As a barn owner ( 14 stalls) I would have no problem with someone wanting to come early to ride if they were fine with throwing a flake to everyone when they got there. Wouldn’t bother me in the least.
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You really have no comprehension of barns running differently than what you imagine you’d like or what you’ve experienced or made up, do you?
It’s a genuine thing that most people prioritize feeding forage over cleaning stalls. If horses need to be fed forage and are not leaving their stalls for some time, forage is tossed in. This is pretty flipping normal in the real world.
No-one, absolutely not one person on this thread has suggested the OP do whatever they think should be done. Pretty much everyone has shared their experiences and cautioned the OP to talk with their barn owner to see what may be possible and where on the spectrum of hands on - hands off they sit.
You, otoh, made a crazy statement about no hay in dirty stalls and a bunch of us thought we should probably set you straight about how things work in the real world.
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Thanks for setting me straight! Or misinterpreting what I wrote, in the context of this thread’s topic.
Potato, pohtahtoe.
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I must have misinterpreted as well…maybe you need and interpreter LOL
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I guess so! 
It is a big difference to standing around without forage to being ridden on an empty stomach
I assume you have heard of ulcers. Riding can cause the stomach acid to splash.
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Then bring your own! I’ve said it several times. Bring a half scoop of soaked hay pellets if you find it necessary. Then you’re not upsetting the routine of the barn, when you’ve asked for a favor in being there early.
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Or just become the person who makes it a favor and a break, easy for the workers. While my mare lives out 24/7 with another mate I have discussed with BO to ride ‘early’ arriving at 7am. I bring down the pasture mates grain and take out my mare to ride. Summer I hand graze her for 10-15 minutes on the way up to the barn, winter she gets a small amount of hay when grooming, literally just enough to finish up by the time she’s tacked. After my ride the mare gets her breakfast while I put things away and then chucked back out where I give them hay before workers have even made it down to the below horses.
Makes it so workers have 2 less horses to feed most morning which is always appreciated. Every situation can be different but the main thing is communication first and a helping hand is often not denied.
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The barn I just moved out of (it’s closing) did not have barn hours. Early morning riding is a must here in the summer, so it was important for me choosing a new barn. One bigger place I inquired about opened at 8. I can’t do that on weekdays. My new place is small and the BO is fine with me showing up at 6. I’ll feed a bit of Outlast and a few handfuls of loose hay if there isn’t any left from dinner. There’s a big corner feeder so no mess in the stall.
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With few exceptions, I just do not see how this would be practical or sustainable for any barn. I would not want boarders dipping into the hay as it suited them or at their own discretion. Kind of feels like people in this thread have not bought their own hay by the bale, because I can’t imagine having this attitude otherwise.
I used to throw a casual flake here and there and think nothing of it; horses were supposed to have 24/7 access to forage after all. Then I started renting a dry stall and was on the hook for getting my own hay (at $11-15 per bale depending on the time of year). Believe me, it adds up quickly. I spent about $200/mo on hay for my one horse; it was my top expense after the stall rental. Not sure what people are paying in board each month, but unless it’s something astronomical, I can assure you it doesn’t actually support a bottomless supply of hay. I tried my best to provide 24 hours of forage, but that involved a lot of slow-feed, quarter-inch hole hay nets to minimize wastage.
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Also want to add it would more likely be a hassle to the barn staff unless it was something a person was prepared to do EVERY day. Otherwise, it would get old quick to need to text Early Bird Boarder every morning to ask if she’d grained the horses already. And I say that having been that early bird boarder… I did grain all the horses in the mornings, but I did it 6 days a week, and I always texted to say I had done it. If I had to be out of town or couldn’t make it to the barn for some reason, I had to give advanced notice— in other words, I had to treat it like a job. But that’s the only way I can see it working. Someone who just casually commits to it or does it when it suits them is only going to cause more confusion.
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Preload hay in a hay bag. Only needs to be a flake really. No mess. Put preloaded hay in a large stall front stall bag the day before. No dragging hay through the barn either.
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I have had no problems with riding early.
I was at a facility with hours which I think ran 5am-10pm, with the obvious exception of sick horses needing care, and would show up at 5 in the summer. Winter, I would ride after work and since it got dark at 5:30 would use arena lights if needed.
After that, horses at my house were easy - barn lights on by 4:30 and I would groom however many horses I planned to ride before it was light out while they ate hay I had thrown them. They learned to let me pull them away from their hay without a fuss, no issue even with the always ravenous Friesian cross.
When I started riding with my old trainer, he was always up feeding around 3:30 or 4 so he could get going, so my early arrivals didn’t bother him at all. He passed away and I still board with his widow, and she also rides early. The horses have giant feeders with hay always available and live out, so many of the concerns mentioned don’t apply. The one who gets upset is my horse with mystery soundness issies who thinks she should get all my attention. Right now, I get there at about 5, and ride at 5:30. As summer heats up, I’ll try to ride by 5, and grain my older mare before I ride my other mare. My mare I ride gets left in a feed stall and turned out for me by one of the ladies who don’t work and therefore can ride a bit later.
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We start early here in South Africa, because in spring and summer it is very unpleasant to ride during the heat of the day.
I’m at the yard at 6.30 during the week, because getting riding done first thing in the morning is the most efficient use of my time. I have to drive about 35 mins to get to the yard, so if I leave it to the afternoon I will most probably talk myself out of the schlep 
A few people even ride at 6am. Our horses start getting fed at just after 6am. They always have grass in their stables, so if you want to ride at feeding time you just text your groom to put the feed outside the stable and you’ll feed yourself after your ride.
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I used to get to the barn at 6ish to 7, came right after night shift. I have a watch that will send out an alert if I fall, ride with my cell phone, and there’s workers that live on site. Obviously I cleared it with the BO before I started coming at that time.
I rode and by the time I was done, horses were being fed/turned out. Horse ate, I tossed him out, and left. I don’t touch hay or feed, nor would I think it appropriate to just grab a flake of hay for my horse.
My schedule flipped from nights to days every other month, so I also rode at night. I’d go out about 7pm. Usually rode alone. I’d be out by 10pm at the latest. Again, cleared with barn owner. If I wanted to ride, I had to make hours work. I also chose a barn that allowed early/late hours and had safety measures in place.
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I don’t understand all the angst around this topic.
- Ask BO/BM if early arrival is an option. If it doesn’t work for them/the facility, they’ll say no.
- Communicate (because we’re all adults for crying out loud). What time is acceptable? Does BO/BM want to be notified in advance if you plan to ride early? Can Dobbin have some hay pre-ride? How much, and where? Should boarder feed Dobbin his grain or leave that for whoever does AM chores?
- If the answer to the above is no, consider looking for a different facility that better meets your needs in terms of schedule. If the feeding is an issue, supply your own Outlast/hay cubes/ insert preferred pre-ride snack for pony here.
I know the COTH way is sometimes to go completely into the weeds and then get stuck there, but this isn’t complicated.
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In a well set up barn, it should be obvious horses have been fed and given hay.
As noted a hay bag, or net, or rack or even a pile will show they’ve had hay. If they have hay they’re picking at, they don’t need more, they’ve clearly been given some.
Setting up grain ahead of time means if the main caretaker drops dead, any fool can keep the routine and consistency as close to normal as possible.
It’s good management.
.
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Oh, but many of us have and are still solidly on the 24/7 access to forage bandwagon. It is the most important component of the diet and one of the most important illness-prevention tools we have available.
And again, no-one is telling anyone to feed the BO’s hay at will without asking permission or sorting out some sort of mutually agreeable routine.
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I should emphasize that whatever I fed my mare if I arrived early was what she would have gotten anyway if I had not been there, not “extra” hay I was “stealing” from the barn supply. Her “grain” had been made up the night before so I just grabbed her bucket from the stack. It was never an issue.
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Just some things I thought of reading this thread, that may be regional and/or barn specific:
- Most barns I’ve worked or been involved in don’t feed hay in a dirty stall, the horse is turned out after grain and given their hay breakfast outside - this is done for several reasons, including being the most time efficient way to get a horse out of a stall to clean it
- Most don’t want boarders helping themselves to hay - boarders tend to contribute to the waste and mess
- Carrying hay through the aisles is additional sweeping / cleanup for staff to have to handle, boarders tend to not pick up after themselves
- It’s also additional stall labor picking up hay wastage from being trampled and dirtied, horses tend to be anxious to get out of their stalls and don’t eat with the same vigor
- Most boarding barns aren’t actually keeping hay in front of a horse 24/7, it is more like 1-2 flakes 3x a day. The sheer cost it would take to provide 20-30 horses actual ad lib hay would make boarding costs untenable for most people.
- Feeding just the one horse riles up the rest, and there’s a lot of stall related injuries that can happen from pacing, kicking, and pawing at stalls. I have seen it all - legs caught in stall grates, legs caught in water buckets, cuts, etc. Everyone’s horse is well mannered until it’s feed time
A lot of these small things don’t seem like a big deal but once you become the primary caretaker for 20-30 horses, every small inconvenience really stacks up against you time, cost, and labor wise. There are a lot of small details that people don’t realize can clog up the schedule, many boarding barns have limited staff and run on a very tight, cost/time sensitive schedule and don’t have the labor or manpower to provide hay before turnout. Workers want the horses out of stalls so they can clean the barn ASAP, they don’t want to wait the hour or so it takes for a horse to finish a flake of hay for breakfast before grain and turnout.
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