This is a funny questions that we had somebody send into to us so we figured why not answer it. You may be looking to have a mini in your backyard or maybe even live in your house which is actually possible.
So how much does a miniature horse poop?
Minis can defecate anywhere from 4-8 times a day. It varies based on what they are eating throughout the day. With some higher fiber grain or oats they may go more and less if fed mostly hay. With slow feeding hay a mini will use more of the nutrients in there body leading to less poop. If you feed a mini all at once a lot of it will go to waste because they can only absorb so much.
One way to kind of compare this is with people lets say you drink 32 ounces of water all at once. Well your body will only absorb around 4 ounces an hour so the rest you will flush through your system and out it will go. This is no different with horses with water and food. If they intake too much a lot of it will go to waste and also to fat absorption.
So you do have to be careful with over feeding your mini has it can cause complications with colicing and obesity. As we said this is a range on how much poop they will produce below we gathered information from people across the nation on how much manure their mini’s produce and what they do with theirs.
There are a number of different ways to use your horse manure including using in your garden and it will work amazingly. You just have to learn how to compost it which is very very easy to do.
Mini Horse Manure – How Much Do They Make?
We love minis, but don’t take our word on it as we want to get you the right information even if we are wrong. So we have curated answers from several horse websites and several horse forums. We brought all this information to you. The only thing we have changed is the grammar and spelling where needed. Other then that the answers have remained the same.
Real Owners Answers
1. Endiku “3-4 Piles A Day Seems Normal” – Sounds pretty normal to me. My mini mare leaves me 3-4 piles a day. It really just depends on how much forage/grain they’re taking in and when.
2. ArabianGrace “Around 3-4 Piles” – My mini only poops 3-4 times h also. He gets 1 flake of hay and no grain a day.
3. GoGoJoeGranny “4 a day is normal” – Totally normal, our Mini (recently gelded) leaves about the same, and only in the last couple of weeks does he spread it out and not poop “stallion style”. The most he’s done in a day is 4, the least is 2.
4. CandyCar “Our 2 Minis Produce 5 Gallons worth a day” – Good questions! As far as how much, my 2 B size give about a 5 gal bucket a day when I weigh their feed. About 7-8 gal when I
free feed hay. When I piled it up in a remote corner of our small 1/2 acre plot, in about 6 months the pile was approx 5ft dia X 3 ft hi. It did compost down on it’s own over 9 months and now is
just a bump. If you have a garbage collector that would take it with your household trash that would be ideal. The farther away you get it from your place the better.
If you are going to compost it you would probably not use it all, and still need a way to deal with the excess. I can’t help much with the composting part. I do know, if done right, it’s not as easy as
some would have you belive.
5. Dixie_Belle “Wheelbarrow Full Every 3 days For Every Two Minis” – When I had just two, they generated a wheelbarrel full of manure every three days. That’s a lot of poop. Now that
I have four (how did that happen???) I simply cannot keep up. I do pick up as much as I can and put it in a large bag and the garbage man takes it away. But that was in Texas. Now that I am in
Kentucky, things are different. First of all, it hasn’t stopped raining since we got here 10 days ago, so things are very soggy making the bags way too heavy. I think with just two, you should be able
to keep up. What you cannot use in the compost, you can simply bag and put with your weekly garbage. Plus, I find when it is dry weather, I can have a burn pile and throw poop (even fresh) on
the pile and it will smolder and burn up to nothing. I’ve had a smudge pot like this going for over a week at a time. Each day, I would just throw that day’s poop on top of the embers and it would
just keep on smoking. I understand in heavy fly weather, this will help keep bugs off the horses although I couldn’t swear to it.
6. RopenRide “Easy Composting With Minis” – An easy method for composting…use wood pallets for the sides, make 2 bins, keep the “fresh” in one and when you need to “turn” the pile
you can put it in the other bin, then when a pile is “done” you can raise the front pallet and take compost from the bottom of the pile. Anything in the pile is great to till into the garden in the fall
so you would start the winter with empty bins. There’s lots of info on composting, and some methods are REALLY fast!
7. Katien “Mini Manure Easy To Get Rid Of” – Last year I was bagging it up (trash compactor bags fit in a small muck bucket and don’t break) and put a notice on Craigs List. “Free bagged
horse poop”. I put it out by the road and said to come get what you need. I couldn’t keep up with the demand. Most people want to give you a pick up load or don’t bother me. This year I have
located a place about 40 miles away from me that has you dump your poop at the top of the hill and he processes it down to the bottom of the hill and he sells compost and top soil. He takes the
poop for free. It will cost me about $20 in gas but it costs about $50 plus gas to take it to the dump. Our garbage men will not take poop.
Easy Composting Mini Horse Manure
Nobody wants to work harder then they have too. Composting horse manure can be very easy. You may ask yourself why do I have to compost my mini’s horse manure? Well this is simply because horses have only one stomach so what can happen is weed seeds make it through to their poop basically.
So if you take that manure and immediately spread it over something like a garden or yard you will more then likely produce quite a bit of weeds.
Here are some easy short steps to composting your minis manure:
- Choose A place – choose a place that is away from standing water and won’t erode into an area that is consumed by the mini.
- 2 Bins – you want to bins so after you fill up one you can move onto another. Before you fill the second one the first one will be ready to spread. You don’t need a bin it will just keep the smell down while it composts and keep from going into the ground. We just compost in piles which works great.
- Keep Damp – keep it damp if possible this is why leaving bin open while rains works well or just have in pile and let nature take its course.
- Heat – heat is your friend this is why a bin will help keep the heat up more and will speed up the composting. With a pile it will take a little longer to compost.
- Ready – it is ready when the manure has changed to a rich dark looking crumbly texture that has a somewhat earthy smell. Normally it will be completely composted in 2-4 months in most seasons except winter. We leave ours for 6 months in the winter and it works great.
Final Thoughts
As you can see your mini will poop about 4 times a day depending on how much they eat. Summer months if they are out on the pasture it may be much more then this up to 8 times a day. Monitor them the first year so you can find out what their normal cycle is for defecating.
Using the manure or getting rid of should be pretty easy once you get a system setup. People love using fresh natural fertilizing so simply bagging up and putting free horse manure may be enough.
We have people that come right up and take it off our piles and says it does wonders on their garden. Just make sure you compost which can be as simple as piling up and leaving for 4-6 months.