Mucking out equipment for use around the yard and field

There are a multitude of handy gadgets available to the modern horse owner, but choosing a few good mucking out tools wisely often saves money and time in the long run. As with everything, it is always cheaper in the long run to buy the best you can afford, and this is especially important with stable equipment that is going to get regular, hard work. For the stable, there are different forks designed to work best on different types of bedding, such as the fynalite shavings fork, which logically works best on a shavings or aubiose bed. The fynalite forks are very tough and have sprung steel heads which resist being bent out of shape (I haven’t managed to break one yet and one of ours is 10 years old!) and don’t wear particularly even when used on concrete floors. Cheaper shavings forks we tend to find last on average 1-2 winters before being virtually unusable, so being only 2 - 21/2 times the price, the fynalite forks really are a very good investment!

The straw forks for long fibre beds are also very tough, with lightweight handles and 4 hardened prongs for ease of use. Shorter adults often find the children’s funky fork an ideal tool with its shorter handle and lighter weight, but all the quality of the full length version. For the field, no horse owner should be without an equine manure scoop, also known as a horsey poop a scoop! This consists of a large ½ bucket on a metal handle, with a separate metal rake. These are now available in a wide range of bright colours as well as the standard black, and come in two heights, standard and tall manure scoop (for taller riders). If you are fed up from an aching back whilst ‘poo picking’ your field, invest in an equine manure scoop and you will never look back!