Maintenance For Horse Corrals
Brent Wells August 3, 2022
Brent Wells August 3, 2022
If your horse lives in a stall for any part of his day, you'll have to keep it clean. This is more than just keeping things pleasant for you and your horse. Unclean stalls attract insects and can encourage hoof problems such as thrush. A dirty stall is unpleasant to work in and smelly for you, too. Stall cleaning should be a daily task.
Dress in appropriate clothing for this admittedly a messy job. Gloves can prevent blisters. Urine can erode the stitching on the soles of leather riding boots, so save yourself boot-cleaning time by changing into work boots or rubber boots.
Take your horse out of the stall during cleaning. A good time to muck out is when your horse is in the pasture grazing or exercising. If you can't put him out, put your horse in an empty stall. Next, remove all the feed tubs, water buckets, and toys from the stall before beginning the cleaning routine.
If the stall is bedded with straw, use a pitchfork to remove manure and wet or soiled bedding. If shavings or sawdust have been used, use the shavings fork to remove manure and wet bedding. Fork the manure and soiled bedding into the wheelbarrow or cart. Sometimes it's easier to pick up wet bedding with a shovel.
You may want to completely strip a stall occasionally. In this case, keep filling your wheelbarrow until the stall floor is completely bare. Use the shovel to scrape up remnants of bedding and the broom to sweep it clean. You may want to put down an odor-control solution or stable disinfectant. Let the floor dry before re-bedding. Once you've removed all the manure and soiled, wet bedding, spread whatever clean bedding that remains back over the stall floor. Check around the edges of the stall, as clean bedding sometimes gets tossed against the walls as the horse moves around. This leaves a thinner area in the middle, or wherever the horse usually stands. Distribute the bedding evenly.
Add fresh new bedding to replace any you have removed. If using straw, either add a whole bale of straw or portions of one. Fluff the bedding with a pitchfork. If your stable uses shavings or sawdust, use a wheelbarrow to transport fresh shavings to the stall, or open a bag and fluff the compacted shavings with the shavings fork. Some stables have truckloads of loose shavings piled, or you can buy bags of compacted shavings.
After you've finished cleaning and bedding the stall, use a broom to sweep up any spilled manure, straw, or shavings in the alleys and doorways to the stable. Scoop up the sweepings into the shovel and toss them into the manure pile. Left unattended, manure, chaff, and bedding in doorways will turn into a muddy mess in wet weather.
For more information on horse properties in Prosper Texas please contact us anytime.
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