Not to derail this… but, how in the heck are you guys cleaning stalls so quickly? Am I really just that anal? It takes me 20 minutes to clean a stall. LOL!! Lord, give me some tips on what I can do to cut this time in half!!! 
i was just about to make the same comment. To clean, bed, scrub water buckets, scrub feed tub, takes me about 20 mins.
Liscar, EmilyM, “Muck” is a relative term.
I know a man who can “muck” through 14 stalls in a half hour because he uses a wide blade shovel and only removes the wet spot and whatever happens to be obviously on top. He’s not concerned about wasting shavings.
I’ve also been able to “muck” 11 stalls in 30 minutes (and re-set hay!!) because the bedding was literally no more than 2" deep and the stalls only got re-bed with one bag of shavings every 3 days.
If you have a show horse background, or horses that are older and require softer sleeping areas, or those known to wallow in the pee-spots, your stalls will be bed more deeply, and mucking will take 10 - 15 minutes per stall.
You can shorten mucking time if your’e not as anal and can put less thoroughly sifted bedding onto the area of the wet spot and cover it with a handful of clean bedding. You got the wet out, the majority of the manure is gone, or hidden by the fresh bedding. Although the goal should be to sift 100% of the bedding each time you muck, this is a shortcut I’ve used when time gets away from me. But removing all the wet spot is always of highest priority.
Yup! That’s me! Show horse background, super anal, I have to have every speck of $h!t out of the stall or it’s not clean! haha. I was taught you should be able to lay in the stall after you clean it. :eek: People make fun of me all the time. :lol: I think it may be time to quit worrying about it so much! :yes:
Not to derail this… but, how in the heck are you guys cleaning stalls so quickly? Am I really just that anal? It takes me 20 minutes to clean a stall. LOL!! Lord, give me some tips on what I can do to cut this time in half!!!
In my case it’s b/c there’s only 4-5 horses that come in to eat. Then they go out. Since they aren’t in that long, it’s less mess
But some days we will have some stay in longer or all day, so it just varies.
Mucked at an equine clinic for a year or so. Hand cart + centrally located dumpsters helped a lot.
Anywhere from 32-56 horses, all stalled 24/7 and obviously cleaner-than-average standards as most were in for treatment. Toss hay to all, dump/scrub/refill waters, clean stalls took me 4-7 hours. If I was there a full shift I’d go back through and do a quick skip to lighten the next morning a bit.
You people would never hire me! Mornings - 1 to 2 hours before I run into house, shower, and jump into car to commute an hour to work. Two horses in most of the time and one with her door open so she is “out” 24/7 but is unable to poop outdoors. She sleeps outside in the grass so I keep her shavings low so she pees outside.
So that is turning out two horses - one I have to put boots on. Putting hay outside to occupy them while I clean 3 stalls. So one stall - just shovel up the poop but usually LOTS of poop. One double stall deeply bedded, and one single stall deep bedding. This takes at least an hour because I am anal about clean stalls. Then dump and refill water, add shavings ( use at least a bale a day), add hay. bring horses back in. catch pony that runs off to the back yard instead of coming in his stall. Usually an hour and a half. Now if I am ambitious and pick up stalls at night I can do this in an hour. And if all horses can stay outside overnight maybe 30 minutes. Tractor and spreader are parked in aisle, baled shavings and hay in barn also. If I have to dump spreader add 15 minutes.
I could never board horses or increase the herd. No time to take care of them and work to pay for it. Too anal about stalls to do this for a living. I just shovel poop for fun!
