Stepping off sharply from the rank and file

Look at this gentle face. This is Pie waiting patiently for me to attempt to mount bareback. He is so tall and my ($99) three-step mounting block does not go high enough. So, I have been using a barstool, but it is not safe. More on this another time. Now, to the point of this post...

Here is a lovely Sovereign-boy in the pasture. (He has some sort of mushed dirt mark on his side - it is not a gash or cut!) The horses are turned out all the time now, day and night, 24/7. I have mentioned this new (to us!) program in earlier posts, and promised my dear blogging friend, Kristen, of Sweet Horse's Breath some more details, so this post is my take on the whole situation thus far. This is a work in progress and I don't have it completely sorted yet, but I can share what we are doing and what we have learned to date.

I have come to realize recently, that what I have been doing with horses my whole life, from riding to grooming to horsekeeping in general, is exactly what I was taught to do, with little concern about what actually makes sense to me or to the horse. My evolution as a rider included questioning bits and horseshoes early on (8th grade) but my questions pretty much stopped there. I never really thought about how stalls, turnouts, pastures, nutrition, and/or domestication in general effect the overall health of my horse.

I come from a family who has always owned horses, but when I hear about how the horses were boarded in the past, I have to shudder. Locally, the boarding of horses for recreation isn't too different than the boarding of horses historically for transportation. If you walk up and down the back alleys of my town (below) you see that every house and yard has a small carriage house. Obviously, in the days before cars, the carriage was kept in there, but so was the horse! There was no large fenced pasture for exercise. The horse got enough exercise pulling the carriage. There was no grass for food. The horse was fed grain and hay and water. By 1953, when my mom, at the age of 10, got her first horse, Chaplain, it isn't such a stretch to imagine that Chaplain was kept in a standing stall at his boarding stable. The horses were not turned out at all! The owners came and groomed and rode and grazed them for cool-downs, but the horses were primarily fed hay and grain. They didn't even have water buckets! The barn owner would periodically walk all the horses to a watering trough during the day. This sounds positively barbaric to me.

In 1957 my grandfather bought our farm with 40 acres and a bank barn to keep my mom's horses. You can read that story and see photos here. The horses had nice sized stalls and there was a small paddock built. The horses were turned out approximately 2 hours a day and my mom rode every day. I was born in 1967 so this horse boarding set-up was all I knew as "correct" even though, now, when I think back I feel terribly guilty that they were kept inside so many hours! We fed hay and a sweet feed with molasses that smelled heavenly. We never would allow our horses to eat wet grass. (Now I know that the sweet feed was probably way more dangerous than the wet grass!) Our horses all lived well into their 30's, but we had our share of colic. Working for the large animal vet, I spent tons of time holding the pump and pumping oil into horses at boarding stables too, so I never questioned that the way we were keeping our horses might not make the most sense.

Recently, I have personally witnessed horses at boarding stables who are turned out all night and kept in stalls during the day all year long. They are blanketed in the winter, but kept in pastures that have no trees or shelters. This arrangement makes no sense to me. I have also personally witnessed owners who keep their horses in treeless, shelter-less pastures in the hot summer sun. This also makes no sense to me.

When I requested to foster and retrain two Thoroughbreds from the excellent organization, Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, they recommended that the OTTBs be kept outside 24/7 with adequate shelters. We didn't have shelters at that point so I kept the boys outside 12-14 hours a day and inside huge (12' x 15') stalls the rest of the time. In the winter they were inside at night, and in the hottest part of the summer they were outside all night and inside during the day. We fed the boys alfalfa, brome and a very small amount of grain.

The horses were doing well on this program. They were excellent to ride and their weights and feet were perfect. So why change a thing?

Well, first of all, we did have two 12' x 24' shelters erected last summer. I watched the horses use the shelters as protection from the sun and rain and ice and snow, so I knew they were comfortable in there. Second, this winter, when I was in Florida, Pie started chewing his stall during his time inside at night. He was not cribbing, but clearly, chewing the barn down out of boredom. He was turned out the same amount of hours that he always was, and was given the same amount of hay as always, but he wasn't being ridden. When I returned, I resumed riding, but I sensed that putting the horses inside at night was not actually what they wanted. I started reading and trying to re-educate myself about the true nature of horses and horsekeeping. I had the most trouble understanding the keeping of horses outside in the winter. My own sense is that a warm, cozy bank barn on a cold winter's night is the place to be. This is not necessarily true for our equine friends and I still am having difficulty believing that because I get so cold in the winter!!! I love Jessica Jahiel's article on the subject of winter horsekeeping:

http://www.horse-sense.org/archives/20040620075841.php

Also, reading all my favorite horse blogs made me realize that many of you have happy, healthy horses who are kept outside all of the time with adequate shelters. I spent the month of February worrying and deliberating and thinking of how it could all work. Our bank barn is not structurally set up to allow access to the stalls, so the shelters would have to do. Finally, after a vet check and thorough discussion with our vet about our pasture grass, I left the boys out 24/7 on March 16th. Our grass at that time wasn't green and I am watching it vigilantly for any sudden richness. Our rain has held off so they have most of the grass nibbled down. In addition, I cut back even more on their grain while my mom is still giving them the same amount of hay twice a day. After our daily rides, we hand graze them on some rich grass outside the pasture for approximately 15 - 30 minutes since their pasture grass is so sparse. So far everything is working out super well. To my mom and I, who have kept horses in stalls only, this is really a big deal!

My shift in thinking has been further influenced by a book I stumbled upon accidentally. Paddock Paradise: A Guide to Natural Horse Boarding by Jaime Jackson (pictured below) has ideas for encouraging movement within the pasture so as to avoid colic, founder and foot problems. Mr. Jackson uses the behavior of wild horses as his blueprint for the Paddock Paradise design. The book is a quick read and the idea of the Paddock Paradise makes sense to me. I am constantly wrestling with my role in the domestication of my pets. This system seems to me to give the horses "on track" a sense of freedom in a natural environment. In additon, the "track" does not need too much land which makes me wonder if this is the boarding barn model of the future.

I am starting to think about how to possibly set up a Paddock Paradise "track" on our farm. Below, I have outlined our property in green and our existing fencing in dark purple. I used pink for a possible Paddock Paradise track complete with "camping" spots in the protected shaded areas of our field. Mostly, I would like to incorporate direct hay eating during the spring, summer and autumn months, forgoing the farmer baling and selling us our own hay that we carry, store and then re-distribute.

Pie and Sovereign seem extremely happy so far. I bed both sheds with shavings and know from the shavings in their tails that they use their sheds. Instead of cleaning stalls alone in the barn, I spend each morning walking around the pastures (with two horsey helpers) picking up manure piles and scrubbing buckets. I didn't sleep much at first, but I have to say that I am surprisingly reassured knowing that at any time, day or night, the boys are happily munching grass with two nice shelters and plenty of fresh air, hay and water.

Another Jessica Jahiel post about "killing horses with kindness" has brought me much comfort in the decision to try this new turnout program:
http://www.horse-sense.org/archives/20040620084937.php

As I said before, this is a work in progress. (I know all you cowgirl blogging friends are cracking up laughing at me for making this into such a big deal. Your ponies have been living happily outside forever.)

In my own experience here in my area of Pennsylvania, humans have devised horsekeeping systems that have been around for so long that they are "the norm". Subsequent generations would have no way of knowing that these systems are not what is best for the animal, but what was easier for man. I am trying to move into new territory for me, which is ironically old territory for the horses.