Welcome to the “Dog Days” of Summer…Horses are doing fine
At our unconventional horse farm, the north aisle is the coolest spot in the barn…
“The boys” are happy to share the north aisle peacefully together
Doesn’t everybody have the north aisle of their barn as the coolest turnout spot in the summer?
“Everybody I know” used to be our tongue in cheek response when we asked each other an absurd question like that.
It’s one of the interesting things about letting the horses decide when they want to be inside and when they want to be outside. It’s been, even more dramatically noticeable now that they get the indoor arena and both aisles of my 40-stall barn as their “big run-ins” (no horses kept in stalls here!).
Found out the rhythm of mine is totally different from the convenient and conventional “put them out in the daytime bring them in at night” (or the opposite in Florida and other warm climates sometimes.).
During the summer, my horses choose to be inside most of the day. They graze outside at dawn and dusk (until the bugs come out). Don’t know about night, I don’t have infrared cameras (those would be fun! but I would have to have internet…I’m part of the rural digital divide).
My only insight into where they go at night is that during the winter when I get home late at night / early morning after working night shift they are typically nowhere to be seen, but we’ve encountered them in the very far corners of the fields on the few occasions we’ve had to go looking for them.
Winter, even in Michigan with lots of cold weather, mine choose to be outside most of the time. All unclipped and with good winter coats of course.
It took my “good show horse” two seasons to get used to being outside 24/7/365, there’s a blog post about that waiting to be written.
Community Outreach:
Non-horsepeople: What assumptions do we make about our fellow workers that we might want to revisit? Could we make schedules more flexible, for example by letting our team work out their weekly schedule around their timelines and special needs, and we managers only intervene when necessary?
Horsepeople: Have you considered how your farm could run to give your horses more freedom to choose their turnout schedule? It reduced my labor costs from 2 people 8 hours/day 365 days/year which is 5840 hours/year (feeding, leading out, cleaning stalls, leading in) to 1 person 2 hour/day 365 days/year which is an 85.5% reduction. For that savings you can afford some additional capital investment to re-do your fences and shelters if necessary. Doesn’t include reduced shavings for bedding, etc. And the horses live better! They are healthier and happier. Requires some juggling of compatible horses, etc. But for us it was well worth the effort! (
Til next time…
