poo picking is my life!

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thespanishmane

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Oh boy! I think I must be one of the only souls who is almost looking forward to my horses staying in for a bit!

I have recently had to move yards due to owner selling up to a private individual who didnt want liveries. We were very lucky to share a yard with a racing stud, and we all had paddocks of about 8 acres and every so often a chap would come with a huge paddock sweeper and do the lot -and only charge us a tenner for ours!

The new yard is proper DIY livery - all very nice, but we have two paddocks of one acre each, and yard owner is insitant that they are poo picked daily. They supply us with a trailer nearish the field, and give us a plank, yes one single plank to push the barrow up and empty it.

Well as a 55 year old spring chicken I am finding it flippin difficult to stay on the plank, let alone keep the barrow on it! Also as the two neds are in the paddock together I find I spend so much time poo picking I dont get chance to ride, as I work full time and the light has gone!

I know loads of you all do the same thing, but I am looking forward to going back to my rubber matting, sprinkling of shavings and sweeping the lot out with a very wide broom!
 
My friend and I were only discussing the same thing earlier tonight after we moved the horses into their new field and decided to fully clear the old one so that it could rest and regrow......we seem to spend all our time with wheelbarrows in the field!
I think of it as my workout!
 
Am I the only one who remembers times when we never poo picked. Now I work full time, If I poo picked I would never ride. So although I do the small fields in the summer I don't in the winter. It gets so wet the barrow would make a mess. Am lucky horses are at home.
 
I must admit i love poo picking apart from when the barrow is full and that last one just ent gonna fit!;)
I find it really relaxing and having 2 children and work its a bit of me time - i dont know maybe i am just weird???:p
 
I keep my horse at a friends and we pay a local teenager to poo pick. It costs a lot less than a physio session and saves me loads of time. He's happy as we pay him to pick it and he then sells bags of it from home, keeps our muck heap down and he gets extra money. Win, Win situation!!
 
I take out 2 - 3 loads per day for 2 horses and 2 ponies (small wheelbarrows) don't mind on shorter grass its getting it from the long grass i hate!! plus its a nightmare as there on a big hill!!
 
I didn't realise just how lucky I was keeping my boys at home, the fields were harrowed so didn't poo pick then at uni once a week they would use a sweeper (thing) to poo pick the fields. Now I have moved onto a DIY yard I am struggling to find the time to keep up with the poo picking, when I do I don't have time to ride :(
 
I feel for you, Its not fun
When I was on grass livery, I had to poo pick, The options were, push a big heavy wheelbarrow up the hill (walking down to fetch her in was a 10 mins walk!) so pushing it up that hilll was HARD!
They provided us with a trailer just outside our paddock, but there was no way on to it, so option number 2 was pick up all poo, tip it out next to trailer, and shovel it all up!
HARD WORK both options!

At this yard, their in a herd and theres 6 of us. 3 of us do it one day, other 3 next day, us 3 day after. Works much better! And as I dont get there when the other 2 do on my day, I just poo pick on the morning of my day :) Much easier :)
 
I have poo picked since we had gloves that fitted me lol. Used to poo pick wearing heavy duty gloves, but have now swapped to a fork and bucket. Though I found with gloves easier, but bad on the back, bending over constantly!

I quite enjoy it, stick music on me phone and blast it out, have a sing whilst I work. I ride first, and do the poo as the sun is going down now. Long grass is a nightmare for it though!! And we now got a youngster who sometimes comes and pushes the barrow over!!!! :@
 
Fortunately my YO doesn't poo pick:D - (that would be me then) - I harrow instead.

I do feel your pain though, and the muck trailer and plank sounds like a liability and it probably (OK, certainly) will be when it gets wet and icy.

Health and Safety looms its' ugly head here,
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it is YO's responsibility I believe, certainly where I live it would be, I have disclaimers in the contract of course, but they aren't worth the paper it is written on.

I would be refusing to go up it, either YO supplies a safe ramp, wider would be good for a start by the sound of things (our old yard had a metal free standing model made with that diamond shape steel mesh) or I'd be dumping muck beside the trailer until he did, very neatly.

;) Any chance that you can bung a child a couple of quid for poo picking for you whilst you ride?

As I was buzzing up and down the paddocks today I was thinking how glad I was that I didn't pick by hand.

Say the average horse dungs 8 -12 times a day (does anyone have an average horse?) so that's not too bad in a 1 acre paddock really. I have 25 horses on 35 acres at the moment, so that's 200-300 piles A DAY. Well sod poo picking for a game of soldiers in that case:p
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Lionman :D
 
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I'm amazed it takes people so long they don't have time to ride - I do a field with two horses in and it takes no more than 15 mins!! Also, why not ride in the light, buy a head torch and poo pick afterwards? Or how about negotiate with YO to do it at the weekend? TBH if I had to do it daily I'd just move. Sometimes life doesn't quite work out like that! Also, surely your YO is going to expect you to pick in the winter too? So you'll have to muck out and do the field?
 
Lifes too short! I just do the little paddocks not the big ones. But I'm lucky they are at home.

The horses choose an area and 'go' there. They don't eat the grass so no danger of worms. Then it gets topped/harrowed once a year.
 
You could put the poo into trug buckets and lift them up onto the trailer - its quite messy though and sometimes really heavy work if the poo is wet! Thats the we do it as we dont have a plank for our trailer.

I find it only takes 10 mins to pick up the poo for one horse a day so I still find the time to work full time and ride! I now leave it for the weekend in the winter so spend an hour doing it instead!
 
I'm of out to do my fields in a bit, its the one job that always get left if i run out of time. I don't mind doing it and most places I've been have had some kind of poo picking rules. there was a time i was doing nappies, clearing up after the dogs and poo picking Nas certainly felt like a s#2t shoveller then lol.
 
I poo pick daily, my choice.
I walk the wheelbarrow up to the field, bring both horses down, ride and then take them back up to the field and then poo pick what I can until it gets dark.
Once it's dark when I get there I'll have to leave the poo picking till the weekend.
 
I must be totally strange as I actually find being out in the open air with the horses quietly pooh picking very theraputic:-) use a fork for the stuff in the short grass and a pair of heavy duty rubber gloves for the stuff in the long grass.

At the moment I have 2 out in a 1 acre paddock, takes me about 20 mins a day.
 
I once went to look at a yard for full livery at £100 a week (not inc. riding). Seemed ok, then they told me I would have to poo pick and work out a rotation with the other 2 owners whose horses would be in the field. Didn't go there - definately not my idea of full livery!
 
Thats sounds pretty awful actually! You wouldn't catch me moving to anywhere that I had to poo pick EVERYDAY! What a waste of time and effort.. really! Used to bug me when I had to poo pick once a week ( ON FULL LIVERY! ) , thank god I have left there.

Don't get me wrong I am very OCD about cleanliness, my bed has be huge and fluffy and can't have a poo in there or it has to go, but a field is a field. If it gets overrun, then of course poo pick, but not everyday. In the field the poo lands where it is supposed to land and make the grass around it happy!!!!

The only time I ever voluntarilly poo picked is when our large menage field had little piles that you could see from the top of the hill which looked funny, so went a threw them all in the bushes at the side.
 
Moved my horses home and spent all my spare time poo picking, so now pay someone to do it! If I ever convince her to get her own horse (she's a freind of mine and I'm working on it!) then she'll get free livery for doing it :)
 
skydancer said:
I must admit i love poo picking apart from when the barrow is full and that last one just ent gonna fit!;)
I find it really relaxing and having 2 children and work its a bit of me time - i dont know maybe i am just weird???:p
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I must admit I'm exactly the same!! Nothing more satisfying than clearing it all and looking at a green, tidy field afterwards!!! Plus it gives my 6 year old daughter some run around time as she likes to run around the field to find the poo for me! It's a very important job don't you know ;)
 
I LOVE poo picking, it keeps the field nice and there are no sour bits of grass that the horses won't eat. It gives me time in the mornings to be outside with the horses and they often follow me around, I think it's nice to be with the horses without doing something with/to them. My worm counts come back as zero so it is good for them and it is a good workout.
 
Just come in from poo picking.
Lucky enough to be at home today, its a lovely morning the ponies were very cuddly - it took ten times longer to do it than needed.:)

My gripe is what to do with the poo once picked, we have far too much!
 
I'm aching all over today having poo picked the backlog of a week or so after 15 ponies all day yesterday!

But it was by machine (Predator towed by quad) and I am over 70!

Anyone else on here using a machine? Perhaps hire one in? Or maybe hire a contractor?

I did inquire about hiring a contractor before getting the machine (couldn't do without it now) but they quoted £175 for mileage alone so I didn't bother. I think they said £25 an hour on top of that. One of the girls was keen to start up a business but the problem is transport. You'd need a truck and a trailer just to get started.
 
Chavhorse said:
I must be totally strange as I actually find being out in the open air with the horses quietly pooh picking very theraputic:-) use a fork for the stuff in the short grass and a pair of heavy duty rubber gloves for the stuff in the long grass.

At the moment I have 2 out in a 1 acre paddock, takes me about 20 mins a day.
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Pretty much this !! although I don't do my big field this just gets harrowed.

I enjoy it it's like croquet !! I have one of those skip and rake things which is fab !!

..... the dog loves it too , which adds a 20 min chore on my list to give him a bath !!
 
Ditchjumper2 said:
Am I the only one who remembers times when we never poo picked. Now I work full time, If I poo picked I would never ride. So although I do the small fields in the summer I don't in the winter. It gets so wet the barrow would make a mess. Am lucky horses are at home.
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I echo this, do the small ones in the summer (half acres on rotation) but once they are on the 3 - 4 acres in the winter it won't be done (there are only 2 geegees on it)
 
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