Do you remember the first time you stepped in a pup’s mess? For a young kid, the whole experience could only be described as harrowing. You have to walk home, stanky-legging your sole across the grass, hoping it’ll salvage the situation at least a little bit. Then, you come home and here comes the cleanup…
So you probably understand how annoying it is to deal with big piles of horse poop if you live around a lot of horse paddocks. It’s no surprise then that a man was fed up and decided to do something about it.
More info: Reddit
If you've ever had to avoid a dog's mess on the sidewalk, a horse is a whole different caliber and definitely not pleasant
Image credits: Barbara Olsen (not the actual photo)
A man took it online to be judged whether he's a jerk for making a horse rider pick up after her pet for leaving a mess in his yard
Image credits: Throwawayflaturin
Image credits: Dianne (not the actual photo)
Living nearby many horse paddocks the poster puts up with horse piles everywhere, from hiking trails to beaches
Image credits: Throwawayflaturin
Image credits: Barbara Olsen (not the actual photo)
He then caught 5 of these riders in his yard, telling them to clean up right now or there would be major consequences
Image credits: Throwawayflaturin
Instead of going to get some tools and bags for the job, they put away the poo into a "convenient" backpack
All of this is just about one of the most justified cases of “get of my lawn” of all time. Besides the horses “fertilizing” every hiking trail, biking route, and even beach in the area, not even back yards are safe from it. It doesn’t help that because of the amount of horses around, there are many horse-specific trails around, but that doesn’t stop their owners from taking their pets wherever they clap their eyes on.
Because of the area the poster lives in, putting up fences isn’t allowed, to allow wildlife to roam. This leads to riders taking their horses off trail and going across people’s backyards. And when in Rome… Private property and “beware of dog” signs apparently don’t even put a dent in the stinky backyard piles.
A commenter tried to label the poster as the jerk because of the “difference between horse and dog poop,” but he defended himself saying that he cleans up his dog’s mess every time, so why should he deal with horses?
Others said “hey, free fertilizer, just put it in your garden and done!” but I don’t think they’ve done a day of literally shoveling horse dung that you didn’t even ask for. The poster also claps back by saying that horse feces has all sorts of seeds in it, so if you don’t want random weeds flowering in your garden from piles of poo, it’s probably not the best solution. Any farmers can chime in at the comment section and correct me, though.
Image credits: Maël BALLAND (not the actual photo)
The poster was done hearing any excuses and putting up with the riders, so he called them out and said “alright, clean that up, now”, pointing to some horse No. 2. Without giving them any shovels or garbage bags, the only thing they had left was dumping the poo into one of the rider’s backpacks.
It’s unfortunate for that person, but also completely justified. The solution was always simple and available from the get-go - just don’t take your poop tank onto private property!
Owning horses is a quite expensive hobby. According to an Equine Helper article, the cost of a horse per month is $600, so that’s quite a lot of pocket change in the first place. Plus if you consider saddles, supplements, and all sorts of other horse-care implements, the prices rise very quickly.
That makes it even more surprising that they wouldn’t clean up after themselves and continue to devastate their own local reputation. Now, I’m no cowboy myself, but a quick glance online will show you that there are things called Bun-Bags. These bags are like nose bags but for horse buns!
According to testimonials, they are discreet, don’t really bother the horses and work perfectly well. I tried figuring out the capacity of the bags, but without measuring a horse’s poop weight and frequency I can’t really cut it. It seems that it’s still a better solution than having to backpack it, though, right?
This story got over 2.5k upvotes on Reddit, with over 800 comments. The commenters were totally flabbergasted by the nerve of these horse riders, saying that the poster did nothing wrong whatsoever.
The comments supported the poster, saying that what he did was justified and a good lesson at the same time
