Poo counting?

[Coblover63]

Does anyone else find poo-counting as a useful tool for monitoring food intake?

I poo-pick daily but have recently started counting, so that I can monitor "output" and adjust feeding accordingly. My four live out 24/7 and the grass is short but there - they have approximately 4-5 acres of interesting turnout with a diverse range of forage to pick from, hedges, trees, etc and range from 11hh to 16hh. They each get one fibre-based feed per day and a couple of slices of hay each late pm so that they have full tummies as the temperatures drop overnight. I'm finding that I'm picking up between 48 and 56 dung piles in any 24-hour period so that would suggest to me that they are all still finding plenty to eat in the field as this averages out to show that they are each "going" slightly shorter than two-hourly each.

For those of you that count poo's.... what is your average "yield"?

 

[Bobbly]

My boys do between 6 and 8 each between 5pm and 8am, and about 3/4 of a barrow a day outside. I read somewhere that the average horse, say 15.2h does about 9 ton a year if that's any help!

 

[Cello_song]

I count poos too!

In fact, last Friday I set a poo counting question as the morning challenge at register time for my class!

"my horse does 8-12 poos a day. I've not poo picked for 5 days. Approx how many poos should there be? I can get 20 poos in a wheelbarrow, how many wheelbarrows will it take? it takes 15 mins per wheelbarrow, how long will it take me?"

The look on their faces when I put this on the board was priceless!

 

[katherine1975]

I count as well, it is a good indicator of how much food they are getting. Mine live out also. We average 12 poos in 24 hours per horse approximately.