Lessons learned and best practises - musings during stall cleaning

Yesterday it was my turn to do the room service for the boys. I like cleaning stalls, it’s physical, but you can let your mind wander, and at the end I take pride in having nice fluffy beds made up. Sporting manure stains all over my clothes is a different story, though.

It’s interesting to think how many ways they are to bed and clean stalls. Growing up in Germany the only option was straw, and the stalls were made up in ‘mattresses’ – which means only the top soiled layer was taken off daily, and then a new layer of straw was added. Hence, the ‘mattress’ was build. Once in a while the barns had “Pee Days” where the entire stall was stripped. Called “Pee Days” because of the urine that had accumulated at the bottom of the mattress. Yuk! All the barns in my area were full service, and the barn owners did not want the riders to mess up their carefully planned systems. They even hid the pitch forks.

In my early days in the US I traded Crissy’s board against barn duties, cleaning stalls, feeding, turnout. Even though the barn owner/trainer was a bit on the strange side (i.e. if a horse stood in the stall with the hind end pointed to the door it didn’t want to be worked and thus was left alone) she taught me correct mucking and bedding, using saw dust or wood shavings. I still stick to her program of taking the soiled bedding out, raking the rest in the middle, and then banking fresh bedding around the walls. This way, there is fresh bedding available to be raked in when needed, and it stays in place. If you only pile new bedding in the middle of the stall and leave area around the walls bare the sawdust gets spread and then the horses are left with only a thin layer often not even covering the floor.

JP and I are big fans of wood pellets, they are soft, very absorbent, and dust free. Initially they need to be watered down, and I have fun doing it: It’s like making a giant batch of popcorn: “Snap, crackle, pop”, as the pellets expand. I guess you really can find joy in little things – in this case, wood pellets!