How To Clean Your Horse’s Stall Perfectly In 8 Easy Steps!

You have to clean your horse’s stall…again! While this may seem like a tedious and miserable task to some, to a horse lover, mucking out a stable is therapy! You can be busy while letting your mind wander as you breath in the sweet smells of manure, fresh shavings, horse hair, fly spray, leather, coat polish and feed. What’s better than a nice clean barn? Of course there is more to it than just cleaning stalls, it’s important to keep your barn aisle tidy and your tack room organized too!

In this article we’ll cover 8 steps you should follow to get your stalls nice and clean!

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Tools You’ll Need To Clean Your Horse’s Stall

Pitchfork

Wheelbarrow or Muck Bucket

Broom

Lyme

Spray Bottle

Pine Sol

Fresh Bedding

Scrub Brush

Find The Wet Spots In Your Horse’s Stall

Find the spots that look wet or where you know your horse has urinated, dig your pitchfork into the shavings all the way down until you reach the mat or floor. Gently flip over the shavings and then take out all of the saturated bedding.

Next, sweep the shavings away from the wet spot to let it air out and dry while you clean the rest of the stall.

Pick Out The Manure

Keeping a clean stall free from manure piles will help keep your horse clean too! Why do horses always seem to find the dirtiest place to nap? If your horse does this, check out this post on how to clean green spots and keep your horse’s white hair clean!

The Best Way To Clean Your Horse’s White Spots!

But before you start sifting through all of your horse’s bedding, quickly pick up any large manure piles that are sitting right on top.

Bank Your Shavings When Cleaning Your Horse’s Stall

For most people, when they clean their horse’s stall, they want to get it super clean! Banking your shavings will help you clean your horse’s stall thoroughly! Clear a space along the wall starting on one side of the stall. Gently toss some shavings against the wall and notice the manure will roll to the bottom of the pile. Once the manure rolls to the bottom and hits the mats, scoop it up and toss it in the wheelbarrow. You shouldn’t really have to sift many shavings out of the manure at this point.

Continue to toss small pitchforks full of shavings until you’ve completed the section of the stall nearest the wall where you are working. Keep going in once spot until you form a ridge of shavings then start to move along the wall.

Be careful not to toss shavings too high so you don’t get dust in your eye! Gently scoop upwards from the bottom of the pile towards the wall a few times to make sure you’ve gotten all the manure out.

Once you have worked your way around each stall wall, pull the pile down and spread it out. Pick up any manure that lays on the top.

Next, if you need to re-bank the stall a second time to make sure any manure that got stuck underneath comes out. I always bank my stalls twice because I like them to be extra clean.

If you do a good job the first time, you shouldn’t find much manure on the second round and it’ll go much faster. Be sure to pull out any soiled hay at the same time!

After the second round, don’t pull your shavings down yet!

Spread Lyme Or Other Odor Remover

For non-horse people, this may be the absolute most important step.

While your shavings are banked up against the wall, sweep the middle of the stall until you can see the mats.

Once you’re down to the mats, spread some pulverized lyme around on the floor especially where the pee spots were.

As an optional step, you can also mix small amount of pine sol into a spray bottle of water, shake well and spray on the urine spots.

Spread Out The Bedding

Next, pull down the banks of shavings from the walls and spread them out evenly. I like to do one side at a time, pull down the shavings, check for manure and spread the shavings. Then continue this process on each wall.

Once all of the banks are pulled down, hold your pitchfork pointing down, gently move the rake side to side to expose any manure that was hiding in the piles.

Remove any manure you find while spreading out the shavings.

Add More Bedding To The Stall

Typically barns have a standard rule, for example: Replace the amount of bedding you removed. Some barns also have general guidelines the follow like, having 4 inches of shavings in the stall. For others, this may be a bit over board.

Either way, you want to have enough shavings in the stall to let your horse get comfortable when he lays down. And, you need to have a thick enough layer of shavings to absorb urine. You definitely don’t want puddles of urine that are not completely absorbed sitting in your horse’s stall as this will cause a strong odor.

Always talk to your barn manager before using any extra supplies unless you are purchasing the supplies for your horse yourself.

Sweep The Front Of The Stall

Lastly, what good is a clean stall if it isn’t pretty too?

Sweep the shavings away from the doorway and water buckets. Make the edge nice and neat! 🙂

Clean Your Horse’s Water Buckets

Empty out dirty water buckets, scrub out the bucket with a brush and rinse. Replace the water buckets and fill with nice clean water.

Check out how to clean your water buckets the right way in this article! Horsecare 101: How To Clean Your Horse’s Water Buckets

And, for more helpful tips on horse care and boarding barns, check out these related articles!

How To Choose A Boarding Barn For Your Horse: Part 1

How To Choose A Boarding Barn For Your Horse: Part 2

The Best Way To Manage A Horse Training Facility

Horse Care 101: How To Clean Your Horse’s Water Buckets

6 Easy Tips For Keeping A Tidy Barn Aisle

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