oh just lay a halter with a lead on the fire pit no horse will even come near it thinking they will be put to work if approached
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:lol: This would DEFINITELY work on the lazy pony! But, they are also deathly afraid of “white tape” even if it’s not hot, so that would be an easy solution too!
We had one in the field at the place where I kept my horses for years. They never messed with it. I wouldn’t worry about mine getting hurt on the one you’ve got pictured although I’m sure they’d have some funny business going on.
I’m afraid I would have to disagree with the one-firepit-fits-all theory, but that may depend on how much you have to burn.
Right now I live on a 3 acre property with a LOT of trees. All winter I will be picking up sticks so that I can mow in the spring. And this past winter we had a bad ice storm that knocked down oodles of pine branches.
I love love love sitting around a fire and shooting the breeze with my friends or making a camp-style meal (or both).
So my solution was to buy a galvanized steel fire ring from Rural King. It’s 36" across and was about $40. I have invited friends over to sit around it. I have burned my branches and leaves in it.
I have two complaints to offer from this arrangement. The pit felt big when I started out, but with as many full sized branches that I’ve had to deal with, I feel like it’s taking me so much time to saw down everything into sizes that fit into the pit, or will fit across the top, and babysit it while it burn thru the middle and stuff the halves in. Basically I feel like I’m spending an innordinate amount of time “fussing” with stuff I want to burn.
The second complaint I have is now that I had so many pine branches to burn, they have left a thick dark smoke ring in the pit, and I’m thinking if this had been a fancy schmancy stone firepit I’d paid someone to put in, I don’t think I’d be too happy. Note that pine may be extra black because of the pitch, but the burning any green branches and trees will also be throwing a lot of creosote.
As a corollary to the second complaint … if I want to have friends over to enjoy a fire, I don’t want to be throwing a lot of black smoke in their faces. So I keep some clean dry seasoned firewood on hand as well.
Now, none of that has anything to do with horses. So I’ll throw in that at my horses’ boarding barn, they keep a constant burn pile ready to go in the horses’ pasture, and on a burn day the horses go into the barn while the pile is lit. The barn is a decent distance away, and metal clad, so not too much concern about stray embers.
So here’s my suggestion … try it out a bit before you buy it. Get a fairly inexpensive fire ring of some kind, most likely metal, possibly portable, and try it out at the location where you wanted to erect a stone one. See if you like the location and putting all your burnings into a pit like that. Then if you still like it after a season, then build your more permanent structure.
We were burning brush and tree limbs, and the goat laid down in the ashes, ate charcoals out of the pit, fire walked across the bed of red hot coals before we could stop her. But she is a goat and they are prone to doing such things. Or at least she is. So I would say each individual animal will react entirely different. I would not put a burn pit in the horse pasture, but that is just me personally.
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I know of one that didn’t wait for the ashes to cool. He burnt himself badly. He’s pretty scarred up but seems to get along fine otherwise. His owners were standing right there when he walked over and quickly dropped. It was not left unattended and it happened real fast.
OP, you say you don’t think your current horses would bother it but when the times comes that they cross the Rainbow Bridge, are you getting more horses? If so, any new beasties may not be as ‘kind’ to it. Just something to think about.
I would check your local bylaws on where you can put a fire pit and what kind of fire pit you are allowed to have.
We have been in a drought for a couple of years here, and there is no outdoor burning allowed for most of the year.
As well, stone stakes a long time for the heat from a fire to dissipate. I am sumting you have an alternate paddock for your horses to go while the bricks cool off.
