What is your home barn routine?

[goneriding]

Following up on my thread about barn work and boarding, I am moving forward with ending the boarding business. I don't make enough money to justify the restriction on my life, the hours of labor, or the impact on the property.

That leaves me with my 2 mares at home, and I don't think there is any reason to continue a "stable" type of management, where horses get turned out every morning and brought in every evening. I think I want to move to some version of a run-in so it's just a matter of feeding and picking manure at my convenience, and care could be done without ever touching or moving the horses if needed.

I'd love to hear about your home barn routine and set-up and how you make things efficient for yourself! What works, and what have you tried that failed?

[khall]

I for the most part still have horses in stalls daily. Sometimes when weather permits I will leave them out 24/7. That is what I am most comfortable with and I do not have run ins at this time.

[Josette]

Well after rough and full boarding for too many years I did not want to lead horses to turn outs. I have a small barn setup for 3 horses (remaining stalls are storage) with good size private turnout off these stalls. The front stall has the largest paddock at almost an acre. The stalls are left open 24/7 except in extreme weather and I feed directly in the stalls. My ground is sandy so I do not toss hay outside and gave up on hay racks when horses would throw/waste hay all over the ground. I do clean stalls daily and pickup the smaller paddocks daily. My guys seem very content with their freedom to come/go in their stalls. Stall fans run most of the summer to beat the heat and flies. If DH and I do a day trip somewhere this setup allows my pet sitter to feed without handling horses then walk our dog. (Pet sitter is okay with horses but I would not consider very experienced. My instructor takes care of horses if we are away several days.)

[Moutaineer]

I have two horses and a pony at home. They all live separately for one reason or another, but their fencelines are all shared so they are all social with each other, just can't kill each other. They each have their own run-in shed. I have a 3 stall shedrow--two stalls and a hay shed and a completely separate shed at one side for the pony, who's (very securely) fenced turnout wraps around the back of the shedrow.

Apart from the mini, they each have a small "holding pen" area (about 15ft deep by 30 ft wide) I front of their shed that opens at the side onto an individual larger field (about 3/4 acre), that wraps half-way on each side around the back of the pony's turnout, like a pair of L-shaped fields. That then opens onto yet another individual even larger field out the back.

(Bet that's as clear as mud...)

I only close the holding pen gates when the farrier or vet is due or when someone is in need of monitoring closely for one reason or another.

You have to walk through the holding pen area of the quietest of mine (elderly gent) to get to my hay shed. If necessary, he can be shut out of that area if we've got a hay delivery coming in or if someone is feeding and doesn't want to deal with him.

I've given up trying to deal with flaky local farmers delivering hay and now get mine from the Ag and feed merchant in town. They are reliable, the quality is good, and they deliver and stack on request. Horribly expensive, but only feeding two and a half, so I suck it up for the convenience.

The big boys share a water trough with a sinking heater in it for the winter. The pony has his own.

I feed hay in the mornings (elderly gent gets a bucket of senior feed as well) and pick out their sheds about 3 days a week, or more often if they've been standing in a lot because of the weather. In the week, they get fed around 8am. At the weekend, it's 9am.

In the evenings, they all get their hard feed and more hay. (In reality, it's a token offering to the mini and my fat appy, and the elderly gent gets a bucketful...)

Elderly gent is blanketed, at least at night, during the winter, so that has to be dealt with. The others, so far this year, not. Don't know if that will last through the dead of winter though! (Pony never wears a blanket. I did try...)

I fill water as necessary. I have one of those flat hoses that rolls up and goes in the house during the winter.

My feed and tack areas are purpose built in my garage.

My tiny arena is out at the end of my driveway next to the road, on the grounds that if I come off out there someone will find me fairly quickly!

I can ride out of my driveway onto tracks and trails on my own property and that of my friendly neighbors, and many miles of dirt roads.

I'm in the middle of nowhere so I have no great issue with where to dispose of poop.

I have a neighbor who loves to look after everyone for me if I am out of town. I pay her $20 a day to do so, which isn't a bad rate for 20 minutes am and pm... She can do so without touching a horse, if she chooses to ignore elderly gent, who likes an ear scratch at meal times

The biggest issue I have with my set up is unfortunately insurmountable at this point. I live on a mountain in serious snow country. I build everything close to the house (just the other side of the driveway which is great from a convenience factor) but it's at the bottom of a slope and in the spring the entire damned mountain melts off and runs through my barn area... we've managed to mitigate a lot of it but one stall and the bottom end of the pony pen still turn into a bog for about a month. They all have dry places to stand, however, and I think I suffer ore than they do from it.

[Kelo]

I only have 2.

They have run-in sheds (one shed, made into 2 stalls with a divider wall) and good size runs. The runs open into a group paddock, that opens into the pasture. So I can move them around wherever I need without having to halter them.

Typically they live in the runs, with only periodic pasture access depending on how much grass I have.

I have whole-bale slow feeders, good for 3 days, and a 100 gallon trough. So hypothetically we could leave for a weekend and they'd be fine without needing anything - reassuring if some kind of emergency came up.

I can clean stalls, runs, refill water and hay in 30 min, and can skip a day if I want (cleaning, I mean, I obv check on them). It is really an easy setup.

[heddylamar]

We haven't built the house or barn yet, but on our 7 acres, I'm planning a facility roughly like Kelo's.

Our farm will have a 3-stall barn (2 horses currently) with a 10-12' deep overhang which opens onto a 30+x120 meter stone paddock. The paddock opens onto all 3 pastures (2.5, 2.5, and ~1 acre). The overhang forms a 2-sided run-in that shelters from the prevailing wind. The paddock serves as an arena too.

When I am out of town, my non-horse husband will be able to close the horses into their stalls and feed grain. Then, without equine assistance, he can toss hay into the paddock, check the water trough, open/close pasture access. When he's done, the horses go back out.

All basic chores can be done without needing halters or hands-on interaction.

[exvet]

I have two on 24/7 turn out and then we rotate the stallions between stall and turnout. I only have two 'large' turnouts; but, my stalls have 75 foot runs off of them. I also have two 16 x 16 stalls but one of those serves as hay storage and the other is our grooming/tacking bay. I have barely over an acre so this is what has to work for us (my daughter and I). I hope to turn the mustang out with the two geldings once he is gelded which should be within the next two months. Then I will have 3 on full-time turnout/run-in set up and just the one stallion will be rotated between stall with run and his own private turn out. As far as routine, I pick up poop, then I pick up poop, then I pick up poop....oh and feed 3 x's daily (hay/alfalfa 3 x's a day and ration balancer 2 x's a day). When you have horses on such small acreage you end up spending the majority of your time on manure patrol.

[goneriding]

I have two on 24/7 turn out and then we rotate the stallions between stall and turnout. I only have two 'large' turnouts; but, my stalls have 75 foot runs off of them. I also have two 16 x 16 stalls but one of those serves as hay storage and the other is our grooming/tacking bay. I have barely over an acre so this is what has to work for us (my daughter and I). I hope to turn the mustang out with the two geldings once he is gelded which should be within the next two months. Then I will have 3 on full-time turnout/run-in set up and just the one stallion will be rotated between stall with run and his own private turn out. As far as routine, I pick up poop, then I pick up poop, then I pick up poop....oh and feed 3 x's daily (hay/alfalfa 3 x's a day and ration balancer 2 x's a day). When you have horses on such small acreage you end up spending the majority of your time on manure patrol.

I looked at a cute 1.5 acre horse property at one point that was laid out efficiently, and that was my exact thought. poop poop poop. You would have to manage every stinkin ounce of it!

[DJR]

My free-range chickens help a lot with spreading pasture/paddock poop so that it dries up or blends in quickly! I poo pick the shelters daily, but not the paddocks.

[kande50]

For anyone who is currently setting up their fencing it might be a good idea to think about being able to get tractors through gates for cleaning paddocks and run-ins. We didn't have a tractor when we built our barns and fences so they're not set up as well as they could have been.

Our best setup is a big paddock with electric cross fencing, because I can take the electric fencing down to scrape the pens, which makes it much easier than scraping the smaller ones that have permanent fencing and narrow gates.

[Anne]

We are (slowly) setting up at our property. Our concept is to have a central 'hub', close to our house and tack room area (no barn, and no under cover area for the horses, just not in the budget at least for now). This is what we call our 'night paddock' which is a hard-stand area about 40m x 40m, where there is the main water trough, and a big bale of hay (what we call a 'medium square' which is a ~300kg / 700lb bale) in a box. In one part of the hard-stand area we have put down bark chips which makes a soft/giving surface for the horses to lie on.

We cover the hay box with a net and it has a plywood lid. The net is on a frame, so that as they eat down the hay, the net frame sort of slides down the box. It works pretty well. Our three geldings have access to the hay all night, and in the morning we put the lid on and lead them out to a day time grazing paddock. In the future, when we have time to set it up, we plan to have gates directly from the night paddock into the day paddocks, so
we should be able to put the lid on the hay and choose a gate to open to let them out to the chosen paddock to graze. At the moment, getting them to day time grazing involves haltering the lead horse, the other two follow along, and I get a nice morning walk with horses and dogs!

I muck out the night paddock area every morning, and we harrow the 'day' paddocks periodically.

The horses bring themselves back to our night paddock 'base' area in the early afternoon, and we usually ride around 3pm (we both work from home, so this time of day suits), then feed them. The lid comes off the hay box at around 7pm.

The photos below show part of our night paddock area, and the hay box, with Mr Clever-clogs grabbing some hay from the base of the box because the lid is on!

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Carlo-kneel-hay2.jpg (159.1 KiB) Viewed 10213 times

And one more showing the boys eating from the hay box:

2016-july-horesesbeforeeventRIMG0461.jpeg (103.11 KiB) Viewed 10209 times

[goneriding]

Your countryside looks so beautiful!

[texsuze]

My setup is probably a model of inefficiency I am down to one retiree now and only had two horses at any one time.

Large-ish metal barn with one 12x24' stall and a second stall modified from 12x24' down to 12x16' (plenty large enough). Both stalls have dutch doors which open into their own pipe fence turnout pens. Those pens connect with the Barn Pasture (5' no-climb horse fence) which is used in the fall and winter months, or if I am out of town and DH is doing critter care. There is an 8' roof overhang sticking out from the barn roof along the turnout pen side of the barn. Tack room, feed room, hay storage, wash rack, garage to store riding lawnmower and neighbor's Mule, another garage/workspace are all housed within my barn. I have one of my two chook coops/runs within the barn, too (long story). We collect all of our household rainwater off the roof of the barn.

Stalls are cleaned in a.m. unless horse(s) have to remain in turnouts for some reason, then turnouts are cleaned once or twice a day. Manure is dumped into spreader and spread every few days on the Arena Trail which runs from the end of the barn driveway down to my arena. Makes a nice trot trail when arena conditions aren't conducive to riding. Chook coops/runs are cleaned in a.m. My gelding is fed in a.m. and in early evening in his stall. He is stalled with turnout access every night. There are a handful of nights each winter when he has to be kept in his stall completely, due to strong north winds, since the stalls open to the north. Chooks are put to bed and secured in their runs by me each night, depending upon daylight conditions--later in summer, earlier in winter. I do night check every night around 9:30 pm. So I am at the barn at least 3x/day. My barn is about 75 yards from the house.

I have two summer pastures: Near Pasture and Far Pasture that are 3-strand Horseguard fencing. Pastures are connected but separated by a gate. The Near Pasture is a downhill, then uphill 5-minute walk from the barn. To get to the Far Pasture I walk my retiree to the Near Pasture, around one entire side of that pasture and through a gate, maybe 10 minute walk. We walk out to one of these pastures in the a.m. after he is fed, and each afternoon I fetch him back from the pastures to eat dinner in his stall. Each pasture has its own water trough (2 troughs when I had two horses). In the heat of summer, I'll stop along the path to give my retiree a short break in the shade. I like the walk because it keeps my retiree moving, and, we get to enjoy the beautiful view and the property and the wildlife we see. But it is not efficient

[fergusnc]

Goneriding...thinking about you again this week...and all the folks who work full time and/or care for horses in more traditional settings of stalls and leading from place to place. My boys who are out at all times except for meals and bad weather, have been in for a stretch of rainy and muddy days. Pretty much in for 24 hours, out for 9, going to end up being in for about 36 hours this go around before the mud reaches a safe risk level. I have been cleaning stalls 3-4 times per day, refilling hay bags, carrying small buckets of water to refill big stall buckets to avoid dragging a hose through the mud. Long, wet, busy days fitting this in while working full time, different sleep schedule to fit it in. And this is only TWO horses. I have already scaled almost all the way back on blanketing, so if I hadn't, that would be even more work! I am so thankful that we were able to run fencelines the way we did, barn in the center of connected pastures, allowing for just calling horses in/sending them out, without leading, for meals. Totally worth it, just thankful for my user-friendly set up that makes this so much easier than it COULD be.