How to Separate Horse Manure From Wood Chips

By Tracy S. Morris

Instructions

Things You’ll Need:

Wheel barrow
Mucking fork
Mucking bucket

Step 1:
Muck out a stall at least once a day. Experts recommend twice daily for the health of the horse, as well as to shorten each cleaning session.
Step 2:
Remove the horse from the stall while you separate the manure from the wood shavings. Horse owners call this "turning the horse out." Although you can muck out a stall while the horse is in it, the process is easier with an empty stall.
Step 3:
Position your wheel barrow to the door of the horse's stall, and place the mucking bucket in the stall over a clean, manure free patch of shavings.
Step 4:
Take your mucking fork and scoop up any large piles of horse droppings that you spot immediately. Place these droppings into the manure bucket.
Step 5:
Scoop up a pile of shavings from the corner of the horse stall. Shake them back and forth to shake off clean wood chips. The chips will sieve out from between the tines of the fork, leaving behind any manure.
Step 6:
Continue to pick up forkfuls of shavings, working back and forth across the stall. Then repeat the process in a front-to-back pattern to find any horse droppings that you may have missed. When your bucket becomes full, transfer the contents to the wheel barrow.

Tips & Warnings

Once you have removed the manure from your horse's bedding, you will also need to dig out the urine. Horses usually pick a spot to urinate in, so digging out that spot with a shovel is usually simple, once you know where it is.

Resources

Allotment Vegetable Growing Website: Horse Manure -- Does it Have any Uses?

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