That’s interesting. I switched from sweeping to a leaf blower because one of my boarders kept begging me to.
If we’re really gonna get into the nitty gritty of it all, being stuck in a stall hours each day with dust, ammonia, and fecal matter floating all about is damaging to respiratory health even without the factor of a leaf blower. But the debate over the management style of stalling has about a million other threads so….
#teamoutside24/7
IMHO. Long term use of the leaf blower allows you to reach the very high areas that fine dust particulates are settling, regardless of how you sweep , blow or suck the aisle of the barn. It builds up on the rafters and steadily falls all day. It’s on the fan blades blowing about. Built up on the screens in your windows. It’s EVERYWHERE. The horses should be out of the barn for a big blowout. Don’t store hay over the horses, replace pulverized bedding and keep your stall corners turned over and/ or swept out. ( especially where grain and hay are settling or are being reserved/saved from cherry pickers) wipe down finished surfaces often. Oh gosh, the chores for dust abatement are endless!
I have a 28 year old Paint gelding who was on pasture board starting in 2001. I had to move him to another barn in 11/20 because he wasn’t getting adequate care. The BO was developing a medical problem that affected her management of the facility. Our retired vet sent us to a beautiful barn that never advertised so very few people knew about it. My horse has the stall with the largest attached run with a view of the parking lot and road. He loves it.
It was spotless. The aisleway was swept a few times during the day. The leaf blower was used at the end of the day after the last sweep. There wasn’t much dust. One is cordless, the other has a battery. It changed hands a year ago and the rookie BO blows it without sweeping. Staff does it also. That creates tons of dust. I haven’t seen any respiratory problems other than my asthma. There is a good fan over his stall that should be cleaned but I can’t get anyone to take it down. He gets a nice breeze without dirt or dust. Most of the horses are moved to the indoor when their stalls are cleaned.
If your definition of substandard care worthy of moving or a total lack of other good care is someone using a leaf blower than good luck finding a barn you can afford, or a barn at all.
I thought of this thread this morning. I was at Wegmans and there was a gentleman vacuuming the parking lot. One of those parking lot vacuums would work perfectly for aisle cleaning.
Yes! I agree with this! I have also often wondered about respiratory problems being caused by being worked in a sand ring all the time, or horses being in stalls beside the sand ring.
If you said this to the face of any BO/BM running a competition barn in Area 1 (eventing) / Region 8 (dressage), you would have nowhere to board, and your name would likely be shared from BO to BO as a ‘red flag boarder’.
That attitude is exactly why I refuse to take on any boarders at home. Enjoy your boarding shortage; this attitude of entitlement is precisely why longtime barn owners close their doors.
There are many dealbreakers I have about boarding my horse out that would show a huge lapse in knowledge about horse care (including, yannow, requiring the horse be stalled 8-16h a day), but employees using a leafblower in a barn is not one of them. No reasonable BO or BM wants a horse inside while they do this chore - but if you’re the person that can’t understand why sometimes this isn’t realistic, then you[g] will likely be unhappy in many barns that do offer good care and horsemanship to their boarders.
And… maybe if barn workers, BMs, and BOs were paid more they wouldn’t have to find ways to expedite certain chores to get all chores done in a day… there just are not enough hands on deck or hours in the day for this to be feasible in most barns.
Average BM wage per hour is $15-17. Think about that for a bit.
I’d rather not board my horse at a facility where his health was secondary to the convenience of the staff.
Isn’t your[g] horse’s health already secondary to its owner’s(boarder’s) wishes to keep it stalled in 16 hours a day…? Its health is already compromised by being in a stall before the leafblower is ever involved.
I don’t think this issue is as black/white as some think it is.
First of all, I agree that you shouldn’t use a leaf blower in the aisle when the horses are in the stalls. Absolutely. I also agree with holding the blower low to the ground and using the available breeze or a fan to help things along.
In a smaller barn; it’s easier to work around a horse being up in a stall - put that horse in an end stall, sweep that section, blow the rest of the aisle in the direction away from the stalled horse.
I was so concerned about a dusty environment that twice a year I stripped stalls and power washed the entire barn interior, getting all the cobwebs and accumulated debris off of the stall grates and walls.
A barn that routinely blows the aisle with horses up would concern me, and I’d want to know why. Is there not enough turnout so there’s always something in stalls? Are the aisles so long that sweeping takes a crazy long time? Has the BO/BM had so much trouble hiring and keeping staff that they’ve given up on someone sweeping the aisle correctly?
However, I think the larger point here is that larger barns have a one size fits all approach that makes it less likely special requests can be accommodated. The OP is much more likely to find a barn that agrees with her view or will accommodate her if it’s a small barn and handful of boarders or a small staff.
I am a bm and If a client asked me to move their horse when I blow the aisle I would happily do that. However If it was an inconvenience I would have to charge them for my service.
I don’t like blowing the aisle when there are horses in their stalls. We do it at the end of stall cleaning but right now I have some horses that are on the day turn out and some on night turnout. I also have horses that are in 24/7 for medical purposes. I’m lucky enough to have multiple barn aisles and can sometimes move them but sometimes I just isn’t possible.
This is definitely not a little request. I used to work at a barn where that was the final thing to do after filling water buckets, cleaning stalls, feeding hay and grain and setting up grain for later on. It was a great feeling to get the aisles clean and leave. That being said, there was one obnoxious boarder who would crank it up and blow everything again after she was finished riding. I hated that barn. The boarders were such jerks. It’s like they had a long, never-ending list of requests: "Can you give my horse more hay? Can you make sure we have more shavings? Can you leave my horse’s window open? Can you put my hay in this haynet? Can you clean my three water buckets twice a day? Can you soak my hay? Who stole my supplements? Who blew the leaves into the tack room? Where is the toliet paper? Why is the place so dirty? Why hasn’t the arena been drug today? The barn manager is such a jerk- why isn’t he ever around here?
I was so glad to leave that place- but it certainly gave me a new perspective on how it is to be a barn worker. They are treated like dirt. Scum. Now that I board at another place, if I ever have an issue, I try to deal with it, myself- but if I have to ask a barn employee to help me do anything, I pay them a $10 tip. If you have a problem with the blower- find a new barn that does not use a blower. It’s just wrong that you think you can go in and change things.
I agree with most of your post. Barn workers are paid very little, asked to do a lot, and horsey people can be unreasonably demanding.
That said, I take a bit of an issue with the below:
As the owner of a horse with health issues who requires her hay to be soaked and for her not to be in the barn when sweeping or blowing is going on, I don’t think I should have to move out of a program that other suits both of us 100%. I love my barn, the trainer, the staff, and the management. When my horse’s health issues came to light last summer, we worked out management changes that worked for and satisfied everyone - horse, staff, vet and me. That isn’t being unreasonable, IMHO.
I’ve worked in barns where there were similar requests.
Management should have policies in place to handle them.
One boarder was a woman who came every morning to get her mare ready for the trainer to ride, and would ask me if I could put her blanket back on later in the day.
No problem–the mare was on full board and training, and not only did she get the mare ready so staff didn’t need to, she often brought donuts for the staff.
Same boarder asked if we could feed hay in a net–again, she filled it herself, but wasn’t able to hang it.
The non-horsey BO (bought the place for his wife who rode) came and tried to tell me I shouldn’t be doing that–“what if everybody wants their horse’s hay in a net?”
I pointed out that :
a) horse owner dropped a significant check in the payment box every month, including show fees
b) brought us several new boarders/students by recommending the facility
c) most folks didn’t like hay nets, but if they did request it, we tell them it’s included in full board and training, but costs extra for you. Either they forget about it or they pay for the service–no problem either way.
d) this mare was a pig in her sall and routinely tromped her hay into the manure ans wasted it. Stall was easier to clean and hay was not wasted when the net was used.
Regular barn help shouldn’t have to deal with odd requests–that should be a management reponsibility, and it can get sorted into 3 categories:
–things that are NBD
–reasonable requests which will be performed for $ extra unless included in full board and training
–requests which are logistically impossible or completely off the wall
THIS!!! I go out of my way to be helpful at the barn. I try to help my trainer and her staff, save them time and make their lives easier, and they help me in turn. Off the top of my head, I have recently done the following:
If you make other peoples’ lives easier, they are more likely to help you out with favors when you need them!
You know Bill Moyer, too? Best vet I ever had. Knew him when he was at NBC. Wonderful vet. Wonderful person.
Unrelated but: I am GREEN with envy that you live in Wegman’s land. There is a wild rumor that one may be coming to Orlando in the next year or so, but yes I would drive 40 minutes. (maybe not every week).
Our barn blows the aisles and whatever, late morning while the horses are out.
Not personally, but he was a frequent speaker at CE meetings like AAEP and AVMA.
I like to do the same, sprinkle aisle with water before sweeping, with traditional broom (I loathe a push broom).
I often spike the water with a bit of Vetrolin, pine oil, or mint-scented disinfectant. Makes things smell good.
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