Horse people of the north, talk to me about keeping your horse at home

[NoHopeNoScope]

I just found out that I am having to relocate to New York (Buffalo). I am going to be taking my 28 year old horse with me. I’m coming from the south where we get no snow, so I need some help from fellow COTHers.

One option I am considering is buying a house with land and building a barn. I plan to have it heated. I ride him currently, but I don’t have the money to build an indoor arena as well, so I will just retire him from being ridden.

I could also board him, but I am less enthusiastic about that. I want the ability to check on him daily and will be working pretty hefty hours. Having him at my house is the best option. And I have a spouse who is able, and willing, to help as well.

Talk to me about the things I need to know about keeping a horse in true winter. What are things you would build/add/wish you had barn wise, turnout wise etc. I want to hear it all… especially with the senior horse in mind.

Thanks in advance.

[clanter]

@NoHopeNoScope

building a barn.

If using sliding doors into the barn if they can be made to slide inside the barn it sure make access easier in snow season. We lived in Kentucky but moved after repeated winters of five feet of snow. After the first winter we rehung the sliding barn doors that were the primary barn access to track inside the barn.

[sascha]

Top notch frost-free hydrant/s with all water lines buried below frost line. Electricity in your barn even if you think you don’t need it. It gets light late and dark stupid early in the depths of winter. Plus, vet calls, things as simple as boiling a kettle for feed, and you may find if you decide to have any water lines in the barn exposed that you’ll need heat tape on those lines for the worst of the cold weather all mean power in the barn/shed is indispensable.

Insulation.

Good working windows. It can get stupid hot in summer.

Storage for EVERYTHING (feed, wheelbarrows, tack, tools, blankets, etc.) inside the barn - build your storage area/s bigger than you think you should.

Pipe gates are a lot easier to get through snow drifts to open or close than wooden gates.

Turnouts as close to the barn and on the same level if possible. Any slope at all can be a real hazard when it’s icy.

Depending on how you’re situated to the prevailing winds - barn doors that open inwards can be a bonus. That said, if you can avoid putting doors at all on the windward side, do it.

Physical shelter (built, not just trees) is indispensable if you like to keep your horses out the same amount of time every day. Lack of a building to shelter in can see you hopping out to bring horse/s in hours early. On some days, you can dress them up like a child in 10 snowsuits and they’ll still be miserable after a few hours if they don’t have really good shelter.

A plan to get hay to turnouts in all weather/footing conditions.

Storage for more hay than you probably ever thought you’d need. Those percentages (weight of hay:weight of horse) become a real thing for many months of the year when the only forage they get is hay. Check whether small squares/bundles are available easily in your chosen location. If not, make a plan to store and be able to feed big squares or rounds. I’d suggest this anyway (my preference is big squares) because it is cheaper than small squares and can be just as, if not more, beautiful that small squares and you get consistency of product over a year rather than buying in from a feed store or small loads of small squares every few weeks or so.

[2DogsFarm]

Everything @sascha said!

I’ll add heating a barn is unnecessary.
As long as it’s closed off from weather & draft-free, horses will do fine.
I’m in the Midwest & Polar Vortex temps happen.
My stalls are open at the back year-round.
Prevailing winds almost never come from that direction.
Barn is always around 10 degrees warmer or cooler than outside.
Stalls lead to drylot surrounding the front of the barn, that leads to pastures.
Horses come in - on their own - to be fed hay & grain, otherwise out 24/7/365.
I feed twice & hay at a 3rd visit/nightcheck if there’s no grass in pastures.
Last visit is also when I top off water buckets & dispense treats as each gets a once-over eyeball.

Unless you’ve had horses in your care at home, boarding may be a better option at first for your senior.
Unless you find a turnkey house/barn, construction delays are inevitable.

If your job demands that many hours, how does having him home provide better care than a boarding barn with staff?
At best, you’ll see him mornings & after work.

I was lucky when I moved my horses from boarding to my First Ever farm at home that my new job was less than 20min from the farm.
And my boss was onboard with me taking my lunch hour to run home & check on the horses.
Admittedly, that first year I probably did this a bit obsessively
But once I got settled, there was never a problem if I had to take time off to do something horse-related during a workday.
With a 4-day week, I could schedule vet & farrier for my day off.
Same for hay delivery.
Going off this last:
Best to arrange storage for a year’s worth of hay than to buy piecemeal.
Hay gets cut early Summer through late Fall most places.
If you need hay after that season it will be available, but not without added effort finding a supply, and cost can easily double.
Right now the grass hay that was $5 for a small square (40-50#) in season is going at auction for $10. Price will go up until 1st cutting - if weather cooperates, at best that could be late May.

I was a total Citygirl, boarded the first 15yrs I had my horse.
Moving to my farmette - all of 5ac - had always been my dream.
Working part-time in barns helped me realize what caring for them entailed.
Having them totally my responsibility was still eye-opening at times.
I’m 20yrs in now (& that much older ) & cannot see going back to boarding unless I could find a decent self-care place.
But it’s often not easy & some challenges are daunting.
Wishing you a good outcome in your new adventures.

[atr]

Board for your first year so you can get a serious understanding of what horse care in cold, icy snow country entails so you can think it through and build accordingly. It will also enable you to establish your vet/farrier/hay supplier etc contacts more easily, and make friends within the local horse community. Having your horse at home can be a bit isolating. For you and the horse.

Another approach is to board in the winter and bring him home for the summers. I always really enjoyed doing this.

[NancyM]

OK, I’m going to buck some of what is here already.
We came from the coast, warm and wet climate. Moving here, 3000 foot elevation, and semi arid, and cold winters with snow. -30C in winter is “normal” for some weeks, on and off. Have been down to nearly -40C. Old timers tell of -56C on occasion. You can do the conversion to farenheight.

We have TB horses, and crosses. I had a stallion, and youngsters, and mares in foal. We quit racing with the move, and I still play around in the h/j world.

I was thinking about the barn to build, heating it, blankets etc. Here’s what I have learned in the last 15 years.

The coldest place for a horse to be in a cold climate is IN A STALL. Do not build stalls. It is very important that a horse can move around, run around, to warm up. Put horses in a group, in a herd, and they will move. They go to the spot where the sun hits the pasture first, and wait there for the sun to show up in the morning. Coats are thick, and provide great insulation (yes, TB winter coats work great). You can tell that the insulation is good, because the snow does not melt on the horses. Blankets reduce the natural insulation by flattening the coat… they usually do not work as well as the natural coat. There may be exceptions to this, if there is a problem with the coat, or if the horse is infirm. But under most conditions, the natural winter coat works great. Heating a barn is a huge fire risk. Don’t do that.
You can provide a shed, my horses rarely use the shed, but it provides shelter for the salt block from being leached by rainfall, and keeps the auto waterer out of the sun (which helps it not build up algae). The horses rarely use it, but it’s there if they want to. The pasture has lots of trees, and the horses usually prefer to bed down under the thick cover of trees.
Feed lots of hay, more than you fed in warmer climates. Ours eat free feed hay, which is not a problem for us because we grow our own.
I do not ride in winter. Snow and ice is a reality, slipping around getting to the arena is a distinct possibility that I don’t need. Get some ice cleats for your boots. To ride in winter in very cold weather is no fun for anyone. With thick coats, horses get wet, then cold quickly, and can’t dry off. Get chilled. Clip the hair off to avoid that results in horses having to live in heated stalls, with multiple blankets etc, where they get impaction colic and hoof contraction. Don’t go there. Leave the horse alone until spring arrives. Which it sounds like you are gonna do anyway with your old guy.
This will be a tough move for your old horse. There isn’t a lot you can do about that. Be prepared to deal with that.

[candyappy]

I agree with @NancyM. I moved my horses from CA to MO in the middle of Winter. I blanketed them in CA so the first year I continued to do so but my horses have all been no blankets since then. They have draft free shelter and a 3 sided, heavily bedded run in but are out otherwise to move and seek shelter at will.

My biggest piece of advice is to have plenty of hay ( nothing keeps them warmer than plenty of hay) a dry and sheltered place to eat and drink, heated water and to keep them free to move.

Build all of this on well drained high ground. Nothing says mud like building in a low spot.

[Small_Change]

If you are truly considering buying land and keeping your elderly horse at home, think about what comes next. Would you get another, and if so, would you want to ride at home or would it just be a pet?

A good friend bought a country property to retire her elderly horse on. They built a beautiful little run in, paddocks, and then brought the horses home. The elderly horse died within months, through no fault of anything but advanced age. They then bought a young horse who now is ready to start. They have this beautiful little hobby farm that is not suitable for starting young horses or really riding at all. They are out the expense of the move, the build, and now are looking at the very least board as well to get the young horse going, and probably for as long as they’d like to ride this horse.

Food for thought. I wouldn’t be able to have our horses if they weren’t at home and we didn’t board a few for other people too (both to offset costs and for the additional help that staff provide), but it is a dramatically different ball game than boarding.

With regards to winter horse keeping, have plans for lots of indoor storage, how you will handle snow and ice, and how you keep the barn from freezing. Although the horses don’t need more than a wind break, it sure is nice to not have to worry about frozen water lines etc, and to have somewhere at least above freezing for yourself, your vet, your farrier and other people to work in the worst of the cold.

[RMJacobs]

I haven’t seen anyone mention heated automatic waterers. I had my horses at 6200 feet of elevation in Colorado without a barn. I had two insulated sheds set up perpendicular to each other, so they had shelter from any direction wind, trees, a heated waterer that was accessible from the corral and one of the pastures (we left the gate from the corral to the other pasture open all the time). We got older horses and did fine without blankets for the first several years. Once two of them no longer could chew hay, we started blanketing. All three of my horses (Paint, grade pony and Hackney pony) grew huge coats.

We had a frost free hydrant just outside the corral fence and all our gates were big enough to drive a 3/4 ton pickup through them. We had a small tractor with a plow blade, and that got used a lot. Occasionally we would get more snow than our tractor could handle, and our neighbor would come over with his big diesel tractor with a box scraper and help us get the snow level down.

Most of the time the Paint mare would break a trail through the snow that the ponies could use to get to the waterer. When she got too old to do that, we’d plow paths for them. Some years, we had to get hay to them using my daughter’s sled.

Rebecca

[Critter]

The best thing we did was to install auto waterers that don’t freeze and don’t require me to chip ice. However, they also don’t work if the power goes out (due to us being on well water). So plan for a back up generator that can also run. Running water is probably one of the biggest winter chores.

The other thing is whether you want to travel and whether you can find people to help provide care…and that might change the entire layout. When we built our farm it was designed as a training barn…it’s awesome…but it’s the last set up I would choose for my current horses and goals. At the time it was perfect…but a change of priorities and needs means I really wish I had thought things through in a different way.

[sascha]

@NancyM

The coldest place for a horse to be in a cold climate is IN A STALL

No. A sheltered barn, properly insulated with stalls properly bedded is far warmer than outside. Horses that come into a barn nightly will line up at the gates to come in early, hours before feed time, if they are uncomfortable in the cold because they know the barn is far more comfortable. Conversely in beautiful, comfortable weather, you’ll have to go get them at dinner time. Unless it’s height of bug season when they will again be quite demonstrative about needing to come in early to get away from the bugs.

The BS about blankets is also astounding, but I bet the OP is smart enough to see through that.

Heating a barn does not need to be a fire risk.

Horses that are clipped and blanketed do not get impaction colic and hoof contraction unless they are very poorly managed.

[GraceLikeRain]

@NancyM

The coldest place for a horse to be in a cold climate is IN A STALL. Do not build stalls. It is very important that a horse can move around, run around, to warm up.

I really have never understood this. When it is frigid horses tend to park out in front of whatever forage is available. Typically, this means not prioritizing being near a wind break, the sunniest area, or going for a good runaround. Comparatively, being in a well insulated barn that is typically a solid 10 degrees warmer than outdoors without windchill and the same forage produces a colder horse? The math just isn’t mathing.

Old guys do best with maximal movement but when it is bitterly cold, driving rain, or constant high wind I think it is a rare horse that doesn’t appreciate a stall or at minimum a bedded and deep run in shed for the night.

I’ll acknowledge that a horse that is constantly walking around outdoors on a low wind day is going to be warmer than a horse standing in a pipe corral in those same conditions but neither seem applicable for the typical horse or average barn that experiences a true winter.

[fivestrideline]

@sascha

A sheltered barn, properly insulated with stalls properly bedded is far warmer than outside.

Yep. And a barn with horses in it - even with the windows and/or doors open - is SIGNIFICANTLY warmer than outside. No need to heat the whole barn, though SAFE heating comes with the bonus of not needing to break ice in water buckets. Most of the time you just keep it above freezing, and a middle ground is just to have on-demand heat installed in your crosstie area for grooming and vet/farrier.

The blanket debate in general is such a mystery to me. Blanket the horses that need it, and don’t blanket the ones that don’t?? In fact as long as they’re not hot, it’s okay to blanket a horse that might not actually need it . Also, complete nonsense that a blanket doesn’t keep them as warm as their winter coat. That’s what the insulation is there for and it comes with the bonus of being a built in waterproof windbreak . I’m not saying every horse needs a blanket all the time, I’m just saying there’s no black and white answer.

OP - horsekeeping up north ain’t no joke. Board and rent for a year and then make a decision on whether a horse property is right for you. You’ll need another equine (possibly multiple, if you want to take one out to ride without a lot of fuss at first), contacts in the area (easier to obtain in a larger boarding operation), and an idea of what the actual conditions are like and how to generally care for horses at home. It’s one thing to help out occasionally doing chores, it’s another to be 100% on your own. SO may be on board until they have to hand carry hot water from the house to the troughs because your heaters aren’t working, or the power goes out and you can’t just get a hotel out of town for a week.

[trubandloki]

Welcome to NY @NoHopeNoScope!

As you can see by your answers, everyone has their own opinion on horse keeping.

I do think that @Small_Change does make a good point about building what will work for you in the long run, if you are going to build and keep horses at home.

I have my barn set up so that even when separated my horses have access to the outdoors, with their paddocks attached to their stalls.
That means there are always doors open which makes the inside of the barn the same temperature as outside. Just no wind. That seems to work out just fine for my group. Care is easy because I am working inside the barn, out of the weather and they always have fresh air.
A overhang on the barn making a covered outside area keeps the snow out of the barn on most days.

Safe electricity is so important. Heated buckets and a heater for my water trough make no ice breaking and the peace of mind that my horses always have water.
A good hay source means that when it is cold they can have all the hay they need to keep them warm.

One of the things I would look for when buying is the drainage and soil type, or how easily can you put in good footing. Otherwise you end up with lots of mud.

[jvanrens]

One thing I don’t think I saw mentioned, but reliable snow removal in the Buffalo NY area is essential! Buffalo gets snowfall that makes this Eastern Ontario Canuck shudder. You will either be able to budget a large tractor with a big snowblower, or if you don’t feel comfortable with that option, hiring someone who can blow out your driveway and access to the barn and likely part of your paddock so you can turnout. The snow there is no joke. We know people who were stuck on the interstate for a couple of days driving home to central NY after the races in Buffalo one winter.

[trubandloki]

Oh, very good point @jvanrens!

If you have horses at home you are going to need snow removal for all the basic things (driveway) and around your gates and other such things.

[ShenanAnna]

Why is being in a stall generally the coldest place for a horse? Because the only way they have to generate heat is to move. Think how exercise makes you hot and sweaty. Horses, too.

When you let a horse out in cold weather, what is the very first thing they do? Run and buck. To warm up!

Sure, there are times when a windbreak or shelter from
something like freezing rain is the very best thing.

And a barn with heat-generating bodies can certainly be warmer than the outside temperature. But does that trump taking away the horses’ natural ability to warm themselves up? I think not.

[Incantation]

@ShenanAnna

Because the only way they have to generate heat is to move .

Actually, they generate more heat by the hay they eat fermenting in their gut.

[sascha]

@ShenanAnna

Why is being in a stall generally the coldest place for a horse?

It is not.

@ShenanAnna

Because the only way they have to generate heat is to move .

Also not true. They heat up by fermenting forage. This is why an unblanketed, unsheltered horse will eat a ton more hay than one that is adequately blanketed and sheltered.

@ShenanAnna

Think how exercise makes you hot and sweaty. Horses, too.

I’d really rather my horse refrain from getting hot and sweaty in the winter, tyvm.

@ShenanAnna

When you let a horse out in cold weather, what is the very first thing they do? Run and buck. To warm up !

They do? News to me. Generally they wander over to the hay source, engage in some mutual grooming, and wander around a bit. If they’ve been kept in for a few days due to bad weather? Sure, they may run like hooligans, but even that’s not a given depending on age, fitness level, soundness, etc.

Please stop with this nonsense. We get that you have some ideas about keeping horses “naturally” but they simply do not align with common sense.

[lenapesadie]

I live in the Deep South of the US on the Gulf of Mexico. Folks can pry my horse blankets from my cold, dead hands. There’s no need for horses to be forced to endure cold and have to resort to galloping, over eating, shivering and huddling on a hill awaiting sunrise to try and get warm.

If a horse is warm and not exhibiting stress behaviors in an attempt to get warmer, great. If a horse isn’t warm and is exhibiting stress behaviors to get warm but a blanket on him or put him in a warm barn or something!