I think your right H! I know (from a gardening forum) that certain wormers used for horses stay in the manure/dung for a long time and can affect what you're growing. I suspect that it depends on what you medicate your horse with in a lot of cases.

Isn't this all a question of fact and degree?

I agree, out in the countryside I wouldn't think twice about it and I don't think the odd pile in residential areas should cause problems either.

But if the same stretch of road in a resi area is 'getting dunged' several times a day and this is an area where kids play etc, I can see if I lived there, it would p*ss me off too - so its not harmful, but if there is so much of it that its impossible to avoid, that can't be very pleasant can it?

So whilst I don't think the average rider should have to clear up after their horse, where a particular area is being heavily affected, particularly by a riding school business, I think it is only good manners that they try to minimise the impact they are have on their neighbours by at least trying to clear some of it away.

Hali...that's what I was trying to say but you said it lots better.

Yeah I can understand that Hali. It is a valid point you have made there. We don't have any riding schools here, but there are lots and lots of horses so we do get piles of it in the road, doesn't seem to bother people in this part of the village though. I do agree it is horrible to find it on the pavement, but as I said before I can quite understand why!!

i dont think riders should have to clean it up tbh but it would eb politness not to ride their horses on pavements tbh

i never did... and tbh i cant say my horse had ever crapped on the road tbh - always on grass accross fields....

Roads, bridlesways, etc. no, it's not really doing anyone any harm. Pavements, I'm sorry but it should be moved or picked up at some point, as people have to walk down it & won't want to walk through it. I understand that sometimes you may want to ride on the pavement to avoid cars on a busy road, but if your horse poos then you have to think that it might be forcing people to step into the road to avoid it.

So to summarise Pavements, yes, pick it up, but otherwise no, it's natural and doesn't hurt anyone. I'd imagine fumes given off by cars are a lot more harmful than a bit of horse poo on the road

Hoorah! Sense prevails

(I'm pestering for a horse at the mo and was starting to have nightmares, pardon the pun, about huge nappies!)

Exactly , how do the council know said "muck" is coming from said horse???? of said yard??

And I wonder how many wheelbarrow pushers will also get flattened , stopping on a busy road on blind bends... with their shovel trying to pick the muck up before another motorist comes flying down the road!!

Love your idea of flagging it , to be recognised later

same here, much easier to muck a stable out with your hands... specailly when you have a dirty so and so, who likes to bury their muck,

Exactly, no excuse for them to be on pavements.



Its a b**ger to get from under your finger nails

Also reminds me , my daughter and her stable friends(when they where kids) used to go to the butchers at lunch for a filled baguette ( the butcher used to make them especially for them)

not a washed pair of hands between them... they would sit and eat their lunches, in the stables on the straw/shavings, with their horses, peeing/pooing, around them, the girls would be covered in in the stuff... on their hands, in their clothes...

They have all grown up in to healthy adults... never did any of them any harm.

Apart from the very indignant Australian teacher who came to teach at the yard for a while, now she had a problem with "muck" only I might add after my daughters little monkey of a pony, pulled her through the biggest patch of it, face down in the stuff....

She never forgave him....I wonder why!! ( the teacher that is, not my daughter)

After talking to my daughter last night about the warning letters from the council.

What the council have done is set out a catchment area surrounding each stableyard, and as far as she knows all the yards had agreed to keep the bridleways and roads clear of horse muck within she believes about a 2 mile radius of a yard.

So from that it doesn't really matter which horse drops the muck, because it would work on a quid pro quo basis.

Well all I can say to that Colin is, I'm glad I don't have a horse now! It was bad enough having to clear our fields on a daily basis, but a 2-mile perimeter seems a lot to me I wonder if they've thought about when it's right in the middle of the road say, on a busy dualcarraigeway, like the one I had to cross twice to get out of the yard???? Nah, they don't think do they!!!