Day 8 asks you to share a little bit about the stable you are at. I am currently boarding, though my greatest wish is to bring my horses home someday soon. Both of my girls are stalled over night and go out in paddocks with a handful of other horses each day. The paddocks have wire fencing and we feed round bales, usually with slow feed nets. Each paddock also has a small shelter, and Foxie's paddock has an automatic waterer. Bailey's pasture has a regular trough, but the staff does a good job of keeping it ice free in winter and gunk free in summer. It does have an inconvenient leak about 3/4 of the way up which makes using the tank float a stupid idea, but apparently I'm the only one who doesn't like unnecessary mud. The barn was pretty rudimentary when I arrived, but since then the barn owner has built large indoor and outdoor arenas and has converted our old, quite small indoor to a full stall barn. The property has over 100 horses living on it, including the barn owner's trail horses, that he trailers to local parks to do trail rides all day.
What I like:
- Round bales: some people hate them - I personally love that my horses have forage all day when they are outside. I do count that hay as pretty nutritionally nill as the bales vary in quality, but to prevent ulcers, I'm quite happy to let the horses have forage all day.
- The staff feeds what I want, when I want: I get to choose my grain and let staff know how much each horse gets, which means I can feed the high quality, high fat expensive stuff other boarding barn's won't. They also feed my smartpaks and Foxie's Previcox pills (ok, most of the time. I do count them) which is nice for no extra charge.
- Long turnout times, especially in summer: the horses go out early and don't come in until 6:30, meaning that my girls get lots of time to be horses.
- The outdoor: it has great footing and the barn owner has a relatively decent bunch of jumps. It's big enough to share, too, which makes having 100+ horses on the property bearable.
What I don't like:
- The lack of knowledge: most of the boarders are fair weather horse people, or well intentioned but neglectful horse owners. Most of the horses are very fat and not very well trained, and most of them don't get worked very often, and most of the time not very hard. Some of them are well behaved but others are big bullies who scare their owners.
- The lack of rules: While I love being able to jump/bring in a trainer/do whatever I want, everyone else gets to, too. I don't agree with a majority of the horsemanship (or lack there of) and I also have a lot of generalized anxiety on behalf of the other horses, who often don't see the farrier often enough. Even though we DO have rules about vetting, worming and other general care, I can guarantee my barn owner doesn't check everyone.
- The myriad of trainers and crazy people: my boarding barn is pretty cheap for our area, which means it attracts somewhat seedy people occasionally, like the people who buy a horse but don't even know how to put on a halter or "make the horse trot". Ufdah. We also have at least 5 "trainers" of various heritage, from some french dressage person who was on NPR, to a dressage/trail rider who decided to start teaching. Each to their own, I mean, but when four people are trying to "teach" in the same ring, it doesn't leave me any room to ride. (RUDE.).
- The indoor: while it's beautiful and full of potential, the barn owner must have hired some seedy contractors because the footing is awful - the rocks/class 5 are fully mixed with the sand, and they also put in extra sand to "cover" the fact that the class 5 wasn't tamped down and given time to settle, so it's crazy deep. As someone who had DONE the tendon and ligament thing, it's kind of a disaster waiting to happen.
So yeah, that's my boarding barn.
My dream barn?
Stalls with runs or opening to my dry lot + access to pasture
Automatic waters all day erry day
Slow feed hay when dry lotted
Wash stall
Access to warm water - be it wash stall, a sink, etc.
Insulated barn that is warm in winter / cool in summer and isn't a fire/collapse/etc hazard
And if I'm feeling particularly spoiled, an indoor arena, outdoor arena/grass arena to ride in in summer and XC fences (believe me, I have PLANS) in my pastures.
sigh.
What I like:
- Round bales: some people hate them - I personally love that my horses have forage all day when they are outside. I do count that hay as pretty nutritionally nill as the bales vary in quality, but to prevent ulcers, I'm quite happy to let the horses have forage all day.
- The staff feeds what I want, when I want: I get to choose my grain and let staff know how much each horse gets, which means I can feed the high quality, high fat expensive stuff other boarding barn's won't. They also feed my smartpaks and Foxie's Previcox pills (ok, most of the time. I do count them) which is nice for no extra charge.
- Long turnout times, especially in summer: the horses go out early and don't come in until 6:30, meaning that my girls get lots of time to be horses.
- The outdoor: it has great footing and the barn owner has a relatively decent bunch of jumps. It's big enough to share, too, which makes having 100+ horses on the property bearable.
What I don't like:
- The lack of knowledge: most of the boarders are fair weather horse people, or well intentioned but neglectful horse owners. Most of the horses are very fat and not very well trained, and most of them don't get worked very often, and most of the time not very hard. Some of them are well behaved but others are big bullies who scare their owners.
- The lack of rules: While I love being able to jump/bring in a trainer/do whatever I want, everyone else gets to, too. I don't agree with a majority of the horsemanship (or lack there of) and I also have a lot of generalized anxiety on behalf of the other horses, who often don't see the farrier often enough. Even though we DO have rules about vetting, worming and other general care, I can guarantee my barn owner doesn't check everyone.
- The myriad of trainers and crazy people: my boarding barn is pretty cheap for our area, which means it attracts somewhat seedy people occasionally, like the people who buy a horse but don't even know how to put on a halter or "make the horse trot". Ufdah. We also have at least 5 "trainers" of various heritage, from some french dressage person who was on NPR, to a dressage/trail rider who decided to start teaching. Each to their own, I mean, but when four people are trying to "teach" in the same ring, it doesn't leave me any room to ride. (RUDE.).
- The indoor: while it's beautiful and full of potential, the barn owner must have hired some seedy contractors because the footing is awful - the rocks/class 5 are fully mixed with the sand, and they also put in extra sand to "cover" the fact that the class 5 wasn't tamped down and given time to settle, so it's crazy deep. As someone who had DONE the tendon and ligament thing, it's kind of a disaster waiting to happen.
So yeah, that's my boarding barn.
My dream barn?
Stalls with runs or opening to my dry lot + access to pasture
Automatic waters all day erry day
Slow feed hay when dry lotted
Wash stall
Access to warm water - be it wash stall, a sink, etc.
Insulated barn that is warm in winter / cool in summer and isn't a fire/collapse/etc hazard
And if I'm feeling particularly spoiled, an indoor arena, outdoor arena/grass arena to ride in in summer and XC fences (believe me, I have PLANS) in my pastures.
sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment