I was at for 20 years would not clean it. It was a partial care barn. Yet, some people wouldn’t come out for long periods of time. Once a month, I would scrub and clean the buckets of the absentee owner horses because I couldn’t handle the yuck sewage smell and the thought that horses were drinking that garbage. Any pooped in buckets got dumped and scrubbed immediately by me. However, I wasn’t employed by the place so I might not immediately notice, particularly in the winter.

There was a reason the board was cheap. I lived 5 minutes up the road though, so my horses were always cared for.

With my dedicated bucket pooper, I hung the main bucket high and had a second bucket. The barn staff wouldn’t go in the stall to fill the second bucket so it was filled once a day by me.

Once she learned to poop in the main water bucket, it was impossible to break the habit. I think she was massaging her tight hamstrings on it.

[S1969]

@SusanO

So I have a spare for emergencies.

Well, this is the obvious answer for every barn owner. In this case, the horse was turned out with water but if for some reason there wasn’t time to scrub the bucket, just hang another one. Take down and dump the dirty one and get to it when you have time.

I don’t think horses poop in buckets out of spite, but anything left in a stall is fair game for being pooped in or pooped on.

@FjordBCRF

Our first barn we had a portagrazer, and he pooped in that once. BM text me a picture of it and I laughed and said to leave it and I’ll clean everything out when I get there. Thats less of a big deal than water though.

I read this as “porta potty” (for humans) and spent a few seconds wondering how that could even have happened. Yikes, more coffee please!

[2tempe]

I board, and for a few years there was a horse next to me who had pooping issues: Thru the bars into my horse’s stall. over/thru his stall door “window” into the aisle. Into his corner waterer. Almost everywhere but the floor.
Staff NEVER said anything negative, never complained to the owner. They cleaned out the waterer frequently but finally gave up and hung buckets high enough that he couldn’t poop in them. Turned off the waterer and covered it. They pick stalls a couple times a day so I didnt much care that her horse pooped in my stall, lol.

[FjordBCRF]

@S1969

I read this as “porta potty” (for humans) and spent a few seconds wondering how that could even have happened.

I would NOT have offered to help with a porta potty…I would rather pee in a stall than a porta potty!!

[ParadoxFarm]

My 30-year-old retiree poops in his water a lot. He has neuro issues, and uses that corner to help stay stable at times, so I’m never mad at him. However, it does take time to pull the bucket, empty it, clean it, etc. So now I have 3 or 4 spare buckets next to his stall for when I am in a hurry and have to dump it and leave it to clean out later. I just pop up a new clean one and fill it and go.

[Angela_Freda]

Some barn owners and workers tend to take a pooped in bucket personally and as if the horse did it intentionally.
That’s a stupid, ill informed battle you’re unlikely to win.

[Angela_Freda]

@S1969

I can think of many reasons why the bucket may not have been emptied/cleaned while the horse was turned out. Obviously we’d all like to think our horse is #1 on the list for everything, but maybe there were other things going on at that moment and the BO forgot about it or was tied up with any number of other priorities.

Forgetting a water bucket is a big deal to me.

[Angela_Freda]

Agree, on these days when cleaning it isn’t doable, a spare bucket to throw up is a good solution. They’re what, $20?

[S1969]

@Angela_Freda

Forgetting a water bucket is a big deal to me.

Um, but the horse was outside with water. Examples of other priorities that would take precedent before scrubbing a poopy bucket: the vet or farrier is there, or a load of hay being delivered, or another horse coming in, or an emergency with another horse. Or even that it’s something personal and the staff/barn owner has to leave the barn.

Of course, I would expect the barn owner/stall cleaner to make sure they have clean water when they come back into stalls.

[Arelle]

Eh; I get it. Was it professional? No. Was it worth getting under your skin? Also no.

I dump buckets daily and it is a CHORE. It’s one of those little things in life that seems like no big deal, until you’re dumping multiple buckets day in and day out. When the bucket is full of foul smelling poop water, it just adds to pile if you’re already irritated or trying to get to your next item on the to do list. On the occasions I find them, I also bleach the buckets which means not only am I dumping - but I’m going to get the bleach and a scrub brush and my task that was supposed to take twenty seconds is now taking several minutes. Not a big deal if you own one horse, super irritating if you are managing twenty (kind of like the blanketing debate).

If it was the only water the horse had - totally unacceptable. But if the horse was being turned out and wasn’t even using the stall - not worth a second thought. They should’ve dumped it when they found it, but maybe they were running to their next appointment.

The “your horse is a pig” comment was probably pent up frustration. I have a couple who are filthy pigs and I try to leave them out as much as possible. It’s no one’s FAULT, but dealing with one of my perfect angels who poops neatly in one corner vs one of my heathens who somehow breaks all manure into pieces too tiny to pick and scatters them throughout the stall… night and day. Add manure water to the stall casserole and there are days you just want to walk away.

Not a barn owner, but I own my own facility and have eleven personal horses (because I’m nuts) so I’m going to count it.

[Annie10]

I agree, I wouldn’t lose one second of sleep over an empty or dirty water, bucket or dirty stalls long as my horse wasn’t in it. I keep mine at home, but I do all of that when I clean the stall. So they may go out, and it may be several hours later before I get back out to the barn to do my chores and clean everything. But as long as the horse isn’t in the stall, it really doesn’t matter when it gets done as long as it gets done, and they have fresh clean water while they’re in there.

[ParadoxFarm]

About 8.99 by me!