I hate bird poo!

[Greylegs]

Serious question so try not to laugh too much ....

My boy is kept at a great yard where I've been for a long time. He is stabled in a barn with several others. In the spring/summer (ie ... Any time now!!) a number of swallows arrive back from wherever it is they go to in the winter - and who can blame them - and take up residence in the barn roof, building several nests and raising brood after brood of youngsters.

The problem is that they tend to roost on a roof joist directly above my boy's stable which results in him being the unhappy recipient of regular and copious birdy "deposits" !!! This means he has to live in a summer sheet all year and I am constantly washing them.YUK!

Apart from having to remove sometimes dozens of blobs of bird poo from my horse on a daily basis, which is pretty yucky, are there any detrimental or hazardous effects to my horse of being exposed to all this guano? I'm especially grumpy about it as he suffers from sweet itch which I manage partly by bringing him in every night summer and winter to avoid the midges at dawn and dusk.

Ok, so now you've stopped laughing, can anyone offer any advice please? Thanks in advance.

 

[shellonabeach]

Can you put something up to catch the poo underneath the nests? Old carrot net, piece of wood etc?

I have swallows in my stables and in one where they nested very high up above a load of hay I hung a carrot net as I didn't want the droppings on my hay and it actually saved a baby swallow who fell out of the nest!

 

[Tormenta]

Agree with this ^^^^

Since most of their droppings will be around the nest area, I am sure I have read similiar tips to the one above on here before with success! Good luck.

 

[mandwhy]

I think you should make a sort of tarpaulin/fabric roof over your horse's stable, you could do it with a rope through the middle to make a sort of apex roof wiping poo off daily is not cool!

 

[Pinkvboots]

I have the same problem in one of my stables i was going to attach a piece of wood underneath the nest this year, just a bit of plywood would do the job I think.

 

[Enfys]

As above, put up something to catch the guano, unless you, or your horse slip on the stuff, or happen to ingest it accidentally, I don't suppose there is anything particularly hazardous about it.

I have swallows at both ends of my barn, the haybarns, the garages and directly over the back door. I wouldn't be thrilled about having a 'fertilised' horse to deal with daily, but the pros of having swallows outweigh the cons.

At least you don't also have these roosting in your barns