If that whiff of ammonia on your yard that gets more and more pronounced as summer progresses is not to your olfactory liking can I recommend microbz healthy habitats (previously Stable BioFresh.)
I have a little welsh pony who has metabolic challenges, in other words, we keep him off the grass for a lot of the time in the summer to keep him mobile and ticety-boo. He's got his own little yard with both hard and soft standing and a stable. He can mooch about snacking on last year's hay or Simple System low sugar forage.
He likes his box mostly, it seems to me, to use as a lavatory. Mucking out is one of the many joys of horse-keeping as we all know; it's a nice physical work-out, takes up plenty of time you wouldn't want to use doing anything else (deckchair, anyone?) and involves carting lots of costly bedding to and fro. Frequent hosing out competes with nasty chemical disinfectants - almost smelling more odious than the wee - as options for a fresh stable. I'm a born sceptic and took some persuading to try healthy habitats. But having heard good feedback from friends and my probably-more-sceptical-than-me farrier I thought: why not?
One fine morning I scooped out the poo, pushed back the bed, scraped out the wet stuff and sprayed the floor of the box. It doesn't smell at all, that's not going to work - I sneered to myself. Whilst it dried the pony went off for a little light grazing and I went for a cuppa. I put clean bedding back down over the now odour free stable floor and put the pony on his yard for the night. To my astonishment the following morning his stable was still fresh as a daisy. Pony had elected to 'go' on the outdoor, soft (earth) part of his yard, where it's much easier to poo-pick. It's a mystery as to why. I visit him often when he's on the yard, he's no less enthusiastic about being in his box. My little herd of four who live-out 24/7 generally 'go' in the same part of the field - I think of it as the latrine - and I wonder if the constant smell of wee previously has persuaded Pony this was the indoor latrine. I didn't spray again for a couple of days and the stable remained odour-free. After a day or two Pony will wee in the box but I now use healthy habitats 2 or 3 times a week and my workload is considerably reduced. I'd be really interested to know what other users of microbz have experienced. Di Gilpin
