Did you know that an average horse produces about 50 lbs of manure a day? With 11 horses to take care of you can see where this is going. Most of our horses live a version of ‘rough board’, which means they have free access to fields and hay and water and a shelter. They don’t live in stalls. This is as close to a natural environment as a domestic horse can ask, and most of them are quite happy with this arrangement. When keeping a horse like this, the poop factor is also lessened, because it is scattered over as much acreage as you can give the horse. There is still land management, which involves using a drag harrow to break up the clumps, a brush hog to take out unwanted thorny plants (see ‘burdock’ as a separate blog), and then rotating the field usage in order to kill worms and keep the grass rich. All this is the easy system. When it gets even more work intensive is when the horses stay inside.

As I mentioned, most of our horses like being outside; they have grown up that way, being somewhat unruly trail horses, or neglected field horses, and they enjoy their freedom. But some others, those who were given a work intensive youth, have grown accustomed to the comforts of a roof. And all of them need shelter during inclement weather, which we have a lot of in winter! So, our pole barn was pressed into use this winter, as a sort of giant run in shed. The area is 50′ square, with a partial dirt and partial concrete floor. It was originally built to house cattle, and with it’s high roof, natural light,  fantastic view, and easy access to the pasture, the horses enjoy it immensely. Especially Jack, the OTTB, who would really rather not move at all. He has requested a flat screen tv installed and insists that all his meals be served inside. Which brings us back to poop.

Jack is the leader of the herd, and if Jack is staying inside with his big bowl of hay, so will the others. All seven of the others that make up Jacks’s herd (the satellite herd is in another field, ruled by Whisper). Now Jack and his seven buddies are making approximately 50 lb’s of poop, each, which works out to more or less 400 lb’s of poop, each and every day, in the pole barn.

I can’t decide if I like it better when it is frozen or not. Frozen poop doesn’t smell, can be picked up into buckets, and makes a great emergency projectile. But it also sticks to the ground, is nearly impossible to shovel, and can be painful to step on, for both me and the horses. When it creeps above freezing here, which is does maybe once a week, I am reminded of the odiferous nature of horse poop (and I should mention, urine), which becomes it’s own health issue if not attended to. So what is one to do with a 50′ indoor field covered in 400 pounds of poo?

Shovel. A lot. I have my little red flyer wagon, bought for $5 at a brooklyn yard sale many moons ago, that has become the ‘poop wagon’. I wheel that around, carrying a rake and a shovel, and slowly clean up as much of the barn as I can handle. I spend a lot of time in the barn shoveling poo, which gives me a lot of time to think. Think about the meaning of it all, of the poo and the view and the horses chewing quietly nearby. About how some animals, and people, are thrown away. About what is valuable in the world. My arms are sore from shoveling, and I swear there is a dent forming on my side where I brace the shovel. I don’t always get it all, truth be told. But I get plenty, filling up my wagon, which then gets slowly wheeled (thru ice and snow) to areas outside of the field, where there are growing mounds of fertilizer for all of my friends. Need to grow some great veggies this spring? Stop by with some really big bags. And be prepared to wield a shovel for a few minutes.