The “Downside” of Barn Animals
Read more articles on Life's Nuances and Let Me Share With You and Pets.January 6, 2008
Posted by Karen Amato Schwartz
January 6, 2008
Posted by Karen Amato Schwartz
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In the veterinary world, doctors who take care of horses and donkeys are often referred to as “large animal” vets. It doesn’t matter if the miniature pony or donkey is no larger than a big dog. I have a feeling that the main difference is the size and amount of that which gets left behind, so to speak.
For the last few weeks, my daughter and I have been volunteering our services at my friends’ stable. It’s a good experience to brush the noble beasts, clean their hooves, untangle their manes, and hold them as their muzzles get shaved. We enjoy seeing the excitement at feeding time, when all the barn tenants try to decide whether to tackle their dry mixtures or hay first. Even scooping the manure that has managed to hit the barn floor while we’re saddling them isn’t that bad.
But it’s a whole different story when it comes to mucking out the donkeys’ outside stall and play area, as I discovered today.
When the ground has frozen, been snowed upon, thawed slightly, and then rained on, it makes the experience of scraping up donkey dirt quite interesting. Try doing so in the cold rain, and you realize what the word “yucky” really means.
Now, I’m very much a city gal. My sojourn to the stables every week or so is the extent of my rural exposure. I work hard not to be another Lisa Douglas, the character Eva Gabor portrayed on “Green Acres” decades ago. (She was a fancy New York woman whose husband made her move to a farm, but she continued to wear evening gowns and jewels.) So you can imagine my dilemma in looking at pile after pile of poop that was half frozen, knowing that if was totally frozen, it would be easier to get. You see, the bottoms of said substance stuck to the ground while the tops crumbled off into the rest of the ankle high mire, getting squished into the mud and slush.
Oh, and did I happen to mention that I did not have adequate tools for this job?
Normally, one of the many heavy rakes is used on the straw in the outside shed, and it does a fine job. But even the sturdiest rake would bounce along the irregular, icy surface of the mud, skipping over the nooks and valleys which contained hundreds of the perfectly round treasures. I tried every rake and every shovel, and nothing worked. There was no long handled dust-pan type of device, and even if I did manage to snag a profitable amount, because the prongs were not close together, a whole bunch of poop balls would slide through on the way to the wheelbarrow. If I wasn’t fast enough, the donkeys would grind them under their hooves before I’d get back to them. But if I beat them to it, I had even more to do-a lose/lose situation.
You see, this is the first winter that donkeys have been in residence outside, and the first weekend where we’ve had this kind of alternating weather during the week. Even though their owner just cleaned their stall 3 days ago, the little imps eat well and eat a lot (and they don’t suffer from any kind of constipation.) It took longer than you might imagine, until finally their owner and I became resigned to the fact that this was the way it’s going to be until spring. I think I mentioned that she needed to get better implements…about 3 or 4 times. I think she will.
But, as with babies, this chore comes with the territory. One good thing is that it makes cleaning out an inside horse stall seem pretty easy. I’ll keep reminding myself of that the next time I work inside in the summer…when it’s hot and everything smells really bad because there’s no air and no breeze…oh yes, I’ll just hold onto that thought.
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