How long does it take you to muck out?

martlin said:
Hmm, it very much depends on the yard set up, the horses and the beds:)
Do you lead them out one at a time?
Do you feed them and give them hay before them going out?
It's all about working out a routine and never making an empty journey across the yard;)
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Yes they are competition horses and in individual paddocks so have to be led out 1 at a time. Down an almighty hill. which i then have to walk back up to get next horse *sigh*

Yes they are all fed and hayed when i get there at 7 30 and then buckets removed before they can trash them.

I do my best. i am as economically as a can be. my legs dont like walking too far see :p i fill barrow with all the hay i need. always an amusing sight!! ha ha good job no one is around at that time!

I wouldnt mind doing them in 10 mins flat but she wants them to a high standard as they are competition horses and paying liveries. which i understand and i LIKE doing the beds well. just some seem to be impossible to do this quickly. dont know maybe i just need to be less soft and not worry too much bout the high standards.
 
Emily91 said:
I wouldnt mind doing them in 10 mins flat but she wants them to a high standard as they are competition horses and paying liveries. which i understand and i LIKE doing the beds well. just some seem to be impossible to do this quickly. dont know maybe i just need to be less soft and not worry too much bout the high standards.
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How long have you been doing it? Takes time to work up the right type of fitness for a new routine. Plus maybe I think your YO is just trying to get as much work out of you for as much as she/he can ;)
 
Emily91 said:
Yes they are competition horses and in individual paddocks so have to be led out 1 at a time. Down an almighty hill. which i then have to walk back up to get next horse *sigh*
That's a bummer, with all due respect, mine are competition horses and I just drag them around in twos, threes or even fours ;)

Yes they are all fed and hayed when i get there at 7 30 and then buckets removed before they can trash them.
do they have to be in their stables when you muck them out? If you tie them up outside for the muck out, it will take you half the time:)

I do my best. i am as economically as a can be. my legs dont like walking too far see :p i fill barrow with all the hay i need. always an amusing sight!! ha ha good job no one is around at that time!

I wouldnt mind doing them in 10 mins flat but she wants them to a high standard as they are competition horses and paying liveries. which i understand and i LIKE doing the beds well. just some seem to be impossible to do this quickly. dont know maybe i just need to be less soft and not worry too much bout the high standards.
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High standards are all very good, but you can't do the impossible! Do you have to do a full muck out all the way to the floor? It would take me ages I think that way...
I think you need to take a weeks holiday and your boss should do your job for that time ;) :D
 
Mine are on straw, it normally takes 40 mins to do my two and bed them down again about twice/three times a week, every other day about 10 minutes per stable. I am a fuss pot though and am not happy unless the stable is nice enough for me to want to sleep in it! :)
 
Mon-Fri mornings when rushing to beat traffic into work I just skip out (my horse kindly dungs in one place!), brush the bed edge back tidy, do a haynet and refill water (that takes about 20-30 mins). I either leave the wet till the evening or if I know I'm going to have a busy week and get to yard late I'll deeplitter the bed and only take the wet out on Saturday though don't like doing that much as I seem to take out a lot more that way for some reason. At weekends I will try and muck out before riding and then I'll skip out and take out wet and leave the bed up until he comes back in for the night to try and let the floor dry out a bit. And as more relaxed and not rushing that takes about 30-40 mins as chatting to others in the row of stables too.
 
martlin said:
High standards are all very good, but you can't do the impossible! Do you have to do a full muck out all the way to the floor? It would take me ages I think that way...
I think you need to take a weeks holiday and your boss should do your job for that time ;) :D
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Dressage horses. That are full liveries. I think that says it all!! No in fairness the liveries are all really nice!
Not many of them settle to be tied up. And would have to tie them in the wash box as nowhere else to tie ( which is outside of barn so not easy to keep an eye on them ) I might ask her if i can use the spare box though while no-one is in it....

yeah I have to go all way to floor. Which i am used to. Trouble is boss does saturdays and claims she has it all done by 9 30. A whole hour before the deadline she gives me...... although i havent actually seen this. And I dont think she mucks out as well as I do....
 
I normally can muck out a straw stable in 5-10 minutes, longer for shavings as I hate them so much. I used to have only 2/3 hours to feed, turn out, muck out 15 stables as well as tack up ponies for lessons etc.

You need to be as economical with your journeys as you can. Everyday I used to trek up from the hay barn to the yard with a wheelbarrow full of haynets, haynets tied to the handles, one over each shoulder and a couple tied around my waist! Whilst leaving the hosepipe on to fill water buckets and hope I got back to the stables before they flooded :)

Sounds like she is expecting a bit too much!! I was a bit slow at my last groom job as the stables were massive, horses in a lot of the time and they were so messy! YO was faster however they weren't as careful as I was and I would regularly find old poo and wet patches in the banks on the days I mucked out.

I also worked at a stud once were YO couldn't understand why I took so long to muck out. Think 20 foaling sized boxes, knee deep in straw, with a mare and foal in them and having to muck them out completely everyday! :(
 
Rebelzmum said:
I think that sounds a tad unreasonable! It would take me all day to do that many!!
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Yep its hard work!! Theres two of us so we usually have about 19 stables each, if we say oh it took 4 hrs then all we get is "Ohhh why did it take you so long??" And there all in 24/7 so even more poop O.O
 
I've worked on 2 big yards in my time.
The eventers for one, which at the height of intakes I had 10 horses to muck out... I'd get a bonus if it was all done by 9.00am.... feed, turn out the ''outies'', water, hay, muck out and sweep. I try to always multi task... leave water running into buckets while I hung up hay nets, used hay nets to barn on my way to the muck heap with the barrow, water back to stables on my way back from muck heap for example! I had 2 on shavings, the rest on straw and I like to think had it down to a fine art!

At the stud, where we had 4 barns of 30 odd mares and 2 barns of 20 odd mares and foals... there were 3 people per barn on a good day! Automatic waters (phew!) but we had to feed, turn out and muck out and then sweep before 11am. Full muck out those with foals, all on straw. Luckily, we could just toss the muck out into the passageway, and a tractor came along and scooped it up... we also had the 'billy goat sweeper' - like a hoover... did the hard work of sweeping. Still, we worked like lightening, good fun, but very physical. The worst part was shaking up clean straw. We used the big bales, and the straw was so compacted it was a nighmare! Glad i was younger then, couldn't do it so well now.

(tip tp the OP = do you make up breakfast feeds the night before? Do you use haynets? if so, fill as many as you can at a quiet time, to use during your busy time? I mucked out the stable furthest from the muck heap first, and swept as i went along... it worked to keep the yard tidy while you work!??)
 
When I was working on a yard with straw beds we normally got them done in 5-10 minutes each including mucking out, fetching the straw with a tractor, and bedding down.
 
Normally about 20 - 30 mins to do one stable, including hay and water. Its a 12 x 12 with rubber matting but a very thick shavings bed and huge bench like banks which I like to turn over given the opportunity.

My horse is mucked out week days by staff and although they do a good job its not as good as I would like but then I freely admit I am a bit OCD when it comes to beds :o EVERY single peice of poo needs to come out and the banks and bed itself totally level. I also add in a bale of shavings too which are a pain in the butt to break down as they are so tightly compacted :mad:

Sadiemay
 
Takes me 1 1/2 hrs to muck out 3 on mats with shavings, fill haynets/haybars. Fill water buckets & make up eve feed. May even have time for a poo-pick, but not usually.
 
It takes me 10mins in the week as in a hurry and I do 2beds, waters.
At the weekend it takes 15-20 as I like to spend a little longer.
 
Now:

4 horses out 8.30am - 5,30pm
chuck all 4 out in 2 paddocks muck out 4 big straw stables sweep back to dry out. put in hay. all done in 40 min.
In the evenings put down bed, level banks and sweep up, bring in change rugs and feed about 20 min max!


On previous event yard
20 shavings stables mucked out properly in one hour (2 people) mornings
20 skipped out in evenings max 40 minutes.(1 person)
and this included banks being anally level in every stable and swept back precisly 3 feet from door.
These stables were pristine!
I cannot understand how it could take anyone 40 min to muck out one stable!
 
Have I made a rod for my owm back here?
It takes me easily 30mins to muck out one tidy pony on shavings. Then water / haynets on top.
A couple of you have asked if someone's going right down to the floor...
I do a full muck out to the floor every day (pick out obvious poos, scrape bed around trying to find the wet, chuck clean up into two piles, sweep out and put bed back down).
Is it not normal practice to go 'right down to the floor' every day? What's the alternative?
I was wondering why I was getting through so many shavings!
I have only been having to look after pony for 6 weeks so haven't found all the short cuts yet.
 
lctrouble said:
A couple of you have asked if someone's going right down to the floor...
I do a full muck out to the floor every day (pick out obvious poos, scrape bed around trying to find the wet, chuck clean up into two piles, sweep out and put bed back down).
Is it not normal practice to go 'right down to the floor' every day? What's the alternative?
I was wondering why I was getting through so many shavings!
I have only been having to look after pony for 6 weeks so haven't found all the short cuts yet.
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I semi deep litter, which means that the beds are fairly tick and I don't disturb the bottom layer until there is a wet patch that does need to go out - depending on the horse, it can be once a week/fortnight.
I use 1 bale of shavings per horse per week to top up the beds, 2 for one very mucky mare.
 
Crikey - it takes me ages.
I am now using straw, with a thin layer of shavings underneath to absorb the wet, but it is still so messy. I take the obvious mushed in poos and wet straw out, sweep the good straw into a pile at the back to reveal the wet shavings underneath. I take all the wet out, and all in all I try my best to use only one barrow, but last night he was so messy it took 2 barrows to empty the mess. So, all in all to muck out must take about 1/2 an hour with all the stopping to gossip, put the kettle on, and try to multi-task to do other jobs, then end up forgetting which job you had started first. I then put fresh shavings down, new straw if required and make the bed up ready for his Lordship to trash again........ :rolleyes:
 
At work we have woodpellets so the wet only gets taken out once a week. Other days each stable takes about 15 minutes in total, which involves taking all the poos out, levelling the bed out and sweeping back. They're huge stables, so often the sweeping takes longer than the mucking! Hay not an issue as we use haybars so it only adds a minute or so per stable.

My own horses are on shavings at a different yard and, depending on who's at the yard to natter with and how much tea/coffee is on offer, I can do them in as little as 10 minutes per stable, up to 1 hour each!!! And with these I muck to the floor every day and add a bag of shavings per week per horse. Now haynets are a different thing. I HATE doing them and always end up flustered and cross. Hate it when the string gets stuffed into the net with the hay and it takes yonks to retrieve it ....... :o
 
The industry guideline is 10mins for a muck out of any type of bed:

Straw= Poo out...clean bed upto the sides...wet out...and then do under the banks...banks back up and then bed down
Shavings= Poo out...clean bed upto the sides...wet out...and then bed down

The trick is when you have 12 to do in a morning get them done ASAP so when you get to a filthy one you can have like 15 mins on the bed :)

Now after about a years practice I can muck out 12 stables and bed down in 1 and a half hours :)

A tip is to do a very very late night skip out so there isnt as much in the morning :D

Jon
 
<5 mins on a half straw bed on matting.

Used to take longer before the matting though as he is a bit messy. I leave the straw at the side all day so it can dry and put it down in the evening, along with hay water - prob about 10 mins all in. :)
 
I do a full muck out every night and it takes me about 10 minutes. That's poo and wet out, straw against the sides, sweep, bed down and extra straw if she needs it.

She always poos and wees in the same places so it doesnt take me too long!
 
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