I would chalk a good bit of the OP’s issue up to the culture difference b/w NC ASB/saddleseat peeps and NoVA mostly sport horse peeps. IIRC she had to tell them she had a bay pony instead of Hackney pony just to get a stall. The struggle is real.
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There should never be puddles of urine in stalls.
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Correct my math, but each horse is getting 1/10th of a bag a day. That means 3 bags of shavings a month. If they were using 8 bags per horse per month, the horse would be getting a bit more than 1/4 bag of shavings a day, or a whole bag every 3.75 days.
of my horse keeping expense bagged shaving is one of the least costly… if this barn owner is minimizing the use of bedding to save I would wonder just what are doing about skimping on the more costly expenses
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My barn that I both board and work part-time at beds deeply. The horses NEVER have hock sores and the barn does not stink at all. Yes, it takes longer to muck but she can go about 3 days before rebedding. She’s also very particular about what kind of bulk bedding she gets. She wants absorbency over pretty, fluffy shavings.
I have boarded at a barn that used Soft Stall mats and would put a sprinkle of shavings down. The barn owner swore that horses didn’t need bedding with these stall mats. There was no way I was going to have my horse standing and laying in crap and urine, as he was a disgusting pig, so I had to pay extra for bedding (his stall was still gross because the barn owner couldn’t muck a stall properly). I would come home from that barn and my clothes would smell like pee…ugh, nasty.
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I have arranged a phone call with the BO this afternoon to discuss. BO is rarely at the barn(don’t ask) and our schedules don’t mesh for a face to face. So we shall see. I know BO doesn’t want us to move, (my pony is a profitable boarder if there ever is such a thing) so I shall see what we work out.
@clanter Its not a pro barn but a small family run barn where owner doesn’t live on site. She owns 5 horses and has 4-5 boarders. Most owners are absentee. Its decent basic care nothing special, and if I had a hard keeper I couldn’t board here. She has low grain limits and hay limits in her contract that work fine for me but not if my horse required any substantial amount of food.
@red mares Definitely a change boarding in H/J than with ASB’s. I find the care much better at ASB barns based on what you pay for. Plus, finding a barn here that lets you use your own farrier in insane. I will say my guy is the best behaved equine on the property.
@Palm Beach Your math is right, total of 10 stalls but they don’t add anything to my guys stall so technically 9 stalls. 3 bags of shavings a month is 1 less than I add a month, I just add the entire bag at one time being the difference and don’t have pee puddle. So I would be moving over 1 measly bag of shavings that are just added to the stall 1X vs spread out through the week
I haven’t decided what my plan is until seeing what the BO proposes as fair. I like boarding here cause its quiet has really nice trails and so kid friendly which is hard to find here. I’m at the barn enough that most other stuff I can overlook or just do myself, except pee spots. I don’t want to see pee or smell pee, that’s my limit. Its so bad for their lungs and mine.
we are talking about the compressed 3 cubic feet of shavings package that expands to about 5.5 cu/ft? not some huge bag?
these 3 cu/ft bags can even be bought at Home Depot around here for $4.49 each
[URL=“https://www.google.com/shopping/product/14388019928585141784?lsf=seller:8740,store:12602620116886374503&prds=oid:5394256651586860432&q=bagged+shavings+for+horse+bedding&hl=en&ei=RIF0WoSqMuGc5wKnoJewAQ&mid=s1Dapd0yw|dc_mtid_8903jx325196_pcrid_246378820472_pkw__pmt__product_203076286_slid_&lsft=gclid:EAIaIQobChMI8Kz5y8OH2QIVxlqGCh0BzgEzEAQYBCABEgKQ2_D_BwE”]https://www.google.com/shopping/prod...CABEgKQ2_D_BwE
Same thing, just Southern States brand cause they deliver.
https://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-1934-statesman-pine-shavings-3-cu-ft.aspx
I think I spend around 26.00 a month on shavings. Less than getting a blanket washed and waterproofed.
mine are all on rubber matted stalls with massive beds and huge banks, the ponys banks are about up to his chest.
i dig out the worst wet and the poo and leave the slightly damp and the beds are fluffy but firm and doesnt move and churn up.
pony is NEAT though, all poos in one area and pee in same spot daily, never pulls his banks down or churns the bed.
takes 10 mins to muck out.
the others are not so super neat, takes about 15min.
my yard so my say but i wouldnt board anywhere that did the sprinkle and pee aroma thing…gross
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so it the disposal of the bedding that is the BO’s issue? … I think they may need an emotional support animal of some kind, surely they have something wrong somewhere… maybe they need their psycho medications adjusted some
Hm. Even if I don’t agree with the verdict I will always defend a BO’s decision to run their barn the way they see fit…but this woman just sounds like she’s being quite, what’s a good word…skimpy?..with bedding.
A “sprinkle” is not enough to soak up urine. I like a deeply bedded stall both to wick urine away but also for laying down in, but I’ve also for whatever reason always owned horses that were prone to hock rubs.
Laying in urine as well as breathing ammonia fumes for several hours a day is not OK. I agree that sadly, your options are either to find a way to cope or move, but it does seem unrealistic to think owners are OK with their horses standing around in a stinky barn and laying in pee…although it sounds like the BO doesn’t have many super-conscientious boarders so that might be part of this.
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That sounds like way too little to me. I’ve been at a few barns. Two bedded deep. One of which I worked at and it took so much longer to clean 40 deeply bedded stalls so I can kinda see where she’s coming from just a little. The other one that I boarded at was like a happy medium. Enough to provide a little cushion and soak up the pee but not an exorbitant amount. I worked there for a bit as well. Much easier to clean those stalls. Now my horses are home I bed each one differently. But they are not in their stalls much anyway.
Can you reach a happy medium? Still put in extra shavings but not as much as you are now? Also, I read it right that BO is buying bagged shavings with 10 horses on site? Granted I haven’t done the math and don’t know what the prices are like in your area, but I feel like buying sawdust by the truck load might be cheaper. Unless she doesn’t have a place to store a dump truck load of shavings.
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I use bulk sawdust. Where I get it the wood is not kiln dried first so it is not near as absorbent as purchased (kiln dried) bedding.
Or the desire to have to shovel their bedding into stalls. Or have a source to buy bulk sawdust.
In my opinion if your horse is confined to a stall the bedding should be deep enough to absorb the urine and give him a nice cushioned area to lay down comfortably.
In both my boarding experiences the stalls were bedded at least 6" or more as horses were in stalls all the time. I cleaned stalls for reduced board for many years and it wasn’t an issue when cleaning.
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Good for you, I would leave too! If I am paying for stall board I expect to have my stall sufficiently bedded. I don’t see why there should be any problem with you adding your own shavings, especially since you aren’t asking for a discount off board. Having enough bedding to, at a minimum, soak up your horses pee should be a no brainer. It sounds like their practices are a bit unsanitary. Are other boarders experiencing similar issues - with their blankets getting filthy and the stall smelling like urine?
I was always complaining about the bedding at the previous place I boarded. We were supposed to get 5 bags of bedding a week…but the guys were constantly stripping the stalls of all bedding, so 5 bags didn’t really amount to much. My horse actually does pee a lot and isn’t the cleanest horse in the world, but still. I started adding my on bedding, but it just got to be too expensive. I’ve since switched barns and the place I am at now beds the stalls BEAUTIFULLY. Ah, it makes me so happy! In fact, the day my horse moved in, the first thing she did when she got into the stall was do a bunch of little circles and then plop down and roll. I never saw her do that before, so I think it’s safe to say she appreciates the added bedding too 
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I’ve always been a believer in lightly bedding, because I prefer my horses to be outside most of the time.
Now a new BO, we have the polypropylene fabric stall liners, and you have to keep them fairly deeply bedded to help make sure no horse shoes puncture them or anything. Although, I had a heck of a time trying to cut them with scissors so they don’t appear to be easily ripped. We debated if we would provide shavings on partial stall board (owner provides their hay and grain). We decided yes, we would provide the shavings, for a couple reasons. First, to make sure our stall liners don’t get destroyed by someone under-bedding. Second, to make sure we don’t get someone who wants a foot of bedding in their stall that takes me 30 minutes to clean. We have two mares on stall board that are in 12 hours of the day at their owner’s request; new stalls start with 3 bags then we use about 3 bags of shavings per week (each bag is 10 cubic feet expanded). We use the large flake shavings so that the liners don’t get clogged. So, our 10’x12’ stalls are about 4-6" deep or so. Neither mare is exceptionally clean, but not terribly messy. IDK if it’s the depth of the bedding or because some of the pee drains through the liner, but pee spots are never visible, they’re always covered in dry bedding, so you have to turn the whole stall to make sure you get the wet bedding. Still only takes me about 5-7 minutes per stall.
A messy gelding is always the easiest, IMO, if they’re not over-bedded. Stripping a stall out every day requires no sifting.
If I were unhappy with the amount of bedding provided, I would first ask for more bedding, and if declined then I would move barns. I would not, as a boarder, have ever provided my own bedding.
Ah yes. That’s right. I forgot about the absorbent thing. Now I remeber. Guess that’s what happens when you’ve been doing your oremember. For a while! Pluses and minuses to both sides.
I do the bags as well with my two so I’m not knocking it.
This goes for me, too. I have 12 horses and ponies and keep them bedded deep. I add maybe a bag a week per stall, maybe two in the messier ones or when they spend more time in. If I were bedding less deeply I’d be using far more shavings per week because I’d be removing more and have to replace it. Mats replace one inch of bedding, not the entire bed.
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My horses are in overnight in the winter; the floors are concrete with tightly fitted mats, and I keep the bedding 6" to 8" deep, adding 2 to 3 bags of shavings per week per stall. I honestly can’t imagine anybody claiming that one bag per week is excessive, either cost-wise or work-wise.
I don’t look in here very often any more, but every time I do I find some new example of wildly declining standards in boarding barns. It’s pretty depressing, I must say
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It’s a deal-breaker for me, because I’d worry about the horse getting cast. I keep mine at home and bed my stalls as OP describes. But I haven’t seen a commercial barn in years that does so. They all seem to be moving to those pellets that swell when they get wet, and they use mats with just a covering of pellets.
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