A little experiment and a possible solution to a common barn issue

I think a lot of folks, like us, might have that *one horse* who – no matter how much acreage he has to roam around on all day long, will just unleash his bladder when he comes into his stall.

I’ve discovered the best way to help manage the wet bedding in his stall (in our case, it is sand/dirt because they are not stalled on a regular basis – they only come in to eat and wait around for a few hours while the farrier’s here, or if we need them to be stalled temporarily for an injury) – which is simply shoveling out the wet bedding and replacing with dry/new bedding (in our case, sand) plus an additive called PDZ Stall Refresher granules, which is made of 100% clinoptilolite zeolite – a naturally occurring earth mineral formed from volcanic activity. It is a non-toxic, unscented, and organic-listed ingredient designed to absorb moisture and neutralize ammonia odors. Kind of like fine cat litter, when you put it down in their bedding. And, it does help! Here’s a quick TikTok Everyday Tip I made a while back on what I do.

But, since I wanted to curb this behavior (turns out you can train horses to pee on command like race horses, but ours are no racehorses – unless its dinnertime and they are 10 acres away – and I don’t mind cleaning up after them anyway) rather than just manage it, I wondered it it could be successfully mitigated by using their own instincts, and after a few days of this experiment proving so, I’m hoping this might be the ticket…! Here’s the video evidence.