How would you handle this? Unqualified peeps blanketing horses at barn

[sparkygrace]

Yes, I agree. If a horse is difficult, something else needs to be done. I witnessed a very experienced BO putting a blanket on a normally docile horse. Except, he hated being blanketed. He whipped around and grabbed her arm, taking her to the ground. His management was immediately changed.

Well, in a way, this is the fault of the BOs and their daughter. If the horse is known to be difficult, don’t be responsible for blanketing or at least tie the horse. I don’t think blanketing a loose horse is wise anyway. You can never be too careful, even around horses who are quiet.

[endlessclimb]

Agreed, I will never blanket a horse who doesn’t have some sort of head restraint on. I know of more than one horse who has flipped their lid being unblanketed, and the tail strap got hung up on them somehow, resulting in very serious injury.

[sparkygrace]

I learned my lesson the hard way when a horse I had for 13 years spooked and ran me over, shattering my femur. He had never hurt me before. I let my guard down, which was big mistake.

I am extra cautious now with my new horse. He is quite docile, but hell on the lunge line (he came that way). I wear a helmet when I lunge.

[FjordBCRF]

@endlessclimb

That’s because there aren’t many good boarding barns left, and way way way too many boarders are outrageous with their demands (and many expect to not have to pay for the extras they ask for). You also have to be respectful that you’re on someone else’s property, and if you don’t like how they do things you’re free to leave.

In my area I see a lot more of boarder demands being in the reasonable territory. There are barns here in the $800-$1000/month range that dont keep up on stuff; I have a friend that has a leased out pony for a lesson program at that barn with those rates and for a while keeping the water buckets full was something that needed to have an eye kept on it. There was an occasion that a dead mouse was left to soak for more than one day while the second bucket was bone dry.

Anyways. I think the bigger problem is that while we as boarders are paying customers…that monthly fee often times doesn’t even cover overhead for the BOs and I think that’s where things start to unravel. We as boarders also have to basically buy into a barns philosophy as well and no matter how much you pay, if you’re not on the same page its going to be a miserable expereince. We as boarders don’t want to pay more than we are, many can’t afford to pay more than they are. If a barn isn’t bringing in enough to hire the right kind and amount of help, and set farms up for safety and efficiency it’s a no win.

[Angela_Freda]

@endlessclimb

If you or your horse is already labeled as destructive, difficult, etc., I think that’s where the problem comes in.

Easy horses and owners are a BOs best friend. If OPs horse is difficult and/or destructive, and THEN she emails the BO that an incident is their daughter’s fault - I can see how the color of the conversation would quickly take a turn.

If the OPs horse has been a problem…

@endlessclimb

Based on how you’ve described your horse in other facets, it would not surprise me that he’s a problem. Just sayin’. He has serious spookiness that some good trainers (according to you) have never been able to resolve. This isn’t something to be offended by - it’s just a reality.

… then blanketing him loose in a turnout situation, with other horses and food just having been served seems pretty ignorant… the risk of him getting hurt seems greater, and therefore yes id be pretty upset that this is the way the management has less experienced people doing this task.
Are they doing it this way because “it’s faster” and they get paid the same no matter how long it takes, one wonders.

[endlessclimb]

Sure, I don’t disagree. But if the horse is a pain in the ass to have around, and then the owner is kvetching about something that happened because the horse is a pain in the ass… it’s not liable to end well for the boarder. I’d give them a 30 day notice to vacate in a minute if their horse was not fitting with how my farm ran.

[endlessclimb]

@FjordBCRF

Anyways. I think the bigger problem is that while we as boarders are paying customers…that monthly fee often times doesn’t even cover overhead for the BOs and I think that’s where things start to unravel.

This is very true. No money is made on boarding.

[Marla_100]

Yes to above and maybe BO is
just now realizing this and has had enough.
If they’re scrimping on barn staff
things might be going south
thus the attitude.
I still believe Plan B and C are warranted.

[Angela_Freda]

Good point, if they are struggling to hire experienced staff, that’s not a good sign.

[candyappy]

@vxf111

I don’t understand the setup. Are horses being blanketed not haltered in a turnout with multiple horses present and food having just been fed in that same turnout area?!

That was my question when reading the first post. The young lady seems to know how to put on a blanket ( it isn’t rocket science) she just needs to be instructed/ advised/ reminded that it is best to put a halter & lead rope on a loose horse before putting on / taking off a blanket if the horse isn’t in a stall.

[FjordBCRF]

She details out the normal practice here. It doesn’t sound like the BO sees any issues with it which is the crux of the issue.

@J-Lu

Mostly 2-5 horses per pasture. My horse 1/pasture. Smaller pasture (~1 acre?). Horses are fed grain in different buckets. Hay in bunches in the winter. Horses are very rarely haltered and are fed in order of dominance or physically separated by the pasture paddock gate. There are 6 pastures, each with a shared run-in.

No, horses are not haltered when blanketed/unblanketed. It happens during feeding. Usually the feed buckets are not on an electrified fence. My horse’s bucket was moved to the electrified portion of the paddock when the newly painted side of his run-in was protected with electric tape.

[endlessclimb]

I’m not saying it’s right, but even VERY experienced horseman blanket and unblanket without halters, multiple horses around, at feeding time.

Starts with a D and rhymes with penny if that’s not an obvious clue. I did it myself because that’s how that farm ran. This, even after they had a horse go through several board fences running from a blanket stuck on her tail.

[Alterration]

As a barn owner, this situation which seems like an overreaction to you, leads me to believe there’s more to the story than just this incident. People don’t seem to realize how many things barn owners don’t even bring up about someone’s horse and the trouble they cause. Then the person gets salty about something, the barn owner has been quietly suffering, and blammo, cause for an explosion. People often have no idea how their horses are the 23 other hours of the day that they aren’t with their owners.

I’d be prepared to be asked to leave, honestly.

[LilDunFilly]

Echoing what have said re:blanketing in pasture w/o halters. The barn I board at changes blankets without haltering anybody, unless someone is being A Rogue. This really only affects the pasture-boarded animals as the horses who are stalled for part of the day have their gear changed before they come out.

One barn I was at had an incident where Horse 1 had already been blanketed and was loose, then bit Horse 2. Horse 2 spooked, stepped on someone’s foot, took off, and then spooked more at the half-attached blanket. This was in a pasture of 6+ horses who all got along and were usually fine being blanketed untethered. Personally, even if they were haltered, I could easily see the same situation happening then unless every horse was haltered + someone holding them until the last blanket is changed. And that doesn’t sound feasible at all.

[RhythmNCruise]

I haven’t read through all 55 replies, but here’s my two cents.

I’ve been at a barn before with BO/BM and help who didn’t know as much as they wanted people to think they know (they could “talk the talk” but when it came time to “walk the walk” it was obvious they were lacking in experience). My horse is, by most people’s standards, a pretty docile, complacent, cooperative dude. He gets blanketed and unblanketed and led here and there most of the time with zero issues. However…he’s a horse. Horses are gonna do horse stuff from time to time. People who aren’t aware of this fact and lack the knowledge to not only deal with such horse stuff but to predict it and prevent possible issues are often caught off-guard when a horse does horse stuff. Then, it becomes the horse’s fault in their eyes. And honestly…sometimes the horse is being a doop-dee-doo goofball for one reason or the other. Experienced horse people can read that and adjust accordingly. Less-experienced folks don’t have that instinct.

So. What to do? Do we have to demand that everyone who handles our horse is a master horseman with good instincts and intuition and ability in all aspects of horse care? Good luck with that. Do we, as more experienced horse people need to point out someone else’s deficits in their knowledge and skill and require that they get “more training” so that they become worthy of caring for our animals? Yeah…that probably isn’t going to go over very well.

If it were me, and I really liked the place and wanted to stay, I would have shown immediate concern for the daughter (to her…she’s an adult) and apologized for my horse’s behavior. Even if it wasn’t exactly his fault, I’d apologize. It’s the courteous thing to do. I’d probably be a bit self-deprecating and say something like, “He can be suck a knucklehead sometimes,” to let her know that I wasn’t blaming her. Humility goes a long way with people. Then, I might say, “If you think it would help, feel free to pop a halter and lead on him to keep him still and his silly nose away from the fence so he’s easier to blanket.”

Period. The end. No more about it.

That’s me though.

[vxf111]

When you do dangerous things around horses, you get away with it most of the time due to the luck of averages. And then one day, you don’t. Someone is going to get hurt, horse or human, changing blankets on an unrestrained horse. To me this has nothing to do with this specific barn worker and more whether you can accept the kind of care that is willing to do something dangerous because it works “most of the time.” There have already been two incidents with your horse. One that almost hurt your horse, one that almost hurt the handler. Up to you whether you can live with this situation, we all have different tolerances-- but for me I would not frame this as an issue with the worker specifically because it sounds like everyone working at this barn blankets and unblankets unrestrained horses.

[vxf111]

@LilDunFilly

One barn I was at had an incident where Horse 1 had already been blanketed and was loose, then bit Horse 2. Horse 2 spooked, stepped on someone’s foot, took off, and then spooked more at the half-attached blanket. This was in a pasture of 6+ horses who all got along and were usually fine being blanketed untethered. Personally, even if they were haltered, I could easily see the same situation happening then unless every horse was haltered + someone holding them until the last blanket is changed. And that doesn’t sound feasible at all.

At least if the horse being blanketed was on lead THAT horse wouldn’t go off running with a half-on blanket to get tangled up in, fall, and break a limb.

I am not a fan of blanketing any horses in a field with other horses loose but if you have to do that, at least halter the one actively being blanketed.

[fordtraktor]

I have a barn and agree that horses absolutely must be haltered and roped when changing blankets in fields. I carry around a grooming halter and lead I can slip on and off quickly when I have to change them. So I would say that both of you have been engaging in unsafe, “untrained” practices for years, and you shouldn’t blame the family when you have been doing this yourself.

I will say that sometimes horses do touch electric fence and freak out, and there is precious little a very experienced person can do but hope you get out of the way…especially if the fence has changed recently. I had a temporary outage last fall when my charger broke, and when I got a new charger, had at least 3 cases where horses got zapped near me in the first few days. It happens. Never occurred to me to report this to the owners. The worst was my own horse who is mouthy and had started playing with the electric wire in his run. I was VERY glad not to be in his stall when he got shocked. You have to be extra careful for a few weeks when any changes are made.

[SMF11]

How clueless can these barn owners be, if they’ve owned this barn for 7 years (and the OP thinks the place is ideal for her horse)?

[J-Lu]

Thanks!