If it was an option to have more bedding with an additional charge, I’d be on board for that (no pun intended). Unless you’re at one of the high end barns, stalls are cleaned once a day.
Totally agree.
I’m currently experimenting with oversized stalls. My horses are in 15x20 stalls and can put their heads over three walls. My horse that is quite neat when given a run out is also neat in the 15/20 stall. He has 3 zones. Food, potty, bed. I’ll put up fencing for runs eventually, but for now the oversized stalls seem to be a marked improvement over a 12x12 stall.
My horses are turned out daily for 12 hrs.
1 Like
I keep my 3 horses at home - a gelding and two mares. The gelding has a two-stall run-in (his roomate passed away a couple of years ago) This is essentially a little two stall barn with the sliding doors permanently open so he can come and go as he pleases. The two mares are stabled at night and turned out all day.
I keep my stalls bedded relatively thickly and I do it on $110-120 per month. I begin by putting about five bags of shavings in each stall - clean them daily - and add a bag about once a week - sometimes twice depending on how much wet stuff I’m forking out.
The gelding sleeps in his run-in stall every night.
A horse is a weightly creature. They need cushioning. Keeping the stalls fairly thickly bedded provides both comfort and warmth and prevents bedsores and urine stains.
If you begin by putting four or five bags in there - you don’t need to add much each week and it’s much more affordable.
However - EVERYTHING associated with horses is costly - hay, especially, has been getting frighteningly expensive. If we want to keep horses properly - well. . . . we maybe give up a few other things.
4 Likes
It does not matter how deeply I bed my one horse, she always manages to make the floor exposed somewhere. And she is not closed in there, she has an attached run. I recently bedded her so deeply that cleaning her stall was frustrating and I was shocked that she managed to move the bedding the way she did.
In other words, knee deep bedding does not always equal no pee puddle and no exposed floor.
Edit to add - both my horses seem to think the sand in the sacrifice area is the best place to nap.
1 Like
Knee deep is certainly not necessary. Fetlock deep should be fine. But maybe your mare just doesn’t like to be confined? It sounds like maybe she is restless in her stall.
Cleaning it shouldn’t be all the frustrating - unless a horse is a “mix master” - poops and scatters - that’s enough to drive a saint crazy. But otherwise - pick up the piles and dig out the wet spots. It only takes me 45 minutes to clean my three stalls every morning.
2 Likes
Nice. I just left the local high end barn. Stalls still only cleaned once a day even when horses kept in 24/7 due to weather.
Did I love the bedding aspect of boarding? Not at all. But it was the least of my problems tbh.
Most of the high end barns I researched had stalls cleaned twice a day as one of their amenities. By high end I mean $900+ a month.
It takes me 20 to do four lightly bedded stalls, plus runs.
That’s exactly what I mean about taking more time with deeper bedding.
9 Likes
I assume you are responding to me since you mention the knee deep thing.
As I said in that post, my mare is not confined and she most certainly is not what I would call restless. She is just silly, her bedding moving is from he playing with her neighbor.
I have been cleaning stalls for … well… a very long time. Lots of bedding is more work for me.
(I can promise you that no one would walk into my barn and think my stalls are under-bedded so no need to panic that my horses are with out bedding.)
@Simkie said it far better than I did. 45 minutes to clean three stalls is a long time.
Locally, no barns offer more than once daily stall picking. The COL here is pretty low here. I can’t think of a single place within a 2 hour drive that charges more than $700 without a training component.
Seems like you might have a more options in your area. Have you considered moving to a $900 per month barn?
ETA I can’t think of any local barns that don’t have honest to goodness daily turnout, weather permitting. I’d guess in an area where daily turnout isn’t the thing that multiple stall cleanings per day would be more common.
COL here is very high and wages don’t keep up with inflation. That is the full board price, training not included. Believe me, I would love to move to a barn for $900 a month if there were any in my zip code and less than an hour away.
1 Like
That’s actually kind of a long time.
Now x 27 and that’s the barn my “farm boy” also works at. And he gets paid a flat fee of like $40. He strips the stalls daily because it’s cheaper than paying him to clean them properly. I’m assuming they are not bedded deeply.
The daily cost of labor is about the same as the daily cost bedding – the more bedding, the more time…the more time, the more money. The less time, the less money…but more stalls get done.
I think the bottom line is you get what you pay for. A deeper bed requires more up front cost in shavings, more cost in labor to clean, more cost in disposal. Somewhere there is a line at which is “good enough” for each barn owner, but might not be good enough for each boarder. You have to decide what is worth it for you.
My stalls are lightly bedded with pellets. They are used mainly as run-ins and bathrooms. None of them every lie down in there because they are not stalled. When I’ve had a horse on stall rest, though, it did matter. And that horse got much more bedding and more frequent cleanings because he had to be in there.
2 Likes
The horse I keep at home is also not stalled but he loves lying down in it for naps.
You guys are confirming what I’ve suspected all along – I spend too much time cleaning my stalls! I have two horses in 10x12 stalls. I bed medium to deeply. One on pellets, one on shavings (she moves so much in her stall the dust she generates is not something I want to deal with). It takes me at least 40 minutes if not more to clean them. My mare on pellets pees a ridiculous amount so I replace a bag per day. My mare on shavings grinds everything and so I have to sift through absolutely everything. She gets a new bag about every other day.
1 Like
I have found that really deep bedding half of my stall, the pee spots stay hidden and the bedding stays presentable for months. Most of the pee and poop is done outside. But when I do get around to stripping it there’s plenty of pee at ground level. But we don’t see or smell it under the bedding. It would be different with a mix master horse.
1 Like
I’m wondering too if my stall cleaning speed isn’t up to snuff.
Are we including dealing with water buckets and hay in these numbers? Dumping the manure?
I probably spend 40 mins cleaning and resetting my two stall barn. Including dumping manure at pile, water buckets filled, hay in stalls, and feeders rinsed out.
1 Like
Picking out my paddock is under ten minutes from getting wheelbarrow to putting it away. A bit more if I choose to top up the paddock with hog fuel (cedar bark mulch).
I’ve timed myself and cleaning, setting hay drops, putting mash on to soak, water, can be done in under 20 minutes per horse. I have a routine to save steps. Feed is all upstairs in the loft so I usually don’t climb the stairs more than 3 times a day (set feed & bring down mash and saddle pad, bring down saddle, bring saddle back up after).
1 Like
I can clean stalls, pick paddocks, dump wheelbarrow, fill trough, set up beet pulp and prep hay (I use muck buckets to set up/transfer hay) for two horses in 20 minutes each morning and evening. If I’m raking, sweeping, rebedding stalls add 10 more minutes in the evening.
My two horses are in different barns on the same property. I’d definitely cut time if they were in the same barn eating the same bale of hay.
One does wonder.
I’ve seen some damn fancy barns that skimp on every single thing a normal person would have thought was important back in the day - hay, bedding, turnout . . .
And I have no idea what exactly they get instead. Fancy light fixtures and high tech footing, apparently.
7 Likes
