Refuses to muck out her horses?

Urine soaked shavings should be removed daily. Urine decomposes and gives off ammonia gas which is a respiratory irritant and can predispose stabled horses to developing chronic lung disease. Wet organic material also decomposes and acts as a medium for growth of potentially toxic molds and bacteria which also pose a variety of health hazards. I would not keep a horse in a stall where wet bedding is not removed regularly. The major function of bedding in a stall is to absorb urine, and wet shavings cannot absorb anything, so there is little point to bedding stalls if you are going to leave them wet.

I've boarded at many stables over many years before I purchased my own property, and when I encountered this kind of management it was either rectified or I left. Your horse's health and well being have to come first.

My old loan never truely had a proper muck out. I was told to put his bed up and then just clean anything he did after that. He was in the stall maximum 3 hours a day but he was very clean. It depends on the horse and what the owner has been taught to do. Most people at my yard leave their shavings like that. There's only one girl that replaces shavings but her horse has problems with her legs. In the summer when my 2 are out I just put enough for them to do whatever and then put the bed up. If the're staying in longer than an hour or two I'd put more shavings in. If you're worried speak to her.

If it is wet, has been pooped on, or just looks gross then I take the shavings out. When I have a horse stalled 24/7 for illness or injury, or stalled for most of the day, I generally end up stripping the stall every other day at least, it just gets too icky. Now in stalls where the horse may be inside for an hour, if that, then I will just clean and replace shavings as needed rather than every other day or every day depending on how clean the horse keeps his stall. Some ponies are neater than others.

If you don't like how she's doing things, consider caring for your horse yourself. Ask her if it would be alright to bring in your own shavings and clean your stall out how you'd like.

This sounds like the same way I worked when I was mucking stalls. I was asked to remove only the poop and major urine spots. But we -never- left horses standing in urine spots. I always kept the bedding light and fluffy in the stalls that needed it.

You can try to educate and talk to other owners in the barn, too, and see if it would be possible to change the way things are being done.

If the actual loads of shavings your barn gets look dirty/brown/old then they need to be finding new shavings. What goes into your horses stall should, without a doubt, be white and fluffy.

Also consider the cost of shavings. Even once a week we never "truly" mucked out a stall. Each horse is different. We had one that would only poop in one corner and would NEVER pee in his stall--- he waited until he was put out every day. Another horse would completely soak the stall in urine nightly.

So, some horses get truly mucked out daily and have a new 2 foot deep fluffy layer of bedding on a daily basis. Others can keep bedding for 2, even 3 weeks because they only poop in a certain spot. We always left all the clean bedding and only removed urine and poop (we shook out the shavings, even... so only the poop). Filled in spots where needed.

EDIT:

I wouldn't recommend the deep-littering technique where it's described to leave the urine and just let it soak to the bottom. Not only will it ruin the base of your stalls (where I was at it was concrete, another stable had stall mats, another had dirt). It's also VERY bad for your horses respiratory system. Just look up the effects of ammonia on horses...

It is called deep littering and worked correctly can actually benefit the horse. There are many different reasons for deep littering from time/money issues to the horse having respiratory problems and deep littering eliminates a lot of dust in the stable.

It's not quite a simple as taking the poo off and leaving the wet. The bed is effectively layered, with the urine soaked layers being under layers of bedding and well covered to stop aroma and the rest of the bed getting damp. If done correctly someone looking over the stable door will never know that the bed is deep littered as the top layers of the bed are clean.

There are many advantages to deep littering -

*Cheaper on bedding

*Quicker

*Warmer for the horse

*Much greater stability to the bed than clean and fluffy beddings. The horse will just put a foot straight through such bedding which can cause slips and capped hocks etc when lying down/getting up. It is a much cheaper alternative to rubber matting and the labour involved in mucking out the bed at the end of your chosen period is similar to moving and cleaning rubber mats.

I don't deep litter my full bed personally, only the banks. I do that to keep draughts out and to provide solid banks to try and help him not get cast. I deep litter my banks for a full winter and muck them out when he goes out. You could deep litter a full bed for the entire winter and if done correctly, it benefit the horse and you!!

It's not acceptable in my book.

Here's the deal, I'm all for stalling horses, especially show horses, but if you're going to keep them penned up in a stall, it damn well better be immaculate in there.

Our horses stalls are cleaned 2-3x's a day and 4 fresh bags of bedding a week. Everytime the stalls are cleaned all the bedding is pulled back and sifted through. 'Dirty stalls' are a big no for us. It also looks unprofessional and is inconsiderate to the animal you're caring for.

Imagine this, being stuck in a public restroom hours at a time where no one flushed the toilets. Pretty gross eh?

I've heard of that before, its called 'deep littering', where your supposed to clear out the poops and leave all the pee's and put them to the bottom of the bed. I don't know why people do this, its like, wetting your bed then letting it soak through to the bottom of the mattress then leaving it to build up!

My TB is on shavings and I clear everything dirty, damp, or wet out and just keep the clean things, like normal. My shaving are always light, fluffy and white, because they are CLEAN!

and seriously, it must stink to leave all that muck in the stable, to me it could just be laziness, but well, not everyone's the same. people have their opinions.

That's gross. Shavings need to be picked through every day and really stripped every other day at LEAST. That ammonia smell from their pee is really bad for them, and they have to put their heads down close to it to eat their hay.

I board and pick my horse's stall on the days when they don't clean them, and if I had my own place I'd be cleaning them every day. If she doesn't want to spend money, then she shouldn't have horses in the first place.

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