Welcome back to another installment of my new post series, Manes and Tales. This week I wanted to tell you all some interesting events and occurrences that happened with a barn owner we boarded with in the past.
I will not be mentioning any names/dates in these stories to keep people/places anonymous. I hold no ill will towards these people, I am just sharing some real life experiences I found a bit wild or unacceptable. Please enjoy the story and learn from our mistakes!
Note
For this post, I am going to be breaking it up into little stories and instances instead of one chronological story. We boarded with this barn owner for quite some time and the timeline kind of blurs together. The stories may be a bit vague.
A lot of what I talk about has more to do with how this person ran their facility, rather than how they treated their own horses. Although, it is fair to note that their horses were also affected by their poor management decisions.
No Water Provided In the Winter
This point is one that I mentioned in my Boarding Barn Red Flags post. This barn owner refused to provide tank heaters in the winter. Therefore, since we live in Northeast Wisconsin, the water tanks would constantly freeze.
When we voiced our concern, the barn owner’s response was to say that the horses will eat the snow if they get thirsty. Seriously? After some more pressing, they claimed that they would be too expensive to run.
I mean, sure, they probably are a little costly to run, but really? It was their job to provide my horses with their basic needs and they failed to do so. We are extremely lucky that none of our horses colicked while they were there.
Too Small and Muddy Paddocks
The paddocks/pens that the horses were turned out in were pretty sad. They were around 40’x80′ and had 2 or 3 horses in them at a time. If the horses weren’t fond of each other, MMA style fights would ensue.
The size of the paddocks aside, the footing consisted of years and YEARS of manure that was never cleaned out. We would get a heavy rain in the spring and it would often be nothing but mud until the winter.
It’s no wonder Monarch’s hooves were so soft and weak at the time…
Hay Shortage
At one point when we were boarding with this owner, our area experienced a bit of a hay shortage. They were unable to get a lot of hay for the year and cited that it was just too expensive to get more.
Ok, a little fishy but I’m sure they’ll manage the hay well, right? But then they took on four new boarders. Interesting choice. As a result, they decided that everyone was just going to get less hay. Genius, I know.
Basically, in order to provide enough hay for our horses, we purchased our own and fed it ourselves. Now, I’m no expert, but isn’t adequate barn-provided hay what we were paying for? Pretty ridiculous situation if you ask me.
Barn-Owned Horses in Poor Condition
This particular barn owner had around 5 of their own horses. Most were the remnants of the lesson horses from when the facility offered riding lessons. All of these horses were severely underfed. I’m talking hip bones sticking out, skinny necks, the works.
It got so bad that we started making grain bowls for these horses and getting some weight back on them. I am still pretty shocked that a business owner would allow clients to see animals like that. Kind of paints them in a negative light, don’t you think?
Feeding Struggles
Like many barns, this barn provided some cheap barn grain but would feed boarder-provided grain and supplements as well. We, like many of the other boarders, prepared AM and PM bags of the supplements we wanted our horses to get.
Pretty simple, right? WRONG. What we thought was a simple system became too much for them. Bags wouldn’t be fed or the wrong bag would be given. It really wasn’t rocket science and I still can’t rationalize why it was so difficult to accomplish.
Misappropriation of Boarder’s Items
This point is probably one of the most shocking and annoying things that this person did. Basically, because of the turnover of boarders that this facility experienced, there would sometimes be things left behind.
The barn owner, in turn, would claim ownership of these things and label them as being barn owned, put them in their tack cabinets, etc. One of my friends bought a treat can for a fellow boarder’s horse and because the barn owner did not recognize it, they assumed it was abandoned, and labeled it as the barn’s.
The most egregious example of this behavior was when a boarder had purchased blankets for the barn-owned horses. They did this when they realized the barn owner wouldn’t provide blankets for their horses in the winter even when they needed them.
Anyway, every year, the barn owners would take these blankets and stow them away in storage. The person who bought them never meant for them to take them.
And, get this, when winter came around, the barn owner’s denied having blankets for their own horses. In turn, the person would buy new blankets again and this went on for many years. Insane, I tell you.
Lack Of/Poor Management
So, I’ve already established that this barn owner managed their facility pretty poorly. What I haven’t mentioned is that, because of this, a lot of the care and upkeep of the facility and the horses fell on us boarders.
I would also like to mention that this was a “full-service” facility. We were paying for our horse’s needs to be met by the owner/facility. Unfortunately, time and time again, this was not the case and I truly believe boarders’ horses suffered the consequences of this lack of management and care.
This lack of management along with the things listed above is why I believe that this person should not have horses. They should not be in charge of anybody else’s horses and they certainly shouldn’t be charging others to do so.
Thank you so much for reading our second installment of Manes and Tales. As stated in the previous post, I feel it’s important to share past experiences and what can be learned from them.
Let me know if any of the information in this post surprised you! Would you like to see more Manes and Tales posts? I’d love to hear from you.
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