Turning out two horses by yourself
Posted by Bill on Feb 15 2007 at 02:19 pm | Tagged as: The Barn
I’m told we baby our horses by letting them into the barn each night for a meal and sleep. That may be true but we feel safer knowing they’re not out in the dark pasture, far from sight. I’m more confident in the structural integrity of the barn than I am of the fence, especially given our latest fence incident. Of course when you bring your horses in for the night, you also have to let them out in the morning. Mikki and I are fortunate enough to not have to leave the house for work each day, usually, so letting them out in the morning is pretty simple. With carrots in my back pocket, I head for the fence and Mikki opens the stall doors. This works great, as the presence of treats is made known by my calling out “carrots, come and get em!”. Alas, the lure of carrots is all the motivation they need to move along. But occasionally our routine is altered when Mikki has to leave for a work assignment or when she’s sick. In this case, I head up to the barn alone, open the stall doors one at a time and wait 20 minutes while both horses mosey along, investigating every little piece of hay along the way, sniffing me up and down for snacks. Then, just when I get one out and open the stall for the other, the first horse turns around and wants to check out the other horse’s stall. Great. But after much experimentation, I think I have finally discovered the solution.
It turns out horses are smart but not necessarily brilliant. They seem to really like routine, though. When I go to the barn to let them out, they don’t hear my voice down at the gate. So as simple as it seems, one day I went to the gate first, called out “carrots! Come and get em!” and then ran around to the inside stall doors, opened them one at a time and marveled as both horses made a beeline for the fence. I closed the gates inside the barn, ran back to the fence and finished the routine to their satisfaction (except for the whole “eating of fingers” thing). The next day I figured they would have figured out the trick by now but they didn’t. I’ve tried it five or six times now and it’s worked every time. I’m a visual person so here’s a diagram of our barn to help imagine the scenario:
Now we know we should teach our horses to leave their stalls without treats but it’s so much easier this way and I can’t see any harm in it. Does it look silly running around the barn like that? Yeah. Add this to the list of things that make me feel like a goofy horse owner (Geek light?) but I’m sticking with what works, even in the absence of style.
If you let your horses out each day like us, what’s your routine like?
Hey! I just came across your blog and it looks like it’s going to be really fun to read. I just read your most recent post and thought I’d tell you how I’d handle the problem you’re having if I were in your shoes (or boots). I’d put the halter on the 1st horse with a lead line, walk the horse out to the pasture without letting him or her stop for anything, once you get him there tie him to a fence post, go back and get the 2nd horse and do the same thing. Then with the gate closed and both horses in the pasture, remove their halters and let them enjoy their treat. You could even always leave their treat where you’re going to have them breifly tied up. By doing that they’ll learn that the sooner they get to that spot and let you tie them the sooner they’ll get their treat. Hope that helps!
Ryan, that is wonderful advice. Really. And if we practiced what we preached, that is definitely the way we would do it. But right now, it is in the twenties outside and there is a 60-square-foot boot-swallowing mud bog right outside their gate.
But you’re absolutely right, that kind of exercise would be very good for their manners. When it warms up a bit we’ll try something like it.
Yes, we’re complete babies about the cold. And the mud. If you read any more of this blog, you’ll see those themes throughout! But I hope you’ll still find it fun to read. Thanks for writing, and thanks for the good advice!
Hey, I’ve babied my horses too, if putting them up at night means babying! No harm in doing that, and in fact a good idea in many cases.
Now, for me, I’d just toss a pile of hay or something outside so the horses want to go out. You can lead the first one to the feed, then go back for the second one. Once they figure there’s feed out there, you won’t have to worry about it anymore. Of course…it will depend on whether or not you’ve got a feeder outside to keep the hay up off the ground, or a shelter of some sort that keeps it from getting wet.
Good luck
And nice blog!
Hey Mikki,
I also read another blog about a guy with a horse farm. I’m planning on moving to a farm in about 2 years so your blog and his have both been very educational. I was thinking about your problem with the muddy entrance to your pasture area and remembered reading about his solution to that problem. It may be more work than you care to take on, but it does seem like a good idea. Here’s what he says:
“My paddock entrance footing project is on hold until next week. The goal is to finish grading inside the paddocks and then drop about 4″ of crushed limestone up to 50′ into each 1.5 acre paddock. It’s there that our horses spend up to 90% of their time while they’re outdoors, which destroys sod in short order. So the goal is to create a crushed limestone footing to replace the bare clay that currently exists. Horses love to roll on crushed limestone sand. Ideally, in wet conditions they will be rolling on crushed limestone, rather than red clay
It’s a drag when you have to clean a horse for 30 minutes just to ride for 60 
”
Hope that helps. I’ll go back to more reading and less commenting. ;^D
Hey there! We, too, are kinda rookies & total wusses with the cold & mud. We have a new little “ranchette” with a small 4-stall barn, two horses & one sweet pony, Buster (a paint), Starbuck (a buckskin) and Liberty (a spotted mare pony). We keep the stalls accessible for shelter during the day & night. We close them in only for their morning & evening grain. While they eat the grain, we fill the hay feeder. They go straight to the feeder when the stall doors are open. They do enjoy their stalls throughout the day & sometimes at night. Trust me when I say they know when it’s time for grain.
Also, we had a dumptruck load of sand brought in to spread in front of the barn. Best $100 you’ll ever spend! They “lay out” on the beach every day!
We also bought some extra bagged sand & spread it around the hayfeeder, where it gets muddy. Keep us posted on what works for you.
Blessings,
Becky G.
Thank you Ryan and Becky, for your advice about the mud. The dumptruck of sand or crushed limestone, whatever is more readily available here, is what we want to do. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Keep the comments coming! We love to hear from you. We learn at least as much from our readers as you do from us.
This sounds like my barn in NJ - lots of muddy clay atop shale. It’s perfectly flat, so nothing drains. In the winter, it’s really icy and until June it’s really muddy (up over your ankles). My ATV can’t handle the mud! I keep the parameter fence line clear of weeds; put a plastic bag in my 2-wheel wheel barrowel; throw my 50# hay bale on the barrowel. Run the stuff over to the fence line and toss it over the fence with 10 strides between flakes. Since I use this area for “ring work” it keeps the goop outside of the middle of the ring.
The 2nd suggestion: don’t clip your horses’ legs, especially at the cornet and fetlock areas. The extra hair acts as a pathway for the water to channel off (that’s why the cowboys had fringe on their jackets- the rain was channeled off the jacket leaving the jacket itself dry). I also don’t buy horses with a lot of white on the legs. When I clean up the horses, I run my hands through those areas to remove dried mud, checking for ticks and cuts or mud scratches (mud fever). If I’m fancying’ up for a trail ride, I’ll put arrow root (corn starch or talc; found in the grocery store) on the areas to neaten up the appearance. The arrow root works well on paint horses to ward off manure stains, too. And it’s cheap. A lot of coat prep stuff has silicone in it that will do the same thing, but the silicone makes the hair really slippery and it’s 100X the price of corn starch.
Best of luck!
Hi There
We have just completed our shelter/pasture area for our horses. The ground was virgin ground and the first day it rained we had nothing but deep mud from the horses tearing up it up. The shelter was built on uneven ground using sono tubes. We leveled it with ground lime stone and brought the lime stone out into the paddock around 30′ to include the feeder area. What a difference. We now have very little mud and poop scooping is now a breeze. It also seems to neutralize the urine smell. My only concern is that the lime stone is drying out my horses hoofs. My TB has very thin hoof walls as it is and can’t be shod until he grows a better hoof wall. His hoofs look real dry.
TTFN Eileen