Manure and more Manure. Now what?

If your Horse lives inside for any part of the day or night, you must clean its stall thoroughly. Unclean stalls can attract insects, cause hoof problems, and harm your horse’s lungs when they breathe in ammonia, from urine and manure. Cleaning their stall is a daily task and will take you no more than 20 minutes.

To get started, remove your Horse from their stall while you are cleaning it. You can turn them out to graze, but if you can’t put them out, use an empty stall to put them in. Working around your Horse with a rake, pitch fork and bucket might scare your Horse and the stall's close quarters don't give you enough room to get out of the way.

With your horse safely out of their stall, gather your cleaning tools and park your wheelbarrow or muck bucket close to the front door of your stable. If the stall has a straw bed, use a pitchfork, if it is made of shavings or sawdust, use the shavings fork to remove manure and wet or solid bedding. Make sure to put it all into the wheelbarrow or muck bucket. If the bedding is very wet, it may be easier to pick it up with a square head shovel.

As you continue to clean the stall, move the clean bedding to one side to ensure there is nothing hiding underneath. Once you have filled your wheelbarrow or muck bucket take it to your manure compost pile.  

Sometimes you may want to completely empty the stable if you have scheduled a deep clean. If so, take every bit of bedding out until the stall is empty. Once all the manure and wet bedding have been removed, let the stall air dry. Then spread the clean bedding over the stall floor before you bring your Horse in.

Add new fresh bedding to replace anything you have removed and fluff this with a pitchfork or shaving fork.

The thickness of your bedding will depend on your stable’s floor. If there is a thick rubber mat on the floor, the bedding can be thinner. However, on bare concrete or hard dirt, you need to add a lot more bedding to provide padding.

Finally, make sure to clean the isle and doorway of the stable, and put all of your tools away. Return any feed buckets, water buckets, toys, or anything else you've taken out of the stall to clean it.

 Yes, that is a smile on your Horse's face.