How much poo does a horse do

L

Luciajayne

New User
Joined
5 February 2022
Messages
7
Visit site
Hi, I am new to owning a pony and am after some insight/advise on poo.
My pony is grazing with two other 14.2hh ponies and the manger where I graze is saying that together they produce 60 poos a day and I therefore need to pickup 140 a week. This amount seems alot to me. Does this seem like the amount they would be doing in a week. Thanks for your help
 
Luciajayne said:
Hi, I am new to owning a pony and am after some insight/advise on poo.
My pony is grazing with two other 14.2hh ponies and the manger where I graze is saying that together they produce 60 poos a day and I therefore need to pickup 140 a week. This amount seems alot to me. Does this seem like the amount they would be doing in a week. Thanks for your help
Click to expand...

sounds about right to me!
 
Depends on the pony we have 5 on our land who do about 50 in 24 hours so that sounds a lot to me too but mine are almost permanenttly on reduced grazing I would worry if they did less than 25 in 24 hours but just as worried if they did more than 50-60 as the weight would balloon
 
It depends how much grass there is and how much supplementary forage the horses are getting. Mine do a lot more in the autumn when they go onto the ungrazed winter field. I've never actually counted how many poos I pick up though! In the autumn I was taking out two full barrows a day for two (14.1hh and 15.1hh), but normally I take out 1 to 1.5 barrows between the two. I would think that your YM's estimate is slightly on the high side, but then again if you have a lot of grass I could believe it!

Are you poo picking every day or trying to catch up at the weekend? I find it much easier if I do it at least some during the week, even if that means I spend a lot of time out there with my head torch in winter.
 
Luciajayne said:
Hi, I am new to owning a pony and am after some insight/advise on poo.
My pony is grazing with two other 14.2hh ponies and the manger where I graze is saying that together they produce 60 poos a day and I therefore need to pickup 140 a week. This amount seems alot to me. Does this seem like the amount they would be doing in a week. Thanks for your help
Click to expand...

I am only responsible for picking up one ponies poo in the herd out of the three of them
 
HashRouge said:
It depends how much grass there is and how much supplementary forage the horses are getting. Mine do a lot more in the autumn when they go onto the ungrazed winter field. I've never actually counted how many poos I pick up though! In the autumn I was taking out two full barrows a day for two (14.1hh and 15.1hh), but normally I take out 1 to 1.5 barrows between the two. I would think that your YM's estimate is slightly on the high side, but then again if you have a lot of grass I could believe it!

Are you poo picking every day or trying to catch up at the weekend? I find it much easier if I do it at least some during the week, even if that means I spend a lot of time out there with my head torch in winter.
Click to expand...
The ponies are on restricted grass. I am told that an owner of one of the other ponies picks up daily, however the seem to not. I pickup twice a week.
 
Might be easier to do ten minutes every day. Mine is 15.1 and he does about 16-20 per 24 hours, he's in a nice dry (i.e.not a mud-bog) paddock so it only takes me ten minutes a day to pick up after him. If I leave it it takes a lot longer to scrape them up because the crows get to them and rake them apart looking for undigested oat husks!
 
If you're taking a wheelbarrow to a field you might as well fill it, would be my view. A wheelbarrow per pony per day sounds fair to me. If you're only doing it twice a week that's 3 or 4 every time you do though which is going to be annoying.
 
Luciajayne said:
Hi, I am new to owning a pony and am after some insight/advise on poo.
My pony is grazing with two other 14.2hh ponies and the manger where I graze is saying that together they produce 60 poos a day and I therefore need to pickup 140 a week. This amount seems alot to me. Does this seem like the amount they would be doing in a week. Thanks for your help
Click to expand...
Luciajayne said:
Hi, I am new to owning a pony and am after some insight/advise on poo.
My pony is grazing with two other 14.2hh ponies and the manger where I graze is saying that together they produce 60 poos a day and I therefore need to pickup 140 a week. This amount seems alot to me. Does this seem like the amount they would be doing in a week. Thanks for your help
Click to expand...

just though I would mention that I have grazed her at my own property were she had unrestricted and was only pooing 15 times a day. Now that she is on restricted grass I am struggling to know weather I belive the amount of 60 poos a day between the three of them ( which would means she would be pooing 20 times a day or the others are pooing beyond 22 a day)
 
Think our two hold records in this - they are poo machines. When living out they fill a largish wheelbarrow a day.
 
Barrow each here, too.
I poo pick twice a day most days because then I don't get overambitious in filling the barrow which keeps it night and light to bounce over mud and up the muck heap.
I do find they poo in routine, too. E.g. Two of mine can produce 12 poos between them between 6-9am (while I ride the other, who will poo 2-3 times on the ride), but then the three of them will only produce another 15 between 9 and 3/4pm ... The things one notices. When it's herd poo sampling day, I try to get 30 ponies in before 6am, as I am guaranteed a poo from all by 6.30. Get them in at 7, and sometimes you have to wait for hours and hours. Go figure. (the herd doesn't get poo picked!)
 
I'm another one who supports daily poo picking. Our herd are in individual paddocks, separated by tape. Daily poo picking enables one to see changes in poo which may indicate changes in management are needed.
 
Highmileagecob said:
Yep, around 20 poos over 24 hours sounds about right. £10 notes go in at one end and poo comes out of the other!
Click to expand...
Don't you find it multiplies as well? I'm often found saying to my horses I don't feed them enough to justify the mountains of [expensive] poo. Im sure there's an equation of 2*hay slice volume = 3* poo volume ?
 
Ratface said:
I'm another one who supports daily poo picking. Our herd are in individual paddocks, separated by tape. Daily poo picking enables one to see changes in poo which may indicate changes in management are needed.
Click to expand...
While I appreciate that this is the ideal, it can be harder to achieve if people work irregular/ very long hours and/ or horses are kept a distance from home. Especially in the winter, when of course it all has to be done by head torch!
 
Depends on size of barrow…lol!

I have a large metal builders barrow and my 2 horses will fill that heaped in 24hrs on fine/med/coarse mix hay.

I just bought a standard size plastic gardeners barrow and id have to fill that twice in 24hrs for 2 horses.

20kg goes in one end, and 60kg comes out the other end, it seems! ?
 
I have 3 ponies ranging from 12.1hh-14.2hh who live out with as much hay as they need and they do approx 50 Poos between them in 24hrs. I do prefer to poo pick every day as if there isn’t as much poo I give them more hay and if there’s too much I cut back a bit. Seems to be working for controlling there weight. If you are sharing with 2 other people wouldn’t it be easier for you to poo pick the whole field one day, someone else do the next and so on? So then the field is cleared Daily and everyone is doing the same amount? Also you only have to poo pick every 3 days which is a bonus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top