Our First Horse

I’ve heard scent is the strongest trigger for memories. Mikki’s been under the weather the past few days so I’ve been cleaning Valentine’s stall. These past few weeks a childhood memory flashes to my mind every time I enter his stall. I don’t know why but I keep thinking of my mom cleaning our house when I was a child. She must have been cleaning glass or something because I don’t think ammonia is used very often in cleaning these days. Apparently equine urine contains a lot (cough cough) of ammonia. As I was laying down some straw to soak up the horse urine I realized I can no longer associate the smell of ammonia vapor with something being clean. Just the opposite!

I’ve read that ammonia vapor is one of the reason you need to be diligent about cleaning your horse stall at least every day, especially if your horse sleeps there. Your horse will lay down in the stall to sleep. If you don’t clean up the urine regularly, he/she breathes the ammonia gas and that can be harmful or in some cases even fatal.

Incidentally, dry straw doesn’t soak up urine very well. I’ve heard about some kind of fluffy wood pellet thingies you can use to soak it up better than straw and I’m thinking we should start experimenting. More on that later.