how long does it take to muck 30 stalls?

[apkjacks]

just curious if people could weigh in here. mucking 30 stalls, turn out, turn in, blanket changes, the typical set up for full board.


thanks

[Fairview Horse Center]

it depends. My set up, summer schedule, I can clean and bed 27 in about 1 1/2 hours. Winter schedule, double that. If horses are in most of the time, double again.

For a full day of feed, TO, clean, water, feed and hay, bring in for winter, blankets, etc about 6 to 8 hours. 4 to 5 in the summer.

[Auventera Two]

Oh boy! Well, when I was a barn manager, I had about 10 stalls a day to do. Clean/fill water buckets, put down hay and feed, apply any necessary sunscreen, fly spray, masks and sheets or blankets, take horses out to pastures, clean stalls, sweep aisles, haul manure to the pile, close up barn - I think that took me about 2 to 2 1/2 hours total.

It depends on the type of bedding, how deeply they're bedded, mats/no mats, dirt floors/concrete, etc.......

[vxf111]

Too many factors to give an estimate. How long are the horses out? How filthy do the horses leave their stalls? How far away are the pastures you are taking the horses to? How many horses can you take at a time? How easy is it to clean/fill buckets based on hose/drain location? Where is the hay and how easy is it to deliver it to each stall? Are you sweeping corners and/or doing additional stall cleaning like scrubbing feed tubs etc.? How fussy are the blankets you're using? Just way, way too many factors to even give an estimate. Do it a couple of times and time yourself and then you'll get a sense of what the average time would be. Or ask the person doing it now how long it usually takes him/her.

I clean 20 stalls at a boarding barn. We use shavings. I'd say roughly 8 horses are giant filthy pigs and the rest range from normal to clean. We have autowaterers so I just scrub and dump those, no taking down/scrubbing/rehanging/filling buckets. We sweep all 4 corners of the stall. Hay is readily/centrally available and easy to deliver. Horses go to turnouts that are very easy to walk to but horses mostly have to be walked out one at a time. Most horses are blanketed in the winter, probably 5 extra fussy blankets with buckles and the remainder with clips/surcingles that are easy. About 5-6 horses with fussy turnout boots. Morning chores include cleaning all 20 stalls, turning out/in, feeding, and sweeping the aisle.

In the summer, when the horses are on night turnout and out longer so the stalls are cleaner, that takes about 3 hours each day. In the winter, when the horses are in more, that can take 5+.

[fivehorses]

I have ten horses.
I keep them in stalls at night. Turnout during the day.

It takes me or someone else about 3+ hours to muck stalls and do bedding.
About a 1/2 hour for am feed, about an hour for evening feed.

I like very clean stalls, so its just not mucking, its also sweeping back, adding pdz, etc.
The fastest I ever did it, was in an hour and a half, but I also had done stalls the day before, and usually the stalls are easier to clean if I did it day before(because I am so OCD).

I have a young woman helping me now, and I find she and I can get hay out in different paddocks and outside waterers done before the horses are done with their grain. So, in some cases, two people really make things go quicker.

I also pay 40 as a flat rate to my help. With that, I expect them to do a good job, and not feel pressured. This young lady arrives and helps with morning feed and turnout and cleans stalls, and is gone in 3 hours. I still pay her 40 and don't begrudge that she gets done so quickly.

I know how difficult it is to find help up here. Granted, I am not a show barn, lesson barn, etc, just a private barn with too many horses that I rescued! So, that could be a reason I am not a magnet for help. No glamor.
However, I know it is a problem here in NH to find people who know and want to work around horses.
Consider that as well in your expansion, although your pool of interested people will be larger than mine.
Good luck, and good for you.
You also might want to pick up a book on business plans if you haven't already done so. It will help you with seeing if this can be a success or not, and maybe ask some questions you haven't considered.
At the very least, it will make your research and planning introspective and thorough.

[SMF11]

I would have thought in addition to the daily chores you would have to build in time for the one-off maintenance items: harrow fields, repair fence, clean waterers or buckets, rewaterproof blankets, reseed pasture, soak that abcessed foot, hold for the farrier, answer the phone . . . . I am sure I'm missing a lot!

[Cloverbarley]

Thankfully I gave up mucking out stalls many moons ago, however when I worked with racehorses back in the 80's, I had 20 horses under my care which all had to be fed, blanketted, turned out, mucked out and bedded down. It took me around 2-3 hours to do all the morning chores for these 20 horses. Nowadays with rubber matting and all the other types of bedding available I would imagine it could be done quicker.

[ThirdCharm]

Too many variables as noted. If the horses are in half the day, stall floors are firm and smooth (like mats) with a decent amount of shavings but not deep bedded, barn is central to turnouts.... about six hours. It takes two to do our thirteen stalls and turnout....

Jennifer

[Mary in Area 1]

We have 26 stalls. I have 3 people work in the AM to feed, dress, turnout, muck, clean up barn. Two people stay full day, they bring in, undress, feed and pick.

The AM people are here 7-12. The PM is 3-5 pm. To really take care of 26 horses and keep the place clean, it takes this long. These are good, fast workers and we have a very efficient barn (manure conveyer, auto waterers, etc.) but we do have large stalls and I want them CLEAN.

[DiablosHalo]

When I had all 37 stalls full- it took 2 people 4 hours to dress, turnout, muck, clean up. Of course, they did talk a lot and stop and have breakfast, etc. Stalls are matted with sawdust and I have a tractor with large dump wagon attached. Hay/water is in barn.
Now I have 24 stalls in the main barn used and it takes one person 3-4 hours - and he's not in any hurry to get them done.

That doesn't include any farm chores- just mucking and turn out.
I do all the other chores and restacking, etc.

[Thomas_1]

It depends.

Do you mean when the boss is watching or when you're working alone? :winkgrin:

[Heart's Journey]

good lord, no way my back would hold up for that.... :D

[ponygrl25]

I used to be able to muck/water 14 stalls in 1 hour. Bedded 3 or 4 stalls a day, had a huge cart that would hold enough bedding for 2 stalls. Horses stayed in most of the time, I didn't do T/O. Stalls were matted and we used sawdust. 4 or 5 pigs in the barn but mostly tidy horses. I also fed the 14 in the barn and 8 more outside. Half hour in the spring/summer and 1 hour in the fall/winter. In the winter all got hot water in feed and some got soaked hay. Owners were worried that horses didn't get enough water in the winter. But, no colic, it was worth it too them.

Couldn't do it now, my 5 horses take an hour just to seperate and feed. They live out and have round bales. I am trying to simplify! It takes longer in the winter because of blankets. They are still spoiled!!

[dr j]

It depends.

Do you mean when the boss is watching or when you're working alone? :winkgrin:


LOL!

It would take me allllll day to do 30 stalls. It takes me at least an hour to do 4-5. OF course I do it for fun. Yes cleaning stalls is my down time..... and my workout. I would much rather do barn work than go to the gym. If I have other things that need to be done... (return phone calls, paper work, laundry, make dinner etc) I can make those stalls take 3 hours - or more.

[equineartworks]

all I know is that it took me less time to muck 6 stalls than it does to muck two stalls for the minis. I swear they are muck machines!

[CatOnLap]

4 stalls with shavings and walkout paddocks,( and one real piggy, 2 average and one neat freak who piles all the manure in one corner), taking down buckets, scrubbing , emptying and refilling and turnout takes a little over an hour. Just to do stalls and waters is about 45 minutes on a good day. I budget 15 min per stall when I hire someone else to do the mucking and buckets.

[pAin't_Misbehavin']

When I did a similar number (years ago now! My back wouldn't hold up to it either these days:no:) - mucking out/rebedding and cleaning/refilling water took about three or four hours, if horses were in at night. If you could pitch the manure into the back of a Mule or something it would take less time - I had to truck it out to the muck heap in a wheelbarrow.

I didn't do turn out/in - BO did that before she left for work. I just cleaned stalls.

[Miss Motivation]

Depends on how the horses are kept. We are out west and horses are in 23/7 or 22/7 for the most part. (I know, not how you do it in the east but here we are.)

I hired a very experienced commercial stabling consultant when we bought our stable. His rule is one full-time man can feed and clean for 30 stalled horses in an 8 hour day in live-in box stalls. They should have about two hours left for general cleanup and maintenance.

He was right. Boarding in multiples of 25 or 30 horses works well. Keeping 40 horses is much less efficient, labor-wise, than keeping 30 or 55-60.

Our help average about 15 to 20 minutes per stall to clean. They have a fairly short walk from bedding to stall, and stall to muckheap, and they use large wheelbarrows, not a tractor.

[slc2]

It really seems to vary a lot. It depends on how the place is laid out and how motivated the people working are. It takes me under 5 minutes to clean a stall, often much less, but we clean stalls 4 times a day, so each time we do it, it goes very fast. I've seen the experienced folks where I board spend about five minutes per stall, including bedding, but they're cleaning out into a tractor wagon and the bedding comes in a big cart too.

Turnout varies too, it depends on whether the horses are booted, their clothes changed, a turnout just put on top of other blankets, fly spray put on, fly masks, etc, how far to lead the horse. Too something needs to be done when they come in, usually strip off their boots and spray their legs off, change their clothes. I'd guess about five minutes going out if they really get done up, about five minutes to bring in if they need their legs and/or hosed and gear put away.

With stalls and turnout, that makes about 30 minutes per horse.

If there are 30 stalls, it might take an hour to do 4-6 stalls, so at best, 5 hours for one person. Add in turnouts of 30 horses, 10 min/horse, 5 hours of work. Ten hours of work total. Usually divided between a few people. It's best if one does turnouts and another just keeps doing doing stalls.

[Acertainsmile]

I guess it would also depend on the size of the stalls... In our bigger barn we have 8 stalls, 2 foaling stalls that are 24 x 14, and the other 6 are 14x14. Those stalls take a bit longer to clean than a 12x12 stall. Two people can do the big barn in about an hour, basically stripping stalls, dumping and refilling buckets, fresh bedding and hay and raking up. Our smaller barn is a breeze with only 4 12x12 stalls, usually a 30 minute job from start to finish.

[Barnfairy]

the typical set up
No such thing.

I've worked at barns where I've had everything from horses that stay in all day at the hint of anything less than calm & sunny weather to all horses are out sun-up to sun-down to horses have 24/7 run-outs.

Sometimes I have to walk each horse anywhere from a stone's throw to a mile to get to the pasture.

Sometimes I can walk two at a time. Sometimes not.

Sometimes they all get blanket changes. Sometimes they all get masks & flyspray. Sometimes not.

Sometimes I have to drive a couple miles down the road to spread the manure. Sometimes I have to walk 50 feet to a dump pile.

Sometimes I have to walk to a separate shed to get sawdust. Sometimes everything I need is all in the barn.

Sometimes stalls are to be cleaned with a fine tooth comb. Sometimes they are "european deep litter method."

All that said, you should be looking at 2 persons taking roughly from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. at bare minimum.

If you are expecting one person to do thirty stalls all day every day, you are insane, and skimping out on decent care. Not enough eyes on one person for 30 horses.

[camohn]

just curious if people could weigh in here. mucking 30 stalls, turn out, turn in, blanket changes, the typical set up for full board.


thanks

If I boogie at top speed I can do feed/water buckets and pick 13 stalls in an hour and a quarter.....more if I am moving at less than top speed or the stalls are trashed. That would be our winter turnout where the horses are in for about 12 hours at night.

[egontoast]

but we clean stalls 4 times a day,

If you are cleaning stalls 4 times a day, then there is no significant turn out so there's a time saver for you.