As I was outside feeding the horses tonight, I thought about how thankful I am that they are in my care. I have boarded at a variety of barns and did not always have the best experiences. I realize that boarding horses is tough! You do hard work for long hours and deal with a lot of different horses and a lot of different people with a lot of different demands.

Recently "what do you look for in a boarding barn" has been a hot topic of discussion. I thought maybe I would start writing down some of my thoughts here. I'm not sure how coherent this will be, but I'll try!

While I was boarding, I think the most important realization that I came to was: What can I live with, and what can my horse live with? Things that I thought I would be okay with, I wasn't. And neither was my horse.

For example, TURNOUT. I am a huge advocate of 24/7 turnout, and so is my horse. I realize that this is not always possible for everybody, and not all horses like it. At one of my boarding barns, they did 10-hour daily turnout and in a stall overnight. I thought this would be fine, but I was wrong. My horse hated it...she was restless, and she didn't like being led out in the morning and being led in at night. She would be led into the stall, and then she would try to run right back out again. The barn also failed to follow through on the 10 hours...some days it was 5 hours, and some days they didn't go out at all. Now just because my horse and I hated that routine doesn't mean every horse and owner would hate it! You have to find the turnout routine that works for you. Some barns I know offer both daily turnout AND 24/7 turnout. One thing I don't like, though, is when my horse is on 24/7 turnout, but all others are stalled. Then mine spends the whole night screaming for her buddies...that's not good either. :(

Also, TURNOUT BUDDIES. My horse grew up in a herd of about 8-10 mares turned out 24/7. She was not turned out with geldings, and at one boarding barn, they turned out in mixed groups. I was game to try this because I wanted to follow the barn's routine, but that DID NOT WORK for my horse. The geldings beat her up and tried to mount her, and there were NO OTHER MARES at the barn, so my mare ended up in individual turnout. Not something that worked for a mare who always lived in a herd. :( That said, I have friends whose horses MUST have individual turnout and other friends whose mares go out with geldings. It all depends on what works for you and your horse! I also recommend knowing what your horse's position in the herd is...my mare is very low in the hierarchy, completely non-alpha, so the geldings just beat her up, and being alone didn't work for her either!

FEEDING became quite an issue for me at several barns. I buy all of the hay and grain for my horses now, and I know how difficult finding good quality hay can be. I don't expect top quality, soft, green, leafy hay all of the time, but I also don't expect yellow, brown, coarse, moldy hay either. And I don't expect to be LIED to about the hay. If it's a tough hay season, please tell me. And if you're having trouble finding hay and think you won't have enough for the winter, please don't buy two more horses.

FEEDING AMOUNT is also important to me. I support more hay, less grain. I like when people talk to me about my horse's diet, I like a consistent diet, and I like to know what my horse is eating. (I know other owners who could care less.) One barn stuffed my easy keeper full of grain and very little hay without my permission. They also changed the type/brand of grain quite frequently. As I mentioned above, I understand that hay can be scarce some years. Maybe we will have to find a forage supplement...maybe we will have to increase the grain a bit. But please talk to me about it first! Also, please make sure that my horse is actually GETTING the allotted amount. When she was stalled, that wasn't a problem, but unfortunately, the stall was the problem! So when she was turned out, it was harder to make sure that she got her share. I know horses will be horses, and dominant horses will chase others away, but please keep an eye out during grain time, and please put out enough hay piles so my submissive mare can eat.

FEEDING ROUTINE is also important to me. Now some people encourage varied feeding routines for horses so they don't expect a meal at the same time every day. If that works for you, that's great. I really like feeding on a schedule, and that's how my horse grew up. When one barn fed anywhere from 4-9 PM, she became quite panicky and nasty and food-aggressive. That didn't work for us. :(

Well, I still have plenty more to comment on, but I think I'm going to stop here for tonight. I've always had so many boarding barn issues, but I've never put them down on paper (er, blogger) before. It's interesting for me to write...I hope it is interesting to read!