Stall cleaning - anyone do every other day, sort of?

[tpup]

So I am looking at what I am spending in shavings per month for 2 ponies and 2 horses. I was using hemp but at least for the ponies, they are a little rough on their soles as both are prone to laminitis/bruising. To be safe I’ve stopped using the hemp. The hemp does last longer and makes considerably less waste but I’ve switched to medium flake for all 4 stalls. My horses are in at night only in winter and for the next 2 months will be in sheets at least overnight. I can do over half of the stall cleaning while they eat - so they aren’t overly messy.

Has anyone tried just picking manure daily and doing the other areas every other day? My horses generally pee in the same spot and are fairly “neat”. But for the large horses I am still dumping at least a full bag daily. Urine odor is not a problem. I use PDZ granules and since they generally pee in same area, perhaps that is soaking up the odor. I suppose I could hemp just the urine areas. FWIW I hate the mini flakes. Bags are crazy heavy and I find they get messier in the stall. Love texture of paper bag shavings but bags are hard to handle and the paper bag waste volume (to throw away) drives me crazy. I have a torn rotator cuff/bad shoulder and I can still grab 2 bags of the mediums, one in each hand, to stack/move easily.

What money saving tips to you have? The pellets intrigue me but if they are hard on the feet, it’s a no go. Unfortunately I can’t store bulk shavings on my property or in my barn anywhere.

[S1969]

I find it hard to imagine that bedding is hard on a horse’s feet. That’s not normal; I would be looking more closely at the “prone to laminitis” problems and wondering how bedding can bruise a horse’s feet - are they allowed outside on hard ground?

I use pellets and I would never say they are hard on a horse’s feet - they are supposed to be rehydrated which turns them into soft sawdust. Some people don’t fully rehydrate them and I would think of them as uncomfortable to lie down on, but still not hard on a normal horse’s feet.

As for stall cleaning - yes often I do not clean daily, but my horses are not locked in their stalls. In some parts of the year I can go quite a few days without doing a full cleaning, and unfortunately, in this very rainy weather, I could clean stalls 2x a day. Deeper pellet bedding is one way to help - the urine will go down into the bed and not be wet on top, for the most part.

[Gainer]

I do clean mine every day and I too add about a new bag every day in the winter. Mine are locked in 12-14 hours during the winter.

I use large flake shavings and bed deeper than most people do. My reasoning is my horses are elderly and arthritic. They’re not comfortable laying down outside anymore and they really love to lay down in their stalls. They’re often all laying flat out, snoozing away, when I do bed check.

It’s worth checking around on shavings as prices can vary between resources. I found that my local mill sells bagged shavings at a better price (and delivers cheaper) than Southern States or TSC.

Believe me, I feel your pain. It’s going to be an expensive winter. The cost of manure removal just jumped considerably, hay is already scarce and we aren’t even in “real” winter yet.

[sophie]

When I boarded at a friend’s backyard barn we used 1 bag of sawdust every 3 days for each horse’s stall. There were mats in the stalls and each horse had an attached paddock so could come in and out at will, but they peed and pooped mostly IN their stalls. All 3 mares were rather tidy though, and always pooped and peed in the same spots which made stall cleaning a breeze.
I think you save more bedding when cleaning / picking the stall daily. I like sawdust way more than shavings, as you can really sift through it and easily save clean bedding.

[danacat]

@tpup

So
Has anyone tried just picking manure daily and doing the other areas every other day? I suppose I could hemp just the urine areas…

I use hemp liberally in the pee spots and bed with shavings over top. I pick only manure and don’t clean the pee spot for days, sometimes a whole week or longer; depends on how often my horses are in their stalls; they are outside most of the time – rarely in all day or overnight.

Yes, I think you can easily get away with skipping pee spot removal – at your discretion.

[Simkie]

@sophie

I think you save more bedding when cleaning / picking the stall daily.

I agree with this 100%. Removing all the wet daily preserves the dry bedding.

Pellets aren’t hard on the feet (outside of, say, serious pathology. If you have an actively sinking horse, they might not be suitable, I guess?) I track my bedding consumption closely and the piggy horses in my barn have each gone through 57 bags of pellets to date this YEAR. That’s just over a bag a week. Pellets are really a great way to save bucks on bedding, plus they’re easy to store and compost quickly.

[Dressage59]

I really like pellets and actually use less of them than shavings. Someone on this forum recommended having a deeper bedding to ease cleaning and it really does work. I have a Cushings mare and lots of time I’ll dig out the pee spots, add some of the harder pellets in and then cover up with softer pellets (those that have absorbed more water). Seems to work. Good luck!

[danacat]

@Simkie

Removing all the wet daily preserves the dry bedding

So true if using only shavings or pellets. But the cool thing about hemp in the pee spots it that it locks the pee in place, acts like clumping cat litter or a diaper; unbelievably absorbant – eventually turns into an undisturbed, solid mat of soaked up pee – other bedding stays dry and floats on top – unless you have a horse that likes to paw, make a nest or totally messes up their stall in some way.

[fordtraktor]

Maybe try a deep litter bed. It is a technique and is very cushy when done right. There are old threads on it.

[tpup]

Thanks all - I think I’ll get a few more bags of hemp and work with that for the pee areas.

Regarding the 2 with laminitis issues - they are in a bluestone dry lot during the day but also have mats under the barn overhang where they eat so they spend a lot of time there too. They do fine there as long as I pick their feet if it rained and the bluestone packs into their feet some. The large pony foundered 2 yrs ago on his hinds. He is sound in hind boots w/ortho inserts, barefoot up front. He has soft soles in general. So yes, the hemp is much harder for him to stand on than the fluffier med. flake shavings. He is 23 so I’ll do all I can to make him comfortable. The 10 hand shetland is approx 7 yrs old and gets flares if the wind blows. He is on no grass, tested positive for Cushing’s, is on Prascend and gets sore sometimes after trims. My sense in general is that the ponies are just more comfortable on softer, fluffier shavings. The hemp can pack into the frog “V” areas where you pick out the feet vs. the med flake shavings just falling out.

[Scribbler]

I am currently looking after 3 mares in a stall with runout situation.

They do most of the mess outside but some does land inside. They are very good about not walking in it.

We have mats and I use a deep bed in half the stall, bare mats in the other half where they eat. The stalls are 11 by 11 and a deep bed is 3 big bags of shavings, 5 cubic feet of compressed shavins each, then another bag about once a month. For my mare this creates a mattress area to sleep that is about a foot deep.

I pick out the manure and leave whatever pee is there, out of sight out of mind. You can’t smell it and the top layer looks clean. There will be a tiny pee hole on the surface but it goes down to the base before it spreads out.

I strip my own stall a couple times a year. The shavings do break up and get dusty after several months. When I strip though there is usually enough grubby but functional bedding that my barn neighbor with the messy gelding is glad to have the top layers for her stall.

This is working fine with two of the mares. The 3rd is a bit messier and is needing a bag a week top up.

[enjoytheride]

I clean every day although we do occasionally skip a day, like if the weather is bad and we are running horses in really fast or it’s really late at night.

I use pelleted bedding and once I have a stall established I put in a bag once a week or every other week. Horses are out for about 12 hours a day in the winter. It’s about 3 to 4 inches of bedding and everyone lays down at night, nobody gets sores or anything like that.

[AKB]

Mine have constant access to their stalls and the field. They have “house broken” themselves, so it is rare that I have to clean stalls. When one is in the stall and has to defecate, he races out to the field. Leaving the stalls open saves a lot of bedding. If I have to lock them in, I clean the stall every few hours. I don’t want to jeapordize the house breaking.

[et_fig]

@Gainer

I do clean mine every day and I too add about a new bag every day in the winter. Mine are locked in 12-14 hours during the winter.

I use large flake shavings and bed deeper than most people do. My reasoning is my horses are elderly and arthritic. They’re not comfortable laying down outside anymore and they really love to lay down in their stalls. They’re often all laying flat out, snoozing away, when I do bed check.

It’s worth checking around on shavings as prices can vary between resources. I found that my local mill sells bagged shavings at a better price (and delivers cheaper) than Southern States or TSC.

Believe me, I feel your pain. It’s going to be an expensive winter. The cost of manure removal just jumped considerably, hay is already scarce and we aren’t even in “real” winter yet.

I second the checking mills. After we stocked up at the local Co op, I saw an ad on Craigslist for $6/100# bags of lathe shavings. Bookmarked their number for the future.

[Simkie]

@AKB

Mine have constant access to their stalls and the field. They have “house broken” themselves, so it is rare that I have to clean stalls. When one is in the stall and has to defecate, he races out to the field. Leaving the stalls open saves a lot of bedding. If I have to lock them in, I clean the stall every few hours. I don’t want to jeapordize the house breaking.

I really wish mine did this. They all have large runs, so could do their bathrooming outside, but noooooooooo. :sigh:

(Granted, the gelding does nearly all of his pooping outside, bless him. I wish the others would get on board!)

[Fleurdelis]

I feel your pain. I went through a lot of trial and error with my gelding who insisted on walking in from pasture to relieve himself in his stall…like clockwork. I know you don’t like mini shavings but that’s what works for me. I put pellets in the pee spots and cover with mini flakes. The volume of shavings I felt I was wasting with the medium flakes was too much for me. Now I take the soiled mini flakes and disperse them outside in muddy spots. It’s a win win. I’m repurposing shavings and curbing some mud.

I can’t skip a day or else it just makes things worse. On days when hubby does me a ‘favor’ and feeds without cleaning all waste I’m reminded of how much easier life is if it’s done daily. Are you able to give them open access to stall and dry lot at night without locking them in the stalls? I presume you lock them in to give them a break given the underlying issues you described.

[DMK]

@Simkie

I really wish mine did this. They all have large runs, so could do their bathrooming outside, but noooooooooo. :sigh:

(Granted, the gelding does nearly all of his pooping outside, bless him. I wish the others would get on board!)

Ugh. I hate this time of year. Mine have access to a large dry lot and then open to a pasture all night (summer) or all day (winter) so this is the time of year they are “in” 12-14 hours. The fjord is super duper neat and would not think of pooping where he eats or sleeps or hangs out, so he goes outside to poop (right in front of the gate, but whatever) but bless his heart, has issues with backsplash, so prefers to pee inside (and so. much. pee.). The TB has no sense of hygiene, and poops wherever he happens to be standing. His bucket, the stall, wherever. But he at least has figured out the softer/no backsplash areas of the drylot for peeing. There’s a perfect horse in that pair somewhere

What I do to help with the bedding is add the pelleted bedding dry to the pee spot areas. You need a decent base so it isn’t like standing on pebbly bedding, but the dry pellets help minimize the amount of bedding you take out for a day or two. Right now I’m using about 2 bags a week for a 10x20 stall (there is a 10x8 loafing area right through a side door, but I gave up putting bedding in there and they gave up using it as a toilet. Win win)

[enjoytheride]

@AKB

Mine have constant access to their stalls and the field. They have “house broken” themselves, so it is rare that I have to clean stalls. When one is in the stall and has to defecate, he races out to the field. Leaving the stalls open saves a lot of bedding. If I have to lock them in, I clean the stall every few hours. I don’t want to jeapordize the house breaking.

Oh God.

My mare will not pee in public. She will release a waterfall when you put her halter on and hold it all day. The TB poops in circles then walks in it. Shudder.

[clanter]

@tpup

the paper bag waste volume (to throw away) drives me crazy. .

the recycling service my city uses takes the plastic shavings bags as well as feed bags, we have curbside pickup

[S1969]

@clanter

the recycling service my city uses takes the plastic shavings bags as well as feed bags, we have curbside pickup

Are they actually recyclable? Or do they just throw them away? They aren’t recyclable in my area, anyway. Unfortunately.