05/07/2018
Poo/P*e Training in the stable
A couple of people have commented on how stingy I am with my bedding, and that their horses would leave home with a bed like mine.
Well, firstly mine is not a bed, it is an area kept to one side for my horses to Poo/P*e on, think of it a bit like a litter tray for cats! Albeit slightly bigger!
If I were to spread cat litter over most of the floor in my house, the cat would Poo/P*e everywhere, effectively that is what we are asking the horse to do when we make a huge deep bed for them to lay on. To a horse its a large Poo/P*e area and then you are expecting the horse to lay on it. Not only does this go against what the horse wants to do, they are not dirty animals (well most of them anyways!!) and by covering most of the stalls with bedding, they have nowhere else to lay other than in their own P&P. Check out the picture, only a thin layer of wood shaving was put on their mats to show where they prefer to P*e & Poo, now where are they going to lay down?
I have been keeping my 2 horses like this since I have had them. They are both Appaloosa`s `Its a Bullit` is primarily grey (fewspot) and I have had very few problems with stable stains on him.. This saves me hours of cleaning trying to get the stains out, and their rugs stay reasonably clean for all the winter months, saving me on having to pay to have them washed, every couple of weeks.
My horses have rubber mats for them to lay on which is perfectly adequate, (just look at some of the surfaces they lay on outside) I create roughly a 4ft x 4ft area and only put the shredded paper in this area directly onto the floor. The depth of the bedding depends how much your horse p*es in the stable. `It`s Doc Holiday` will ONLY poo in his stable and reverses up to the wall to make sure its positioned, so I just use a thin covering of paper to soak up any moisture from the poos and make them easier to lift from the floor.
`It`s a Bullit` on the other hand, will have a p*e in the stable on the shredded paper, so I tend to make his area thicker to soak up the urine.
When I clean the stables out I don't ever disinfect their designated P&P area, so the smell of previous visits helps them to locate where to go. It can also help to leave a fresh poo in the area you want them to visit, or even a poo from the dominant horse in the herd The shredded paper absorbs all moisture so I don't have a problem with ammonia smell build up, as the urine doesn't get a chance to seap under the mats to start the smelly process.
When I first covered the mats in bedding, p*e soaked through the joints in the matting and gathered under them to create a festering ammonia sludge that almost knocked me out every couple of weeks when I lifted the mats to wash the stables out.
Since creating a P&P area,
• The mats don't squelch when walking over them.
• Ammonia does not build up in the stable.
• I have not had to lift the mats in 8 months of keeping their stables like this, which has saved me hours `n` hours of slopping out/disinfecting the stables,
• The horses are much cleaner and don't smell
• Stables are quicker/easier to clean out.
• Rugs need far less washing.
• It much healthier for the horses and me!
Using anything other than our shredded paper to soak up in the P&P area doesn't work, as it wont soak urine up quickly enough or as thoroughly, so you will have to use lots more product to try and get anywhere near the same results
Shredded Paper ~ saves money ~ saves time ~ saves the planet
