So fed up - going back to straw

Casey76

Casey76

Well-Known Member
Joined
16 July 2011
Messages
3,651
Location
North East, UK
Visit site
I am so hopping mad, and it is getting worse every time I go up to the yard.

I have my mare on shavings at my own expense as she tends to eat a lot of straw if littered on straw. However it is just ridiculous. I'm not sure what exactly the YO does with my bed - I'm fairly sure the manure is just mixed in with the shavings, and for sure the wet is NEVER lifted out. I'm currently spending 40€ a WEEK on shavings (4-5 bales a week) - on top of my livery bill.

I can't cope any more.

My mare is fairly neat and only poos in one place. With a shavings fork it is a 5 minute job to lift the poo, scrape back the top of the bed, lift the wet patch and put the sop back down - less than 1/2 a barrow.

It is seriously soul destroying to put down a brand new bed every week on a Sunday, and on a Monday evening come back to a brown churned up mess. What is even more soul destroying is that clean shavings from the banks are scraped down and mixed in with the churned up mass, without any effort to lift any of the wet out (and the banks are scraped down with no effort to keep them neat or anything - I've arrived some nights to find huge holes down to the concrete in patches of the bed - which is just a shear waste of clean bedding.

The bed is so bad at the moment that I'm sure it is being done on purpose.

Well, they've won.

I'm going back to straw.

I earn a decent salary, but spending 160€ a month on shavings is ridiculous for one box which isn't even 3x3m
 
Is there anyway you can change your horses routine and or level of livery you have her on so that you can do the bed yourself or pay someone separately to do the bed and show them how you want it done?
I'd be highly annoyed if this was done on purpose.
 
If I was paying for my horse to be mucked out and it wasn't being done properly I'd be fuming.

As above - can you ask YO to just leave the bed alone and you deal with it yourself?
 
" she tends to eat a lot of straw if littered on straw. "

A good trick thats worked for me in the past if you've a 'straw muncher' is to water down some Jayes Fluid, put it in watering can and sprinkle over the bed. Smell puts them off and they go off wanting to eat it. Another plus - it makes your stable and horse smell nice. :-)
 
I don't know your mare but my gelding was like that on shavings. 4 bags of hunters are week and the bed still never looked clean and we were battling thrush. He was on 5 day livery so I was doing things at the weekend so wasn't how the bed was being managed and in this case the ym so was such a fan of shavings that she discouraged other options.

There were a couple of factors. He is very wet/messy. Also the drainage in the stable wasn't right for shavings. I tried both with and without rubber mats and if anything was worse with mats.

I had better results with wood pellets but see you are in France so not sure if they are available there. The issue with pellets is that they need to manage the bed a certain way and you need your ym to be on board even more so than other options.
 
If it is a brown churned mess 24 h later it doesn't necessarily sound like a mucking out issue to me, even if I did nothing mine wouldn't look like that.
How long is the mare in for ?
 
I never see the YO these days to actually *talk* to him, so I've left notes on my board - this is a standard yard procedure to communicate individual needs - and I know he read it, as I stopped getting haylage on the floor - of course this means that my horses get haylage on a morning only intermittently, when they can be bothered to put it in the net, rather than every day :/

I love my yard, I really do. But sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out!
 
ester said:
If it is a brown churned mess 24 h later it doesn't necessarily sound like a mucking out issue to me, even if I did nothing mine wouldn't look like that.
How long is the mare in for ?
Click to expand...

I thought the same. It's my mares first winter (of her six years) stabled, so she can be quite unsettled at night and can ruin a new bed in that period. I've switched to EVA mats with miscanthus for now (she's a straw eater too), otherwise I was just chasing my tail.
 
criso said:
I don't know your mare but my gelding was like that on shavings. 4 bags of hunters are week and the bed still never looked clean and we were battling thrush. He was on 5 day livery so I was doing things at the weekend so wasn't how the bed was being managed and in this case the ym so was such a fan of shavings that she discouraged other options.

There were a couple of factors. He is very wet/messy. Also the drainage in the stable wasn't right for shavings. I tried both with and without rubber mats and if anything was worse with mats.

I had better results with wood pellets but see you are in France so not sure if they are available there. The issue with pellets is that they need to manage the bed a certain way and you need your ym to be on board even more so than other options.
Click to expand...

Pellets were even worse than shavings. Plus then, he would randomly remove the whole bed without letting me know and I'd end up with an emergency dash to the hardware store for 10+ bags.

One of the main issues is that the wet is never lifted, and as there is no drainage in the boxes it just sits there stinking. Then after a couple of days the wet is randomly mixed in with clean bedding, rather than taking it out and replenishing the space made. All of the mucking out is done with a hay/pitch fork and/or shovel, so the poo ends up scattered across the whole bed (and then mashed in).

Tartine has a "toilet area" in her box, and only rarely does she not poo in this corner of the box. After 24 hours on a brand new bed, there is no reason why there would be poo nuggets spread and mixed in across the entire surface of the bed.
 
And you love your yard because ? ???? ... Despite being paid they are not mucking out properly, your horse gets haylage when they can be bothered .... I would be sitting down with my YO and having a serious discussion TBH
 
I had similar in Belgium. They didn't muck out but added a bale a day and then every Friday went in with a tractor and emptied the stable completely and washed it out. Luckily bedding was included and it didn't actually get dirty. There was an English couple down the road who were considered weird as they mucked out their stables every day.

Yep - can understand how annoying it is, not to mention expensive! Would spray vinegar on straw as Jeyes is seriously noxious or if it's a 5 minute job to muck her out would leave on shavings and do it myself.
 
I have my opinions on French mucking out!! We are in Pays de la Loire but actually wanted to live in Alsace, which we know very well. We visited an Equestrian Centre in Strasbourg which boasted the filthiest stables I have ever seen.

An English friend was employed by a centre close to us. Liveries were paying 600 euros per month, the stables were only mucked out once a week, (by her) just before the owners made their weekly visits. I have used three VERY GOOD and very professional yards, when our youngsters are in training, they still only muck out once a week. Boxes are completely cleared and strawed but poo builds up in between. I found my stallion was being rugged in summer, to save the groom scraping the poo of his coat.

We employ students and part-time helpers from time to time and even those who plan to have a career with horses and are being trained at specialist equestrian colleges, do not have a scooby do when it comes to stable management. Would love to feed them to a BHS examiner.
 
If you provided a shavings fork would it get used or "lost"? as she is so tidy it seems ridiculous that the staff cannot realise that if done fairly well each day it is an easier job than straw and should actually save them time and effort, the yard does seem to have a one size fits all attitude which is unlikely to change.
From a friends experience of working in a French event yard you are probably lucky she even gets mucked out, that yard mucked out once a week with nothing taken out in between.

I see I cross posted with rollin, it seems my friend's short encounter with French stable management was not unusual, she only stayed a few weeks as she could not bear it.
 
Last edited:
The once-a-week tractor muck out seems to be the norm here in Brittany as well, I had such a shock when I first had reason to visit equestrian centres here. It really is unbelievable and just disgusting. The first farrier I had to endure over here thought the way I looked after my stabled animals was madness.

Have you actually shown them how to muck out the bed the way you would like it done? I know it will probably fall on deaf ears and you'll be given the special shrug in reply but I'm afraid there's no way I'd put up with this. You are paying for a service which they are not providing, however this does seem to be normal over here.
 
They probably have no idea how to do it properly. At my yard (in France too) the stabled horses have a shavings bed of about 3" deep, with bare areas all around the perimeter of the box for about a foot. Banks? You must be kidding! Mine lived out so I wasn't concerned! Next horse might be stabled at night so I'll be arranging to do his bed myself. When he was on box rest I wanted him on staw and I mucked out myself every day. They laughted their heads off at this and at the amount of straw I put in. I'll vouch also for the 'once a week' tractor to clear out the bed. They did that at the first yard I went to.:( No help at all for you OP but perhaps they really don't know how to do it?
 
Casey76 said:
Pellets were even worse than shavings. Plus then, he would randomly remove the whole bed without letting me know and I'd end up with an emergency dash to the hardware store for 10+ bags.

One of the main issues is that the wet is never lifted, and as there is no drainage in the boxes it just sits there stinking. Then after a couple of days the wet is randomly mixed in with clean bedding, rather than taking it out and replenishing the space made. All of the mucking out is done with a hay/pitch fork and/or shovel, so the poo ends up scattered across the whole bed (and then mashed in).

Tartine has a "toilet area" in her box, and only rarely does she not poo in this corner of the box. After 24 hours on a brand new bed, there is no reason why there would be poo nuggets spread and mixed in across the entire surface of the bed.
Click to expand...

Change to Aubiose. Its designed for deep litter so you taking out the wet once a week won't be a problem. As long as the bed is deep enough the wet won't come to the top. If you get a plank of wood for the doorway to keep the bedding in, then bring the bed all the way to the front of the stable, there will be minimal disturbance from the horse walking about. The bed will pack down solid so then YO can scoop the poo off the top with a shovel.
 
Tory27 said:
A good trick thats worked for me in the past if you've a 'straw muncher' is to water down some Jayes Fluid, put it in watering can and sprinkle over the bed. Smell puts them off and they go off wanting to eat it. Another plus - it makes your stable and horse smell nice. :-)
Click to expand...

Don't do this! You might be okay and it works, but I have known a horse get very ill when they ate it anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top