Time Saving Tips

A good routine around your horse and your barn will go a long way to saving you time on your chores, without sacrificing on quality of care. These tips will help you in the winter as well as in the summer and by getting into a good routine and sticking to it, you can ensure that your horse is receiving the care he deserves.

By Jayne Pedigo

Barn Cleaning
Many horse owners spend far more time wielding a shovel or rake than they do actually riding. However, there are a number of ways you can cut back this chore:

• If you have adequate turnout facilities, consider turning your horse out on a full time or semi full time basis. The more time your horse spends outside his stall means less time that you have to spend cleaning up after him. Your stall mucking may be reduced to skipping out a few piles of manure and perhaps a wet spot or two. You should still, however, take extra time on the weekend to thoroughly clean the stall to maintain a hygienic environment for your horse. If you live in a wet area, take some time once a week to remove the piles of manure in the pasture to save the grass from being soured. Horse owners in dry areas can go over the pasture with a chain harrow, breaking up the piles of manure and exposing the fly eggs to the sun and heat and disrupting the life cycle of fly pests.
• Even if you are unable to turn your horse out full time, there are still ways you can save time on your chores. For example, you may want to consider installing stall mats. When properly installed, good quality mats provide a comfortable and safe surface for your horse, improve drainage and cut down on the amount of bedding you will need to use.
• Not in most people's budget, but one of the best time-saving devices I have seen in recent years is the lawn vacuum! One of the ones designed to vacuum up fallen leaves works perfectly in the barn, making cleaning the barn aisle a snap and so much better than sweeping and raising clouds of dust!
• Having your barn well organized, with good quality tools readily at hand, will help speed you through your chores. Are your tools conveniently located or do you waste time walking extra yards back and forth collecting this and that before getting started? Is your wheelbarrow in good repair, or do you leave a trail of shavings across the yard that you then have to go back and sweep up? How about that rake? Are the tines well-spaced and the handle firm? Or are the tines bent and twisted and the handle loose? Time wasted trying to pick droppings with a rake that is falling apart is time you could be spending on your horse and money spent now on good quality equipment will be money well-spent.

Feeding and Watering

• Horses should always have access to clean, fresh water and there are a number of time saving ways you can provide it for them.
• The ultimate time saver is, of course, automatic watering. If you can afford it and decide to have a system installed, be sure that it has meters that will allow you to measure your horse's water consumption. Depending on your area, you will need to take the appropriate measures to make sure that it is protected from winter freezes.
• If your budget doesn't stretch to a full automatic watering system, there are still a couple of options open to you. A simple hosepipe with an on/off attachment at the end will allow you to take water to the stalls to fill the buckets, without flooding the aisle of the barn in the process.
• Some barns have underground pipes installed with a faucet outside each stall to make it quick and simple to fill buckets.
• Whichever system you use, make sure to thoroughly clean out all buckets or waterers regularly and automatic systems should be checked to make sure they are working properly.

There are also ways to streamline your feeding system:

• Instead of preparing feeds in the feed room and then traipsing up and down the barn aisle delivering the feed to each horse, gather all the feeds and supplements on to a wheeled cart. Then, feeding is a simple matter of wheeling it down the aisle, stopping at each stall to place the appropriate feed into each horse's stall. This is the system employed at the barn I keep my horse at. As the main barn holds more than thirty horses, this is an incredible time saver for them.
• You could also consider preparing feeds ahead of time. When making your horse's "breakfast", make up his evening feed at the same time and store it in a covered container, either in the feed room or hanging by his door. Then evening feeding is a simple matter of emptying the pre-measured feed into his feed bucket.
• Feeding is also made quicker if it is not necessary to open every stall door and walk into the stall to pour the feed. Stalls that have a pull out feeder, or a small swing-out door over the feeder, are great time savers.
• If you board your horse and want him to receive a supplement on a regular basis, you can make it simpler for his carers by dividing the supplement into plastic zip-lock bags so that all the person preparing the feed has to do is open the bag and pour.

Tack Cleaning and Grooming
In case you aren't noticing a trend here, many of these time saving tips involve non-traditional horse keeping techniques and ideas - automatic waterers, automatic feeders, barn vacuums. The same goes for caring for your horse and his tack.

• Even if you prefer genuine leather tack for showing, consider synthetic tack for everyday use. It is available in many styles and colors and is so easy to clean, it just takes a minute to hose clean. I will say that I was strongly against synthetic tack at first - because I love the smell of leather! However, comparing an hour spent cleaning and oiling a leather saddle with five minutes hosing a synthetic one was enough to convince me of the advantages!
• Something I really wish I had, as my horse spends so much time wallowing in the dust in the pasture, is a vacuum groomer. There are number of different models available that come with a variety of attachments, everything from a heavy duty floor model, to a smaller model that fits on your back like a rucksack. These save hours of brushing your horse and raising dust, only to have it land on his back again.

Well, I hope that you have found some of these ideas useful. Some of them involve an investment of money, but I think you will find the savings in time worth the expense, especially if you have a number of horses to care for.

If you have a time saving tip that helps you with your horses and you think that others might like to hear about it, why not post it on the EquiSearch Forum?