Barn Stalls Update… and a Give Away!

Sand… Sand… and more Sand!!!! Ok, if you ever have the notion to buy 13 yards of sand… DON’T DO IT!!!! So, now that I didn’t get that advice in time… we have 13 yards of sand to deal with!! I ordered it to fill in the box stalls in the barn. They are dirt floor and after many years of poop scooping the stalls were about 8″ too shallow and a bit bowl shaped. After adding about 3 yards of sand to the first box stall, we found the flooring to be too shifty… Cookie and Do’s hooves sunk in the sand and Do seemed to be a bit unsteady on his feet. We needed to add something to the sand to keep it from shifting beneath the hooves. We pulled up the stall mats and raked the stall level and smooth again. After many chats with others who own livestock, we decided to go with the advice to add shavings to the sand to help firm it up and create a stall floor that they can bed down in this winter and will wick away moisture.
Once it was all raked smooth, we added three bags of shavings and it did make an immediate difference! The horse walked in and his hooves were solid on the shavings and didn’t sink down into the sand! All was wonderful… UNTIL.. the cow came in… I will post a few photos below to give you an idea of the happy cow dance… Seriously, she made a mess, but didn’t hurt the added stability of the floor with the shavings mixed into the sand. We have since added the sand foundation to two more stalls and just have to add the shavings . Keep reading after the pictures for some give away fun…

Here is Cookie diving into the shavings… notice the horse looking over like “What the HELL!!!”

Now, she’s really blending the shavings into the sand… and the horse with bad fetlocks is staying way out of the way!!!!

So, as you can see… the cow loves the changes to the stall!!! While we continue working on the barn we need a bit of help from you… WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH ALL THE EXTRA SAND????????????????

Some ideas we have… fill sand bags and put them on a pallet. We can load them in the back of the truck for weight this winter and traction should we get stuck in the snow… actually, we’ll put some in each of the three vehicles..

Other idea provided by my son Matt… HORSE SHOE PITS!!! so now we are trying to figure out a location for those…

As for the give away… I have a 3 pack of Pickle Pro lids for the best suggestion on what else we can do with the sand. We only have about 6 yards left – maybe 5 by the time we fill sand bags…

I look forward to reading the many ideas and suggestions!

Happy Homesteading from the great state of Wisconsin!!!!