Well, complete admiration for those of you who work on yards!

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Acolyte

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Yesterday was my first day working on my yard in return for lessons - doing 8 horses plus my own. It was meant to take me 2 hours in the morning to feed/muck out/turn out and 1 hour in the afternoon to bring in, wash/pick out feet, change rugs and feed. It took me FAR longer!

Today I ache all over, and its a relief to get back to my nice desk job in my nice warm office. Just wanted to say real admiration for those of you who do this 6 (or even 7) times a week - sure it will get easier physically, but still such hard work!

Can't wait for June, when I get a payrise and can start paying for lessons instead of working for them
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I'll bet you do - it was luxury just doing one this morning, even if it was at 6am in the dark! I'm gonna have to work on my speed though - do you really do that many in 2 hours?!
 
Ahh once you get into a routine it will come second nature
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I love weekends because i can take my time a bit with doing the yard - where as in the week Im rushing around as i have to be at work by 9am

I do 4 who are in 27/7 and I cant believe i managed to get all 4 mucked out and on the walker in an hour today! must be a record lol

I ache today too, but its not from riding or doing the yard, my body is used to that - but doing a fitness DVD OMG my legs kill lol
 
It gets easier I promise!

We have 18 at the moment who are in 24/7 and this morning it took 2 of us 2 hours to muck out/hay/sweep. Considering the yard didn't get mucked out at all yesterday (the Sunday girl had another migrane
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) I was pretty impressed with us! LOL Fortunately 10 of ours are on deep litter which is what makes it possible. I don't think I could cope with them all needing 'proper' muck outs!

You do get fit very quickly and doesn't it feel good at about 10:30 when everything is munching hay in a clean bed and the yards are all sparkly?
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Definately hard job - my instructor starts at 5.30am, feeds mucks etc then riding race horses on gallops til 10am then starts teaching until 8pm in the eve? That is a really long day, 7 days a week!!
 
Lol when i used to work for my rides i'd be mucking out at the very minimum 12 horses on my own (completely mucking out not deep litter or anything) and i'd have anything up to another 14 deep litter beds to do on top of the first 12 but then i was a kid i didn't really care then!
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Not sure i could do it now! Last week looking after my two who come in at night and my friend's two horses as well was more than enough espcially after working all day too!
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I work at a riding school. We dont have it as bad a most! We have 14/15 to muck out and 3 of us can muck out. Then we have lots of younger kids that help do haynets waters etc. Then the whole yard is swept
We have to do the mucking out while making sure all the horses are tacked up for the lesson. Then do lesson changeovers! and because I am in charge I have to be given a walkie talkie so I am on call whenever they want me or anything has happened.
But I do feel good when everything is done and now I am in a routine I am fine! and also because I used to be one of the little kids I know how to treat them so they help me!
 
OMG, I can't imagine doing the sort of quantities you guys are talking about - I'm just too much of a lightweight! TBH when I'd finally got them all fed, turned out, then stables mucked out and looking pretty I was too knackered to be pleased - but once the routine gets sorted out I'm sure (I hope!) it will come to me
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To get it done you ahve to get baaaaaad!!! I used to dread mornings when I was on my own as to get everything in from the back fields would take 3 trips... well a few times of this, and I learnt how to lead 6-8 horses at once.... very bad and I don't condone it, but it cut an hour out of my routine! Mucking out, if the boxes are next to each other, get all the dirt / wet out onto the yard (unless it's windy) and then do the barrow loads (as I had to sweep the yard it made no difference to me!) Then do all the feeds / waters, haynets etc (for waters, a hosepipe is a wonderful thing) and give the floor a chance to air, then pull all the beds down, add fresh straw and voila, done! It's far easier to do them all at once, than one at a time - takes less time, tho I don't know why, logically it shouldn't! I know I am odd but... I far preferred winter on the yard, at least you knew the horses would be clean and dry and ready for tacking up, unlike the summer where I would play hunt the horses in the massive fields, and then have to speed groom them to get the clean for the 8am lessons!!!!
 
Takes me anything up to an hour to do one horse.

Think I'd still be there now if I had that many to do. Reminds me...I must place an order for rubber matting
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