Right now I am spending about 45 minutes to clean and bed four stalls, and sweep the barn. Of course about 5 minutes of that is spent petting the barn cats who lay down in the middle of the stalls for attention…
Interestingly, if I let the horses out just one hour earlier, say because I am heading to a show, it significantly cuts down on how messy the stalls are.
[QUOTE=GraceLikeRain;7047360]
5-8 minutes: modest shavings, one small pee spot, and a few neat piles of poop
8-15 minutes: deeply bedded stall, large or multiple pee spots, or broken down piles
15+ minutes: stall walkers
I pick the poop, scrape the margins of the pee spot, scoop out the pee, shovel down to the mat, brush up the residual dirty bits, bank the walls, sift the whole stall for hidden treasure, add shavings as needed and sweep the shavings back 2 feet from the front edge. I let the pee spot dry and then fill it back in before I blow out the aisles.[/QUOTE]
This is about right for me too. I’m quite anal when it comes to cleaning stalls!
Makes me even more happy my mare is so neat 
I do mine like Hippolyta and Grace like Rain. I think it takes me about 15-20 minutes to do a stall. Partly because I also discovered I could use a long handled dust pan and broom to pick up the tiny pieces that you can’t pick up with a manure fork. It added new dimensions in trying to have a stall look freshly bedded even if it wasn’t!
I like to have the stalls really tidy because it does help keep down the fly population if they can’t find anything to eat. I also wipe out the grain tubs with a damp cloth daily.
Sigh…guess I’m slow and anal too
3 stalls in 20 minutes.
I timed myself tonight. Took me 5 minutes to clean the stall, rake the bedding where I wanted, and sweep back the bedding from the front.
Warrior at home was crazy easy, unless he was in an anxious mood he peed and pooped in the same spot every day, and the spots were next to each other, took very little time and very little waste
Burbank was a cow and took 2-3 times the labor and the bedding and he peed in the middle, pooped everywhere and then mixed it around
their stalls were about 14x14
[QUOTE=mkevent;7048631]
I do mine like Hippolyta and Grace like Rain. I think it takes me about 15-20 minutes to do a stall. Partly because I also discovered I could use a long handled dust pan and broom to pick up the tiny pieces that you can’t pick up with a manure fork. It added new dimensions in trying to have a stall look freshly bedded even if it wasn’t!
I like to have the stalls really tidy because it does help keep down the fly population if they can’t find anything to eat. I also wipe out the grain tubs with a damp cloth daily.
Sigh…guess I’m slow and anal too[/QUOTE]
I’m now at a full board barn (Praise God!!) and they use the dustpan method…and pick the stalls 3-4 times a day. For a clean stall freak like me it is heaven. You are totally right that it makes a stall look freshly bedded. An added bonus is that I’ve only used fly spray twice so far.
OK, I admit I pretend I am getting ready for Barn Inspection at camp. FUN
I can’t help it, but why not relive my former glory when I would get 10s on everything? Hey, it’s all I have. It sounds like some of you guys may have been through the same inspection
Horse doesn’t seem to appreciate my efforts, but whatever.
When I had a job (20 yrs ago) with 10 stalls to clean, I was a bit quicker, but still pokey.
Does anyone else need to muck the aisle when you’re done?
This is a 3-yo thread, but, it depressed me anyway. It is taking me 20+ minutes each to clean two stalls, and scoop a few piles of poop out of their dirt paddocks. One stall has a large and messy boy who produces tons of large poop and walks it throughout the stall, where it multiplies in the dark, and is pretty consistent with a 2’ x3’ pee spot. The other stall has two minis who scatter their little gumdrops, individually, throughout their stall and pee wherever. Everyone has 24/7 access to their own dirt paddock, but they mostly poop in the stall (maybe two or three piles in the paddocks).
It just seems to take way longer than it’s taking the other people in this thread to get all the individual poopballs out of the stalls. There are definitely flakes and some smaller lumps when I’m done, but no way could I get out a respectable percentage of the individual poop balls in less than 15 or20 minutes. What am I doing wrong? I do the “pick out wet spots and what piles of poop are still piles on the surface, and for the rest of the bedding, throw it against the wall and let the poop roll down” method. The minis’ poop is too light for this method to work all that well, though.
I think that maybe I just don’t move that fast. I think I do tend to be more of a “stroller” than a “whirling dervish” but even so, I don’t think I could keep up a whirling dervish pace for all three stalls (my own horse is very neat and is on wood pellet bedding and mostly poops outside; takes five minutes to clean and fluff her stall).
Years ago, and I mean years and years ago! I was at a self care barn cleaning my own stalls and burning up time. Then a stall cleaner came in to take care of a new clients horses. After watching her I went from 20 minutes to 3-5 minutes per stall. Position the wheelbarrow, put your head down and get picking. you can’t anguish over the little stuff. Thinking about it just slows you down!
SharonA - the amount and type of shavings used definitely matters, as well as how much you pick and sift, how long the horses have been in the stall, and how neat they are.
I have four geldings at home and it takes me about 10 minutes per stall. I normally use easy-pick (very small) shavings although occasionally I use a medium-flake or sometimes I mix the two, depending on what I’ve bought at any given time. My horses are typically outside all day long, so there’s typically 5-6 poop piles and a couple of pee spots when I come out in the morning. Two horses are fairly neat (poop stays in a pile, even though they are placed in multiple spots) and the other two are pigs - I swear that they poop and then kick each piece into a different area of the stall. I generally have to sift through every inch of the 10x13 stall to make sure I get everything because I’m a little OCD about not throwing away good shavings. My stalls have mats over concrete and I bed enough to make a cushion but not overly deep because too deep is a major PITA to clean. I don’t have to strip stalls very often as the wet is taken out daily and the “not as fresh” shavings are moved to where they pee. I add a new bag every few (2-4-ish) days.
Type of shavings matters!! I was recently turned on to this “mix the fine and regular” shavings. So I thought I’d give it a whirl. Their theory was you get the ease of picking a stall with fine shavings, but by mixing in the regular shavings, you get a deeper bedded stall for cheaper (larger flakes cover more cubic feet). So I tried it. NEVER AGAIN!!! Idk when my two normally neat horses decided to become pigs, but they are disgusting and I’m cheap. So I pick through every flake! The only thing that gets dumped in my wheelbarrow is dirty/pee shavings or poop balls! Not a single clean shaving is to go in there! Well 45 mins per stall, I’ve learned to never mix the shavings again! Fine flakes all the way! I can clean those nasty stalls in 20 mins or less with the fine shavings. My awesome 30 year old uses only one spot to poop and pee! I’m in and out of there in 5 mins and that’s including my time to tell her how much I love her and how beautiful she is today and feed her a peppermint:)
5-8 minutes on average. Maybe 8+ for a really messy horse. I can do 8 stalls plus hay and scrubbing/filling water water buckets and sweeping in about 2 hours.
I’ve never really timed myself on the stalls, but I am guessing under 5 minutes. I have a crazy tight schedule, and in the morning it takes me about 20 minutes, sometimes 25. That is to feed and turnout two horses, including putting hay out outside. Clean the stalls, put hay in for the stalls for the evening and do the water. I rotate water buckets to make my cleaning easier, so they get changed out every 2-3 days. My goal is to have it so the only thing I have to do in the evening is throw grain and bring the ponies in. Trying to make more time for me to ride in the evening, and help protect myself for the nights when I work crazy late. On the weekend when I have more time is when I add in more shavings and become crazy anal about the stalls, but even then it is definitely under 10 minutes per stall.
Wildly variable. Sometimes I just pick the poop off the top (usually when I have just replaced most of the bedding with fresh wood pellets). Other times I shovel out saturated pee spots. Sometimes I get out all the yuck and put in 5 bags of new pellets (big stalls). So it can take me from a few minutes to 30+ depending on what I am doing that particular day.
At the barn where I work it takes me an average of 10 mins/stall, including mucking, bedding, sweeping back the front of the stalls and sweeping all the barn aisles when I’m done. (17 stalls).
Why on earth don’t we teach the damn horses to clean up after themselves? It would save us all a lot of time!!!
“Why on earth don’t we teach the damn horses to clean up after themselves? It would save us all a lot of time!!!”
I’d be satisfied if they didn’t take a pee and a dump as soon as they come in from being turned out all day. They had plenty of forking time to take as many of both as they wanted. Please, dear horses wait until I am at least out of sight.
We only bed on straw. I’ve never liked working with shavings. I find it to be a real PITA and time consuming.
With the average reasonably tidy housekeeper horse. 10-15 minutes per stall. Clean, bank, rake out, bed, hay and water.
I used to work at a barn (in France) that bedded on straw as it is/was pretty much standard there. We cleaned the stalls once a week (straw was added daily so the horses had something to much on in-between feedings). Cleaning them was AWFUL.
I much prefer cleaning stalls once a day and bedding them with sawdust rather than shavings.
On average, a stall takes me about 8-10 minutes.
Tidy ponies, 5 min.
Messy horses who waste hay, stall walk, and whose owners insist on them being on deep deep bedding, much longer (grrrr).
I use “mini flake” (sawdust) shavings. Three of my horses are very neat and it takes 3 or 4 minutes to clean their stalls. The fourth horse is a pig and it takes twice as long.
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