[QUOTE=SuperSTB;6507857]
Common in central and southern cali- pipe corrals, limited to no shelter, open ‘mare motels’, pasture is limited because watering is expensive and land is a premium. The further away from cities obviously the larger the ‘pastures’ but almost none are irrigated.
A nice pipe corral is at minimum 24x48. The average I would say is 24x24. Many are kept in 12x12 in the backyards. A ‘large’ residential lot would be 1 acre. I had just over 1 acre and 6-8 horses depending on the rescue situation. Many communities have 1/2 acre lots- deduct house, yard, and toy space and you don’t have much more than a couple stall space to jam in a few horses. Some people can manage this successfully but it won’t work if you are lazy.
Daily exercise is a must when dealing with such small horse keeping space. I used my riding arena as turn-out which I rotated day/night shifts. I also either lunged, walked, or rode horses on a near daily basis. We had bridle paths around the first house I lived in. Just like you would walk your dogs around, we would walk the horses 
Now keep in mind that the weather and temps vary greatly. Coast to desert to mountains, you are looking at way different conditions. I certainly wouldn’t live in Big Bear or Sierras without a barn/fully enclosed cover. Likewise I would prefer shade cover in the high desert from sun where temps reach triple digits. I had an open mare motel at the first place which I installed a misting system. When it was 100+, the misters were on and the horses stayed mostly under shade cover where it would be 10-15 degrees cooler. Heat stress causing colic/laminitis was a BIG concern by most vets, coming in second only to sand colic![/QUOTE]
Jill isn’t in central or southern CA. She’s in northern CA. And I can’t comment for breeders in So- or Central-CA, but in Nor-Cal, there are a lot of breeders and I can’t think of any legitimate breeders who keep their horses in tiny pipe corral lots. Actually, I know a few Central Ca breeders, and they all have lots of land - huge pastures, lots of room or the horses to roam.
It is true, we don’t have water - it isn’t a matter of expense, it is a matter of NO WATER, so part of the year, our pastures are dry (I count on green pastures from Feb through May or June). But we do have land - I know a lot of breeders out here, and we all have multi-acre pastures, generally fenced in either no-climb or electric tape. A few are lucky enough to have irrigation. Our foals grow up with space to roam - of the breeders I know, they are all situated on anywhere between 20 and 100+ acres. In California. Just on my road, there are 3 of us, and two of us are on 90 and 100 acres.
Small “ranchettes” (1 to 5 acres) meet your description, but those are not breeders, they are people who keep a handful of riding horses at home. Most of us have shelters in our pastures and foaling barns as well. Just want to clarify that what you are seeing is not the norm for California.
But currently, I doubt there is ANY cause for animal control or anything to come in and seize horses as some have suggested, in fact it may be unfair (maybe she will be able to sell some or something to get her house back in order? etc)…sucks all the way around…
