Well wouldn't you know, I actually love doing all these things now. In fact, I had the option to do full board at this new barn for not much more money than I'm paying when everything's added up to be a rough boarder now, and I chose to stay on rough board. I am heavily invested in Lucy's health and level of care and I am a bit neurotic about making sure everything is done to my liking. Take my stall cleaning routine, for example:
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| Lucy's stall is the third on the left. The first stall belongs to a little pony named Tony, the second is Boe's, the fourth is reserved for an incoming boarder, and the last is a wash stall. |
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| This is pretty typical for Lucy's stall after she's spent a night in there. Manure is everywhere! |
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| My first step is to clean the stall thoroughly and then sweep back all of the leftover bedding. |
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| I throw down powdered lime to neutralize any of the acids that are left on the stall mats, which helps keep odor to a minimum. |
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| If the stall needs to have bedding added, I grab a bag of it and cut it open using a knife. Before adding water, the pellet bedding looks like small hard pellets. I add 1-2 gallons of water to the bag and let it sit for about ten minutes. |
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| While waiting for the bedding to absorb the water, I snapped a quick shot of the indoor with the beautiful afternoon light streaming in. |
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| Ten minutes later, the bedding has expanded a lot, and soaked up all the water! |
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| I dump the bedding out and spread it around, along with the old bedding that I had swept out of the way. I also scrub and refill her water buckets, and put hay into her stall. Her dinner gets dumped into her bucket and soaked. |
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| Next, it's time to bring the beast in! |
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| Mom, I'm not a beast...I'm a pretty pony! |
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| happy pony stuffing her face, and a clean stall...for now ;) |
