# Cutting down mucking out time..suggestions!



## charlie76 (10 November 2017)

We have 24 boxes , mainly straw but some shavings. We have five staff on every morning but mucking out seems to take an age! 
I have spoken to them about going a bit quicker but it still takes up a large part of the morning. 

The beds currently have a full muck out and are left up to dry every other day. 

I have considered a deep litter system and bringing in extra staff once a week to do a full muck out where we would take out the wet and leave beds up for the day. They all have fresh bedding daily anyway so this would stay the same. 

Any other suggestions would be great as we would like to do other stuff than just mucking out!


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## HufflyPuffly (10 November 2017)

Pellets!

So much quicker then straw (way the longest) or shavings (not bad but still a pain for dirty, wet horses).


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## charlie76 (10 November 2017)

Unfortunately we can't use pellets as the muck is spread on the land .


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## Pinkvboots (10 November 2017)

When I worked on a full livery yard shavings beds were mucked out twice a week and skipped on the other days, and each of the shavings beds were mucked out on different days so the workers that had skip out beds would finish first to do other jobs like muck heap or hay nets so it does save time, we also had 5 boxes each and it would take about 1 hour 45 minutes to do the 5 but they were all very big beds as we had no rubber mats and had to be mucked out to a high standard with bedding added everyday.

having worked on yards for years I much prefer shavings and mucking out 2 to 3 days a week does save time but still keeps them nice, than doing straw beds which I find the most time consuming, can you not put everything on shavings.


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## ihatework (10 November 2017)

charlie76 said:



			Unfortunately we can't use pellets as the muck is spread on the land .
		
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I'm not sure I understand why you can use shavings but not wood pellets?
Either way I'm struggling to understand how 5 boxes/head is taking so long. 
Even being ultra picky surely a straw box is 20 mins max?


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## Amymay (10 November 2017)

What are they doing? It should take around 1.5 hours each to muck out 5 boxes.


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## The Fuzzy Furry (10 November 2017)

Get 1 to just do 2 boxes, then they start on sweeping down yard, squaring muck heap, filling waters etc (if this is all part of the time taken?) whilst the others carry on. Change round this job to each member weekly?

Or do a demo yourself to them, to show how time can be saved? 

I'm in 50s, gammy ankle etc and still managed a full muck out of 6 boxes( 2 x shavings and 4 x straw, yuk!), sweep down, waters scrubbed and filled,  nets tied in - all in just under 2 hours - in a yard I've not worked in before, last week. Favour to a friend who had to be away at a funeral and her usual girl was off that day, haven't done yard cover in quite a few years!


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## ILuvCowparsely (10 November 2017)

charlie76 said:



			We have 24 boxes , mainly straw but some shavings. We have five staff on every morning but mucking out seems to take an age! 
I have spoken to them about going a bit quicker but it still takes up a large part of the morning. 

The beds currently have a full muck out and are left up to dry every other day. 

I have considered a deep litter system and bringing in extra staff once a week to do a full muck out where we would take out the wet and leave beds up for the day. They all have fresh bedding daily anyway so this would stay the same. 

Any other suggestions would be great as we would like to do other stuff than just mucking out!
		
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Change to shavings and take pellets out then find pee shovel it out without moving the clean about, then fill in the area that you shovelled out with clean shavings.  That way when you rake lightly with shavings fork if it is not wet under you leave it.  

Don't know why you find it takes an age, I muck out 9 boxes on my own every day  from 6.45am - 9.45am in that time I fed turned out - mucked out- put evening feeds in and remade up again for the next day and filled haynets.  Done a few waters as some have drinkers, and some live in turnouts, but that is my times so for me mucking out 5 boxes which your staff are seems long unless high standards like squaring banks levelling bed to perfection.   
That works for me as normally when a horse pees you can see the yellow entrance of it, well you can in mine or i rake across the top and when I come across the wet patch I just scoop it out.  I rarely leave the hole bed up, though in the summer when I have shovelled out a wet patch i leave that patch open to dry then fill in later.


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## SpottyMare (11 November 2017)

charlie76 said:



			Unfortunately we can't use pellets as the muck is spread on the land .
		
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miscanthus or straw pellets can be spread on land


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## GirlFriday (11 November 2017)

Can you try it yourself one day to see where the time is being spent? E.g. walk from where straw is stored to stables (answer, change yard around or provide bigger wheel barrows); fiddly gates that are tricky to push barrows through (answer, fix gates) etc and so forth

Other thought: what else do you need done/do the staff do after? If I had an hour to muck out a box then I may find that it took me an hour. Same as if I had two to do they would take 30minutes each. Or if I was at the yard for an hour on DIY I'd muck out (realistically do a glorified skip out) in 15min, ride for 40min, brush off and go... Work tends to expand to fill the time available.


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## SEL (11 November 2017)

Rotten down wood pellets go on the land at our yard. Once they are mixed with the barrows of poo that come off the field it looks like pretty good compost!

Watching the yard staff when I was DIY on a large yard it was obvious that the enthusiasm for working at speed didn't last long unless there was someone chivvying them along! I could muck out my 2, ride 1, turnout etc and be heading off to work while they were still faffing around. I had a deadline - they didn't....


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## Auslander (11 November 2017)

I think straw and shavings are the most time-consuming to muck out, and would go for straw pellets if you're not allowed to spread wood pellets on the land.

I used to incentivise my lot to muck out quicker by having a half hour breakfast/coffee break at 10am. The yard had to be finished by then, or they missed a chunk of that break.


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## JillA (11 November 2017)

SEL said:



			Rotten down wood pellets go on the land at our yard. Once they are mixed with the barrows of poo that come off the field it looks like pretty good compost!
		
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May be good compost but as softwood it is acid, so lowers the Ph of the land.

OP might an investment in rubber mats be worthwhile, then a thin layer of bedding which can be easily sorted through or even swept out every day?


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## pippixox (11 November 2017)

I agree that if there is a time constraint people work quicker but also do find they can still do a decent standard. 
I muck out 2 horses on shavings- but they are both very wet and quite small stables, so can't deep litter.But I can do rugs, boots, turn out, muck out, hay, feeds for the evening all in 40 mins tops. luckily they do have automatic waters.
my  come into a barn on straw. I actually quite like straw.its cheap so I'm not so fussy if a bit extra ends up in my barrow, and it creates a nice cosey bed.

I find it is all the little jobs that add up- I have to push water containers to a tap and then back to fill up water. if you have a hose it can fill while you muck out. 

how long are they taking?and how long should they take?

5 staff for 24 beds should be plenty. I used to do a saturday with 1 other staff member and 16 stables. all to have rug change and turn out. took 10 minutes per stable, even the messy ones. water then topped up. we then stuffed all the hay nets and had 2 massive barrows and went around hole yard in one go, before a sweep up of the yard and then tea break!


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## poiuytrewq (11 November 2017)

They'd all be sacked if they worked at either yard I work for! 
I'd swap to shavings maybe. Although I muck out fast straw does take me a time with a dirty horse (mine currently &#128555 
I used pellets all last year and it got spread as would anything else I use, I'm not allowed paper (because they thing it will blow and look messy) but any wood product will rot and be ok to spread


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## sport horse (11 November 2017)

I currently have 10 in and normally two girls every morning.  The straw beds are mucked out to the floor daily but the banks are deep littered. Big water tubs are emptied and cleaned before refilling with a hose. Some horses are turned out so rug change, others go on walker. All stables are hayed and yard is swept. Horses off walker and back into stables. All done before coffee - this morning it took one permanent member of staff and a Saturday girl about 1hour 45 mins.
Discuss with the staff and ask them how they could get it done more quickly so they can move on to nicer jobs?  Allocate same number of stables to each member of staff - that will show up the slow ones!
Good luck - constant problem with some staff but I have really found that discussing and pointing out they are not riding etc and involving them in any change of routine to benefit everyone is best way forward.


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## Steerpike (11 November 2017)

I have 7 stables, turning out takes the most time as it's quite a way to the fields at least 45 mins, but I can get everything done by 10 at the latest and I start at 7.


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## Crazy_cat_lady (11 November 2017)

Wood pellets! Always used to have straw or shavings the shavings were the worst as he would create a whirlwind of poo and wee in with all the good shavings.

New yo took over the rs yard he's kept at and swears by them so thought I'd try them as the shavings were costing so much. Once you've got the initial balance right it's so much easier I'd never go back. I don't deep litter as have tried to muck out a deep litter bed (loan horse funnily enough my day was the day it had to be mucked out) and I ended up removing multiple wheelbarrows

Wouldn't go back from pellets


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## honetpot (11 November 2017)

I assume the boxes are empty.
 I would get two clearing the boxes, two barrowing and stacking and one to be the gofar following on with the fresh bed and laying it. When they finish mucking out the last box they help the one laying the beds and start hay nets, water etc. 
  At the moment if they are doing their own boxes, there is no incentive to work quicker. No one likes stacking the heap, although if you OCD you might, so swop roles. 
  They have to work as a whole team and be responsible as a whole. I would let them have coffee the end as an incentive. Having had builders on site for a year, making sure the materials are there so they have no excuse to wander off saves a lot of time, so get a big wheel barrow and stack all the straw on it at the start.

 I have had all sorts of bedding, and shaving are terrible for rotting down and take up nitrogen while not rotting. I would go for miscanthus pellets or chipped, it works like wood pellets. Its not that expensive and rots quickly and if you want not to tell the farmer mixed with a bit of straw he will never know if the heap is stacked. He may know someone that grows it and get a good deal.


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## SEL (11 November 2017)

I like the coffee break incentive. I might be self - incentivising with that next week. Our yard is all in at night now and one of mine had a meltdown last night, they both trashed their beds and the other decided to have a meltdown this morning.

I don't like winter....


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## Britestar (11 November 2017)

It does all come down to their incentive. Yes you can go quicker , I do 7 each day, all on shredded cardboard, all wet taken out daily. Muck heap is approx 300m away uphill. Takes me just over an hour from arriving to turnout to being ready either to ride or go to work. Water is filled via hosepipe, so its going whilst I muck out. Haynets take another 15 mins or so (14 nets). I like my beds up all day, so another 15 mins at night to re-lay and add new bedding if needed.

I have to work fast in order to fit everything else in. My neighbour has 3 on shavings and one on straw. She has all day to do them and it takes her up to 2 hours to do them all. She doesn't have time constraints.

As you employ them, they have no need to rush (in their minds). Give them incentive - finish by x time and there is cake and coffee/tea and a good break before they move onto the next job.


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## Amymay (11 November 2017)

Are the boxes skipped out in the evening?


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## Landcruiser (11 November 2017)

Rubber mats and hemp or miscanthus bedding in a thin layer, or a thicker layer if no rubber mats. Bed stays put, stays dry (wee sinks to the bottom, poo stays on top and is easy to lift. You just lift out the wet patches every day or two.


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## charlie76 (11 November 2017)

I usually muck out with them and do double the amount in the same time. 
I have showed them how to do it quicker and about getting done so they can ride and have a break but still takes forever. They do put in hay, water, bedding and fill the night nets at the same time. 

The beds are skipped out at four and six so shouldn't be too bad. The liveries won't let me have mats and thin beds , they like a big deep bed!


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## gunnergundog (11 November 2017)

Pay them per box rather than per hour!


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## chattygoneon3 (11 November 2017)

charlie76 said:



			I usually muck out with them and do double the amount in the same time. 

That's your problem ,why would they work quickly when you do it for them . 
I would give them each a number of stables to do. When they see those that have finished first riding and having a break they will soon speed up.
This is what worked for me when running yards.
		
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## TheMule (11 November 2017)

Distance to muck heap, size of wheelbarrows, ease of tipping muck onto muck heap, automatic waterers, haybars rather than nets, enough tools for everyone....
Change to pellets (much quicker, much smaller amount to take out = more stables per wheelbarrow, smaller muck heap), and a target time to be done by! 
We have 18 boxes between 3 staff (1 of those does no mucking out, he does wheelbarrows/ fetches new bedding, collects and washes feed buckets, gets hay soaking etc) Turn out takes 1 hour, finishing the yard is possible by 10.30 if everyone works efficiently but some combinations of stadf take until 11 or 11.30 on a bad day if there have been lots of other bits going on


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## Amymay (11 November 2017)

I'd be skipping out in the evenings - 8.00/9.00.

And I'd be getting tougher with your staff - do it or loose it....


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## poiuytrewq (11 November 2017)

Agree with Amymay. If you can do it in half the time your not being unreasonable in expecting them too!


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## dominobrown (11 November 2017)

I have had staff take the pee.... 20 mins to turn out a hprse thats stable was less than 100m from field gate... 5 haynets filled in half an hour.
I am not good with having a word... i just said there would be no riding until the yard was done. The one who spent an hour texting etc in the tack room got a shock when their wages reflected this! Never came back. 
Firstly... horrible I know... but staff are all too easy to replace (well useless ones area).
If you are the rider I would ride, and expect them to do the yard.


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## sport horse (11 November 2017)

dominobrown said:



			I have had staff take the pee.... 20 mins to turn out a hprse thats stable was less than 100m from field gate... 5 haynets filled in half an hour.
I am not good with having a word... i just said there would be no riding until the yard was done. The one who spent an hour texting etc in the tack room got a shock when their wages reflected this! Never came back. 
Firstly... horrible I know... but staff are all too easy to replace (well useless ones area).
If you are the rider I would ride, and expect them to do the yard.
		
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I have no idea where in the world you are but staff are not so easy to replace. By not discussing shortcomings and problems with your staff you are being a really poor employer. If the staff do not know what is required how can the do it?  If they are on their phones in the tack room and you share the boxes between the staff the lazy ones will be show up and you can then take action but to not discuss is not very fair. You  can always ban phones on the yard at least until  mucking out is finished!


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## dominobrown (11 November 2017)

sport horse said:



			I have no idea where in the world you are but staff are not so easy to replace. By not discussing shortcomings and problems with your staff you are being a really poor employer. If the staff do not know what is required how can the do it?  If they are on their phones in the tack room and you share the boxes between the staff the lazy ones will be show up and you can then take action but to not discuss is not very fair. You  can always ban phones on the yard at least until  mucking out is finished!
		
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Haha...does it matter "who" I am and where I am to have an opinion?!
I admit... I am not good at 'telling off' staff. I tend to just do the work muself instead and then wonder why I am paying someone?! Its a steep learning curve managing staff, especially teenagers or part time casual staff who dont want the job as a career.
What I was simply saying is that I can sympathise with the OP... I have been there and its not an easy probelm to fix. There have been some great suggestions on this thread too.
I do agree... good staff are Not easy to replace, but lazy ones are. If they are costing more than they are worth then from a business point of view I am not in the position to babysit people.


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## SusieT (11 November 2017)

I suppose the other question is what is next - i.e 24 horses do they all get ridden/worked-  is there a high workload? I'd say10-15min per stable max, maybe 20 with  hay etc jobs done also.


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## Darlabean (12 November 2017)

You need a holding yard or a loafing area to reduce the strain on the stables with horses grouped. This will save on mucking out and bedding,  round bales in holding areas will further save filling nets .... poo can be picked from the holding area .... wood pellets in stables (which can then be used only in bad rain) will compost nicely and if you&#8217;re worried about lowering ph which will take years, add some lime a few years down the line. Btw., wood pellets drastically reduce load on muckheap.


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## be positive (12 November 2017)

Darlabean said:



			You need a holding yard or a loafing area to reduce the strain on the stables with horses grouped. This will save on mucking out and bedding,  round bales in holding areas will further save filling nets .... poo can be picked from the holding area .... wood pellets in stables (which can then be used only in bad rain) will compost nicely and if you&#8217;re worried about lowering ph which will take years, add some lime a few years down the line. Btw., wood pellets drastically reduce load on muckheap.
		
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That would mean restructuring the whole set up of the yard, it will cost a small fortune to fence and hardcore enough space for 24 horses and would not suit all of them, the owners that are paying for full livery would not expect their horses living in yards so the staff problem would be solved by many of the liveries leaving but that does not help the OP in any way to get her stables mucked out faster. 

They are bedded on straw and the OP has her reasons to remain on straw, to speed things up I would give everyone set horses to do, I find it easier when I know the boxes, I would ask them to turn one bank each day so each is done every third day rather than every day, if they do the same boxes they should be able to speed up, I would probably do the nets myself rather than muck out so I could do the odd extra job as and when, simply emptying a wheelbarrow for a groom will help them or bringing fresh bedding round by the bale and splitting it in one box to take to the next boxes can help.


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## Mike007 (12 November 2017)

Set horses to do. Good clean wheat straw that shakes up easily. Straw barn that is easy to access. Decent large barrows with decent inflated tyres (or the new solid tyres). Horses either out of box or tied up . ( big time waster ) Throw ALL the clean straw up into one or two corners and clear out whats left.Dont try to muck out the same way as shavings . Sweep floor . lay old straw and add new straw. Hay on separate trolley used by everyone mucking out (loose , nets are a faf ,dangerous ,and bad for the horse. Check water . Untie horse. Decent muck heap easy to access . Tip muck and fork up onto heap. Biggest time waster I have seen is trying to muck out straw with the wrong type of fork . A two prong pitchfork is the right tool .Any other fork will slow you down. When you buy a new fork ,you may want to cut a couple of inches off the prongs ,they work better like that. .
    It is vital for efficiency that mucking out is a set routine that staff step into and just get carried along . Constant problems break the flow of the routine and add a lot of time . For me, straw is the cheapest best and fastest bedding .


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## sport horse (12 November 2017)

Mike007 said:



			Set horses to do. Good clean wheat straw that shakes up easily. Straw barn that is easy to access. Decent large barrows with decent inflated tyres (or the new solid tyres). Horses either out of box or tied up . ( big time waster ) Throw ALL the clean straw up into one or two corners and clear out whats left.Dont try to muck out the same way as shavings . Sweep floor . lay old straw and add new straw. Hay on separate trolley used by everyone mucking out (loose , nets are a faf ,dangerous ,and bad for the horse. Check water . Untie horse. Decent muck heap easy to access . Tip muck and fork up onto heap. Biggest time waster I have seen is trying to muck out straw with the wrong type of fork . A two prong pitchfork is the right tool .Any other fork will slow you down. When you buy a new fork ,you may want to cut a couple of inches off the prongs ,they work better like that. .
    It is vital for efficiency that mucking out is a set routine that staff step into and just get carried along . Constant problems break the flow of the routine and add a lot of time . For me, straw is the cheapest best and fastest bedding .
		
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Pretty much with this. Hate nets -take ages to fill and are dangerous. We have big bale hay/straw so put sections of each on a barrow and they get wheeled around as work progresses.  As we have big bales we have a tractor so no forking up onto much heap - hey presto a machine does it and it is surprising how many staff want to learn tractor driving!


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## Northern Hare (12 November 2017)

With straw beds, I always find that a good deep and thick straw bed with plenty of straw in it is much quicker and easier to muck out as the wet doesn't all get mixed and stays underneath.  You might find that you can get away with just removing the wet on every third or fourth day. 

Also, I find that using waterproof nitrile gloves best for quickly removing the droppings from a straw bed into a skip, and this also reduces the straw wastage, and it leaves the bed undisturbed.

We often have time and motion studies implemented at work (non-horsey), and the principles transfer to this question ref mucking out. Essentially if five employees each have to undertake the same tasks A/B/C/D/E, then it may be more time efficient if each of the employees completes the whole of one task each, or it could be a variation on this.

As per other posts above, it's key to get the inputs into the process, ie. hay / straw / water supplies located so that time is not wasted with endless journeys to collect these inputs and outputs (ie. Muck onto the muck heap etc)


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## HashRouge (12 November 2017)

Big straw beds do take longer to muck out than other types, in my experience. When I was a pro groom I much preferred shavings and found those beds much quicker. The first yard I worked on we had a maximum of 18 in and that would generally take us 1 hr 15 mins between 2, unless we were bedding down. Then it would take more like 1 hr 30. That included haying and sweeping the yard as we went, but not waters as they were all automatic. Horses were all mucked out in boxes as even if being turned out they were kept in until they had been ridden (SJ yard). We had a coffee break once we finished, which was always an incentive to get a move on! We also had huge wheelbarrows that would do 3-4 boxes, so that really cut down on trips to the muck heap (which was a bit of a trek). All beds were shavings.

When I then moved to a different yard, I was astonished at how long it took them to finish the yard. They had, at the time, ten horses and 2-3 members of staff on at a time, and they would still be finishing the yard at 10.30 (starting at 7.45). That drove me absolutely up the wall, but fortunately I had been brought in as manager so was able to change things round. I changed to mucking horses out in stables (they had been putting them on the walker so that the boxes would be empty), started a system of sweeping the yard as we went, and introduced a tea break if we finished early enough. Certain things meant that this yard would always take slightly longer than the first one - we had quite a few horses on straw, we used smaller barrows as our muck heap was up a steep ramp so larger ones weren't feasible, we had a larger yard to sweep, we also had to sweep the muck heap, and the riders would start exercising before we finished mucking out (my old boss was a bit lazy!) so we would have to get horses out/ tack up/ do them off/ turn out while mucking out. But I did manage to get things to the stage where we would have everything finished (including sweeping) by 9.30, despite the number of horses increasing to 13/14. 

I think part of it has to come down to mindset. In the first yard the other groom and I would always race, which sped things up, and shortly after I arrived at the second yard they took on another new girl groom and she and I used to do the same. It became a competition to get everything finished as early as we could. 

Some practical suggestions that might help are switching to feeding from the ground (haynets take ages), bigger wheelbarrows if yours are small, bringing a load of bedding onto the yard before mucking out, sweeping as you go if you don't already. You could also have one person each day who mucks out two stables only, then takes over responsibility for filling all the water buckets (if yours aren't automatic), scrubbing feed buckets and filling haynets (if you don't want to feed from the ground. I would also decide when you realistically think the yard could be finished by, and tell them that if they manage it, you will all have a 20 min coffee break or something. Or you could set them all a time limit per stable. I genuinely don't understand why they are so slow though. To me, mucking out was the worst part of working with horses, therefore it made sense to do it as quickly as possible so that I could get on with the more fun bits!


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## Fools Motto (12 November 2017)

Size of wheel barrows is my number 1 tip. If you can fit 2 mucks outs into 1 barrow, take less time walking to the heap.
Change hay nets for tubs, each box has 2, so there is always 1 to use. I've done a 48 box yard, with 4 people and this worked. Taps... how close are they to the stables? Fill up a big container, (keep it clean obviously) and use buckets to dunk... while buckets are being dunked, keep the tap on. Invest in a blower, can be fun and easier to use than the mundane task of sweeping up - especially if the yard is large. Blow it into piles, allocate a picker-upper and bobs your uncle.
Have a laugh with your staff. Happy 'on side' staff are not only easier to work with, but get on and do jobs!


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## DabDab (12 November 2017)

The thing I've found with straw is that if it is grown on site, it is often cheaper to replace the centre of the bed completely every day than to pay staff to sift dirty from sort-of-clean. So, using a fork, scrape the centre bed away from the banks, plough the whole lot forwards (it can generally all be shifted with one or two sweeps of the fork as clings together), then fork into large wheel barrow, sweep behind if necessary and replace centre bed. Better still, if you have a tractor with a grab bucket, you just push the contents of the stables outside onto the concrete and then one person goes round picking up the piles to deposit straight into trailer.

Other things are doing away with haynets, minimising the time spent walking backwards and forwards accross the yard by moving things closer or having one person doing the fetching carrying with others mucking out, and having an auto fed central water tank on the yard with a clean bucket in it that can be used to ladle water into the stable buckets rather than waiting for them to fill and queuing at the tap.


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## Pinkvboots (12 November 2017)

amymay said:



			Are the boxes skipped out in the evening?
		
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see this makes a huge difference all our full liveries were skipped out at 4.30 and it makes a difference as not all ours went out all day everyday, it might be worth staggering your staff so one stays late each evening to skip out and fill nets for the next day.


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## charlie76 (12 November 2017)

Ok, so muck heap  is just round the corner, it's a trailer you wheel up on to. They have large barrows.  The straw is in the barn already stacked at the end of the stables. The water buckets are filled by dunking into a self filling  trough. They are skipped out at the end of each day. 
Horses are turned out before mucking out so not in the way. 
Guess I just need to crack the whip!


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## The Fuzzy Furry (13 November 2017)

charlie76 said:



			Guess I just need to crack the whip! 

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Sounds like it 
Do report back in another week or so, if you have managed to get them to crack on, tho often cold weather helps motivate outside workers!


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## sport horse (13 November 2017)

charlie76 said:



			Ok, so muck heap  is just round the corner, it's a trailer you wheel up on to. They have large barrows.  The straw is in the barn already stacked at the end of the stables. The water buckets are filled by dunking into a self filling  trough. They are skipped out at the end of each day. 
Horses are turned out before mucking out so not in the way. 
Guess I just need to crack the whip! 

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Having been in this position many times may I suggest that the first time the 'crack the whip' is a discussion. Tell them you think the mucking out is taking too long and it has to speed up. Ask them for suggestions as to how this could happen. Perhaps ban phones till after mucking out? Involve them.
If it does  not improve then you can really 'crack the whip'!
Good luck it is so not easy but it is part of being an employer. (I have tried the I get faster and faster hoping they will notice but that does  not work. Now I do not muck out at all!)


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## SO1 (13 November 2017)

Some horses may be messier than others. My pony is tidy and he tends to poo in one corner and I have only ever seen him wee in the one place which is the middle but some horses are really messy and it will take longer.

Messy horses are going to take longer to tidy up especially if you are trying to be economic with bedding so some staff may be slower depending on how messy the beds they have are. Allocate them an amount of time that is a bit longer than you think they need and then say if they finish early they can have a longer coffee break, if they finish late then they get less break. They have to feel that what you ask them to do is reasonable and within their capability. Like others have mentioned division of labour may work for two reasons, if anyone is slacking then the others will notice, and it might mean that they all get less break so it might motivate them all and two might mean less moving around with a conveyor belt type system so may well be quicker. 

As a staff group if they meet their target of getting things done in a set timescale say 9/10 times can you give them some sort of reward? If yard staff are hard to come by being punitive such as threatening them with loosing their job probably won't work as they know they can get another one easily so you may have to work on incentivising them in some way eg longer breaks, lessons if they like riding, or other opportunities/treats depending on what you can offer.  

If you don't already do so I would also look at meeting with each staff member individually every few months to see how they are getting on, to let them know what they are doing well and where improvement could be made and also to ask them if they have any suggestions as to how to improve things on the yard to improve their job satisfaction.  You may get some surprises someone may say they prefer mucking out to riding or that have some ideas on how to be more efficient. My old boss said to me "good ideas can come from anyone" and I think if you can at least give them the chance to give you feedback as well then it might help.


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## Dave's Mam (13 November 2017)

SO1 said:



			If you don't already do so I would also look at meeting with each staff member individually every few months to see how they are getting on, to let them know what they are doing well and where improvement could be made and also to ask them if they have any suggestions as to how to improve things on the yard to improve their job satisfaction.  You may get some surprises someone may say they prefer mucking out to riding or that have some ideas on how to be more efficient. My old boss said to me "good ideas can come from anyone" and I think if you can at least give them the chance to give you feedback as well then it might help.
		
Click to expand...

Like any employer / manager should.


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## Pinkvboots (13 November 2017)

One of our incentives was food if we finished early we ate toast in the tea room or someone would do a tea hut run for bacon rolls Mmmmmmm, if we ran over time we had to wait until lunchtime to eat and I for one looked forward to a mid morning snack.


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## GTRJazz (15 November 2017)

The stable floor can slow things up quite a bit we have slowly sloping grooved concrete in our stable the wet runs off into saw dust piles. I tried to muck out a stable I rented while away for the weekend it had a rough uneven floor what a job


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## gallopingby (15 November 2017)

Are they allowed to use their mobile phones when being paid?


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