I say put in as long of a lean as you can. Mine is 60 ft for three horses and super handy. They can be out of the weather and yet move around and move around they do. Hang hay nets
under the lean at the outer post - on more posts than horses. If your horses are shod maybe you need Savvy Feeders or an alternative slower feed system to keep them in forage and less waste.
Put the lean and outside the lean on a dry lot meaning no mud.
Keep them in forage and avoid all sorts of issues.
âArid regions by definition receive little precipitationâless than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain per year.â
Keeping horses in Colorado (semi arid: âSemi-arid regions receive 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) of rain per year.â) meant no pasture outside of spring (unless you had water rights $$$$ to irrigate), wild fires, hard ground (navicular is common), wind, dust.
Iâve lived in South Florida my whole life just outside of Wellington. If you are a breeder you wonât take up residence here because there is no property left but there are not farms full of horses suffering from the climate/rain. You figure it out and that doesnât mean stalling them 24/7.
You know what else you get with this much rainfall every year? Pasture. Lots of it. My horses have at least some fresh grass to graze on 10+ months out of the year.
I live in mud country - AKA if itâs not snowing, itâs raining.
I have a hay hut. It was expensive but so worth it - and it will address your concern about the squabbling over resources. My hayhut feeds five comfortably, but has six slots. Doesnât matter how much it poured or flooded, the hay never gets wet. We put the bale on stacked raised pallets, then flip the net and hay hut over it. The paddock would have to flood about a foot and a half for the hay to get wet and thankfully that has yet to happen.
Regarding the concern about horse keeping in wet climates: eh⊠Thereâs pros and cons to any climate. I am not proud of it, but our horses live in mud most of the year. They are doing just fine. I have not had a rain rot case in decades. Their feet are actually healthier IMO than they would be if they were stalled, because they are constantly moving on them. We usually get one or two abscesses when the mud turns to frozen ruts, and thatâs about it. None of my horses are stalled, though there is a run in shed that was $$ to put up that they never use, even in downpours.
There are some concerns about wet climates but, some of us have to make do with what we have and not everyone can afford to up and move shop to a more horse friendly area.
The plus side is our grass pasture grows grass faster than the herd can keep up with. Itâs beautiful for the short season it exists.
I have experienced your situation and then some - from coast to coast and north boarder to south border and you are flat out wrong. Horses are very adaptable and their keeping practices are very diverse as well. What is a best practice in one area is different from another. There is no âright wayâ other than the horse is healthy and happy where ever he is.
The interior of our province is basically mountains intercepted by river valleys, all in the rain shadow of the Coast Mountains. Itâs composed of a multitude of microclimates. The valleys can be very hot and desert like, including the Fraser Canyon and the Okanagan. The ecosystems of the interior ranching areas run from grasslands to Aspen to mixed pine and grass to desert like. Most years there is significant snow allowing for grass growth in spring and replenishment of mountain rivers and low lying lakes. Forest fires are a huge summer risk. The area is very lightly inhabited except for the Okanagan area.
Rainfall totals and ecosystem can vary immensely within 50 or a hundred miles, and driving up is fascinating for watching the land change.
However the abundance of water sources means people can irrigate and grow for instance alfalfa even up in the desert-like Fraser Canyon which is often the hottest place in Canada in summer.
I have not doxxed NancyM well enough to know exactly where she is, but sheâs described her ranch, her farming, and her wildfire risks on COTH enough to give me a general sense. Iâve been in that general area both with and without horses, and itâs historically ranch country. If folks have been ranching beef cattle, horses and hay in an area for a solid hundred plus years, itâs a good indicator itâs good horse country. Weâd need a geographical coordinate and the relevant weather statistics to know if the microclimate on this ranch counts as arid or is just dry.
In all my trail riding trips and travel in this general region, my observation is grasslands pop up green in spring (later than on the coast) then head out and dry by June depending on the year. You then get hills full of dry but not dead grass that the range cattle and horses thrive on. Yes, a one acre pasture would get grazed down to nothing but when you have a mountainside there is unlimited grass under the ponderosa pines.
Central Alabama with its heat, humidity and rain sucks but my place is paid for. So thatâs that. I do agree that heat, rain and humidity in the summer is not good for skin or feet but other places have issues too. Finally Fall is approaching and I will be happy to live here again. Pick your poison.
OP, I wonder if this sort of structure might be helpful? It potentially would keep the horses from bickering and I imagine it could be relatively economical to build. Plus, it would offer shelter for horses as well as hay.
If you have that sort of design and the inside walls are not very high, say 5â or so, horses can stand there seeing others for herd effect but still separated so a bossy one wonât just run at them.
One of the studies of horses and herd behavior from Switzerland, if I remember right, had a similar setup, but the sheds were something like 30â x 30â or so with a straight shorter wall down the middle.
We have plenty of water. But it comes out of the ground, not out of the sky. The best of both worlds.
So long for now, Iâve gotta go and help wrestle a hose connection onto an irrigation gun hosereel with the DH. Itâs the fourth time weâve done this job, and itâs not nice. My horses are eating their hay in their paddocks, in their tire feeders. Free feed hay. Made by us. In their dry paddocks.
So, like @beowulf and @Simkie (btw, you OK after Sunday? and the âshowersâ that ended up as almost 13 inches down in Newington area?) anyway, wet climate. I do have to have hay out year round. In the summer, they arenât eating that much, but they are dry-lotted during the day and they canât be without something to nibble. In the summer, if it has been in the rain and then in warm humidity, I give a hay net 24 hours. If it is dry and they arenât finishing it, I give it three days. Any hay left at that point is dumped in the manure pile.
The critical thing, I have learned, is that every day I clean up the hay that has dropped out of the net. And, thanks to a windfall from a job, most of my drylot is not mud anymore but stone dust. So, cleaning is so much easier. Even this morning after almost five inches of rain yesterday, I have no mud. Carefully sculpted drainage and daily cleaning is your friend.
Once hay has hit the ground in a warm and humid climate, they wonât eat it. They will grind it in to the ground and create âcobâ. I describe it that way, cob was originally hay/straw, horse manure, and clay. It makes a waterproof, sticky material. Wonderful for medieval building, horrible in your dry lot.
So, the best way to feed hay in a wet climate? Keep it off the ground and keep the ground clean. That may be a hay net, cleaned up around every day, or it may be a hay hut/feeder with a solid, draining floor. But, you cannot just throw it on the ground. Not at least with the hay prices these days!
Most summers here are very dry, even when it is humid. The water comes out of the ground and not the sky. It is called Centreville Water and is plentiful but comes with a price tag.
But on to hay on the ground. If I put out hay and it gets rained on, the horses consider it poison and will not eat it. They will make exceptions for alfalfa but that isnât doled out often and never on the ground. Since I am retired these days I put out a flake or two at a time and they can have more when most of it is cleaned up. But I have one horse by herself and since she can come and go in the stall, that is where I put her hay. The other two will share but I still put out more than one pile. If I put out a lot at a time they start picking through the primo stuff and will not clean it up.
I use tire feeders for hay. They are LARGE tires, off logging equipment. âSkidderâ tires. About 5 feet in diameter, and 3 feet high when on their side. If your area has logging going on, they are available for FREE at tire stores that service the logging industry. The store will load them for you onto your truck (flatdeck is best for this). You need a tractor to unload or move them around. You need an electric drill, and a recipricating saw. Drill a hole in the side of the tire when it is laying on itâs side, just inside the curve of the tread of the tire. Then stick the recipracating saw into the hole, and cut the side of the tire off all the way around. This leaves you a cup of solid rubber with a hole on the bottom side, 5 feet wide, and 3 feet high. Flip the tire over, and drill some holes in what is going to be the bottom side, so that any water that gets in there can drain out. Then place the tire in your paddock, use it for hay. Itâs deep enough that the hay STAYS in the feeder, and there is nothing for a horse to get tangled in or stuck in. Check that there is nothing piercing the tire (they are old tires that have been thrown away, so there may be THINGS impaling the tire). Pull them out if you find anything. If you donât have the necessary equipment to produce a tire feeder, many people do and have them available for sale, for not a lot of money. Iâve sold a few sometimes. They are great for feeding hay in an outdoor situation. They are indestructable by horses. And Iâve never had a horse injured by one (although some have apparently had horses that get INTO them somehow (IDK how) and get stuck. But pretty rare IMO). Several horses can eat out of a single feeder.
For a single horse, you may want to use a smaller tire, and you can do that if you like. But it is easier for a horse to toss the hay out of smaller tires. Also, some tires may not be able to be cut on the side. Check with the tire store giving you the tire that it will be suitable for being made into a hay feeder. They will know.
I actually do use to tires (off a Cat 525, so decent size, closing in on six feet). If you can find them, tires cut down as you describe are excellent. Mine happen to perfectly fit the feed tubs for my two boys. It keeps the pawing from being an issue. I didnât cut them, I just drilled drain holes. I move them with either the tractor or the draft horse! The nice thing is that they are small enough that the bizarre but possible âhorse stuck in tireâ is not possible, but they are heavy enough that the horses cannot move them.
Big tires are needed. I think people try standard car/truck tires too often. Horses can easily flip those. You really do need a tire off of a piece of large iron. Ask around, any company that is selling stone dust or gravel probably knows the local tire dealer.
to know exactly where she is, but sheâs described her ranch, her farming, and her wildfire risks on COTH enough to give me a general sense. Iâve been in that general area both with and without horses, and itâs historically ranch country. If folks have been ranching beef cattle, horses and hay in an area for a solid hundred plus years, itâs a good indicator itâs good horse country. Weâd need a geographical coordinate and the relevant weather statistics to know if the microclimate on this ranch counts as arid or is just dry.
