Copyright, Nancy W. Ambrosiano,
please contact Nancy W. Ambrosiano ambrosia@trail.com for reprint
requests
Ideally, your barn in the winter is a place of refuge for you and your
horse while you're grooming, feeding, etc. The fact is, your horse, unless
he's ill or has been clipped, doesn't need the barn 90 percent of the time.
He's healthier out in the open, provided it's not blowing cold rain, and
he'll prove it by spending most of his time outside, given the chance.
Plenty of hay and water will give most horses the fuel they need to
keep the big powerful engine in their guts running warmly all winter. YOU
are the one who's going to enjoy a weather-tight shelter, preferably with
hot and cold water that's not frozen, when winter's in gear.
Grooming Area
Water
Footing
A Comfy Spot to Groom
Sure you can just tie your horse to the fence whenever you're out for a
visit or a ride. But to comfortably handle your horse when the weather's
cold and wet, a few essentials can make all the difference in your enjoyment.
If you can find a way to finagle these, even given a tight budget, you'll
thank yourself the next time you have to soak an abscessed foot, deal with
a late-night veterinary problem or just get ready for a lesson.
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A dry, raised, slip-proof grooming surface, such as gravel, a rubber mat,
roughened concrete or asphalt. Then your hoofpick won't disappear into
the ooze when you drop it.
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Cross ties or a solid tie ring, set at the height of the horse's withers,
no less. Be sure these have a break-away safety snap, velcro releases,
or at least a loop of baling twine between the post and the rope so a panicked
horse can be released safely, unless you are of the school of thought that
no horse should ever find out he CAN get loose. Then you need to look into
really, really heavy duty attachments, something like a 100-year-old oak
tree with deep roots, and with any luck you have a vet handy. Consider
the breakaway option, please!
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Lights, and we're talking more than a ceiling-height 60-watt bulb here.
Try fluorescent panels (with cold-weather ballasts) or spotlights set to
both sides so you can see to groom, shoe or doctor an injury without an
awkward overhead shadow.
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A windbreak of some sort -- a line of bushes, the wall of a shed, anything
so that you can handle your horse without a cold breeze over you both.
This is especially useful if your horse gets wet or sweaty, to prevent
a chill.
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A roof is nice, if it's raining or snowing, but it's handy, not critical.
If you're thinking of setting up a little aluminum car-port type arrangement,
just be sure the ceiling is at LEAST 8 feet high, preferably 10, as during
grooming or clipping, it's easy for a horse to get much taller than he
seemed to be in the field. And if you do the lightweight cover option,
don't even think of tying your horse to those little metal posts! You'll
need to set a proper tie post into the ground, preferably in concrete,
so your horse pulls on the post instead of towing your shed around the
field in a state of terror.
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An outdoor electrical outlet for running clippers, heating water in a coffee
urn, plugging in your vet's portable X-ray or ultrasound machines, even
just running a radio.
Now you can set this sort of arrangement up anywhere, whether it's as the
grooming area inside your barn, as a corner of a run-in shed, or even just
out against the fence somewhere if you don't have a barn. But a respectable
area for horse treatment is a truly useful thing.
The Water Problem
Water has this nasty habit of conforming to the laws of physics. At a specific
temperature, 32 degrees fahrenheit, it undergoes a change of state and
your horse is left staring at a solid block when what he really needs is
a good drink. And no, he's not going to lick the block or eat enough snow
to survive, you know better. He'll eat snow, sure, if he's desperate, and
in so doing reduce his core temperature enough to risk hypothermia.
What he really needs is a good, clear water source that's not so cold
as to be unpalatable. In fact, recent research has shown a 40 percent increase
in water intake when horses are offered warm water on wintery days.
Heated water buckets, powered by insulated electric cables, are
very popular in the more frosty areas, as are insulated automatic waterers
both indoors and out. But even these miracles of modern horsekeeping can
break down, and if you're not ready to handle it, with either a fast repair
or an alternative water source, you have a critical problem.
Your horse needs 5 to 15 gallons of water a day, and especially in the
winter, when the only food around is dry hay, a reduction in water can
bring about colic, fast. Many vets say they can even predict when the boom
of impaction colic emergencies will come, right after a change in the weather
when water is either unpalatably cold, or frozen up.
The low-tech version of water management is a handy hammer or
axe, applied vigorously to the center of the water source. But if your
weather gives you a frozen bucket AGAIN in a couple of hours, and your
horse doesn't like drinking icy water with clumps floating in it, you're
courting colic.
You can continue twice-daily applications of brute force with
the hammer, adding hot water a jug at a time to make things more attractive
to your animals, or you can add insulation and/or heating devices to the
bucket. The equine magazines usually have a whole series of these items
advertised, and they work very well. Do be sure you remember that horses
fiddle with things though, so even a temporary electrical extension cord
MUST be protected by PVC pipe or a fence wherever it's near horses or in
a rodent-accessible place.
Do-it-yourselfers can also lay hands on some fiber or spray-foam
insulation, a circle of plastic to form a floating "top" for the bucket,
and a larger bucket, wooden box, or a plastic barrel cut in two to serve
as the outer container for your cozy bucket. If you're particularly enterprising,
you can even add plumber's heating tape to the inner bucket before adding
its jacket of insulation, and run a heavy insulated electric cord out of
your horse's reach back to the outlet, if one is handy. A caveat here,
be sure that none of the components can be removed by your horse, who may
find this an electrifying toy if he can take it apart. And check the type
of heating tape you are buying, so that it does not melt your inner water
bucket and electrocute anyone.
For the evil day that your best efforts are defeated though, you'll
want to have something else on hand: Items such as a blowtorch for thawing
ice chunks out of the supply pipe, a household blow-dryer for similar tasks
if it's not TOO frozen, a garage-type utility light to set over vulnerable
pipe sections (safe, cheap warmth) and a source of water if things go really
bad and you have either no water flow, or broken pipes.
Think about it, really -- if you have NO WATER tonight at your barn,
are you set up to get some? Have you got two or three garbage cans (clean)
that you can throw in the back of the truck or trailer and haul over to
a water source? Once you get them filled, can you get the water from the
truck or trailer into your barn again? As with a fire-escape plan, a water-replacement
plan is not a bad thing, you can be sure. Having hauled a horse trailer
full of trash cans of water from a nearby riverbank one summer, after a
hurricane decimated power lines for a week (leaving no electricity for
the well pump!), I can tell you that horses drink way too much at all the
most inconvenient times. . . .
Winter Footing Ills
Aside from the chill, probably the worst thing about winter riding is footing.
Your boots are heavy with mud the moment you get near the horse, you both
slip and slide from the paddock to the grooming area, and finding a safe
place to actually ride can be a challenge.
A number of handy substances can reduce the frustration of all
this, depending on the depth of your mud, the drainage, and your budget.
First if you've got any constantly damp places, marshy bits, etc.
you'll be wasting any surface treatment you apply if you don't first tackle
the drainage problem. Get the water moving AWAY before you dump gravel
all over the place and watch it sink. This can be as simple as digging
a shallow ditch from the center of the boggy area out to the side, and
filling it with gravel. Get the water that's sitting there OUT. More complex
dry wells and French drains can be added if you're so inclined, but sometimes
the simplest steps are the only ones you'll need to take.
If you've got a wide area that's low, such as the entire front of your
run-in shed, stronger measures are called for. Consider either a more extensive
drainage system, or recontouring the ground there -- bulldozer, truckloads
of sand and rock, and all. If you're lucky your barn or shed has been built
on a high spot, but if it hasn't you fight a losing battle with dampness,
muddy feet, even thrush and abscesses until you get those horses up off
the swamp level.
But if drainage isn't your problem, just some slick areas, here
are some tools to take the slide off your ride:
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Rough sand or kitty litter scattered over hard icy areas.
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Sawdust or shavings from the stalls spread out, but watch that a high manure
content doesn't make this slippery.
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Commercial salt or other de-icers spread as needed. A note of caution,
these can be drying to your horse's hooves, so watch the condition of the
hooves and heels, applying hoof conditioner or even simple Vaseline if
that's a problem.
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Some folks like to save their wood ashes, but these can make a rather slimy
mess, and if you burn anything except plain split logs, you might have
hidden nails and staples to worry about.
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Swipe the rubber mats out of your trailer and use them to "bridge" a trouble
spot, such as a gateway, the path to the stall, etc.
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DON'T try plain boards or plywood sheets as mud-bridges, unless you add
a roughening agent such as sand spread over a layer of wet paint, screwed-on
lathe strips, etc. to avoid a nasty slip.
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Commercial arena-footing treatments can be very, very effective. Shredded
rubber, added to a sand base, makes for a delightful, springy arena footing
that resists icy clumps, and you can pull a little out of the ring to line
key walkways, if necessary.
If you're still in misery after taking all sensible, financially viable
steps, well, I hear Florida is a really delightful place to spend the winter,
and you'll certainly see the best of the country's equine competitors there
with you until snowmelt!
Copyright Nancy Ambrosiano
All rights
reserved.
Reprinted with permission of the copyright holder.
Please visit The Barn Page, A Horse Keepers Resource Website for addtional
information
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e mail @ Nancy Ambrosiano