Question for boarders & barn managers alike: what is your policy for turnout during rain?
I live in the PNW and, well, we’re headed into a constant state of drizzle/rain for the next 6+ months.
In my current boarding facility, I’ve recently observed that the horses tend to stay inside when it’s a steady drizzle or forecast of rain.
My horse has been boarding there for ~6 months, so the majority have been during the beautiful summer months.
I reached out to the barn manager to request that my horse is turned out rain or shine (with the exception of stormy/horrible weather) and was told they can “try to see if my horse is okay with solo turnout”, presumably the rest of the horses will stay inside. Is this too much to ask? My horse has a full rain sheet + neck cover, and I’m willing to buy a second sheet to rotate if necessary.
I think in the PNW the main concern with regular turn out during the rainy season is horses tearing up pastures & paddocks due to the constant wet ground. Now, if they have a sacrifice paddock, they may be more amenable to regular turnout.
Horse hooves, shod or not, can do a real number on grass when it is really wet out and the ground has no chance to dry out. I’m not anywhere near there, but my pastures really suffered this past winter when we had constant rain… ending up with nearly 25" over the annual average of rainfall.
Yeah, that’s a tough one, depending on the barn culture. There have been a couple of gullywashers lately and my horse had to live outside because her stall flooded. That said, most horses go outside for some or all of the day for most of the winter. I did board with a group of people who would close the pastures from January-May to give the fields a rest, but horses went out in smaller paddocks. Maybe you board at a fancy barn, but most people turn their horses out in rain because otherwise they’d never go out. Looks like it will be a long winter for you.
I am in the PNW too. I have actual experience boarding at several barns and have spent time at a few more. In my experience, if the primary business of the barn is boarding, the horses that are stalled at night go out during the day rain or shine. Unless a barn has specifically set up sacrifice paddocks or dry lots, the turn-outs turn to mud, but these barns are typically NOT relying on the turn-outs to produce enough grass in the summer to reduce hay consumption.
Unless it’s -25c our horses go out…and I’m honestly being serious on that temperature! Now we don’t get the rain you get in the PNW, but we do not keep horses in when it’s raining…out they go, even if it’s just for the few hours while we muck the stalls. We will bring them in after we are done mucking if it’s that wet and miserable, but it’s still good for them to get a little bit of time outside! When we get to our winter temperatures, we generally are quite lucky…yes -25c is cold but as long as the sun is shining (and usually it is in Calgary), our horses do just fine out in those temperatures with blankets…it’s us that the barn owner worries about, so we rotate turnout (1 day paddock horses go out and the next the field horses…luckily we don’t get those extreme temps that often or for too long)
Ideally a barn in the PNW would have turnout paddocks with well drained gravel or sand footing and shelters. Then a horse in a rainsheet can go out all day unless there’s an exceptional weather event.
Pastures at boarding barns are usually shut October to
”‹”‹”‹”‹April because otherwise they are chewed up. There are full time pasture horses on some properties with fewer horses per acre depending on the particular terrain
It is not unreasonable to want your horse turned out no matter the weather.
It might be unreasonable to expect a barn, that is not set up to do that to do it for just you.
Turn out, weather permitting, can mean very different things to different people. When looking for a boarding barn you (general) should always make sure that the specifics of when they do and do not turn out match what you want for your horse.
Barn has all dry lot paddocks, only one grass turnout. The rest of the 13+ pens are dirt/sacrifice.
I have had to make an (extremely sarcastic) sign with all sorts of weather events and acts of god on it (tsunami, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, blizzard, etc.) with check marks saying “yes turn the horse out” to get the point across to our hot house flower barn girls that yeah, when it’s raining, you gotta get wet and turn the damned horses out.
The conversation went “Why wasn’t Pookie out today?” --> “Well, it was raining and I didn’t want to get wet.”
Whut? You work on a farm, are you not going to run the spreader because it’s raining?
After my obnoxious sign, they got the gist. (and were shortly thereafter fired and new, more durable ones brought in).
To the OP: I think if your horse can figure out solo turnout, it’s nice that the barn is being accommodating to your request. I think it’s good for horses to do solo activities anyhow.
OMG Scribbler. In a perfect world. “Ideally” is right.
Only the hot house flower types stay in around here. And I mean both humans and horses. Your upper end barns tend to be more ‘mud adverse’ than your more low key backyard type.
OP I hope it works out for your horse or you’re in for a long winter. Especially since September is already wetter than anything I can remember for the last I don’t know how long.
Where I’m boarding now, the turnout policy is “one size fits all.” Unless the owner requests that their horse be kept in, the horses go out every day, unless it’s really storming or very icy. Some days it’s only for about 2 hours while stalls are done, but it’s something. Horses are hand walked in the indoor if they can’t go out, but not for very long (15 minutes???) It’s a dressage barn, so this sort of setup comes with the territory. Most paddocks are dry lots, or just big enough to grow some grass for snacking. The few with more grass are partially closed off with electric fence when it’s really muddy in the spring.
I do grumble a bit, because (most) horses don’t melt if they get rained on! At the same time, dealing with a lot of soggy rainsheets isn’t exactly pleasant.
We are having a summer/fall from about 10+ years ago. I love it but my horse does not. I board at a place with poorly draining pastures due to being mostly marshland, poor property management and having 40-50 head of horses on 15 acres of MARSHLAND. Yeah typically the horses are in from about this time of year until April for the sacrifice pastures we have. You can turn out but the sucking mud well, sucks those shoes right off. We do have stalls with all weather runs that are used year round but not all the boarders have those (myself included).
Needless to say over the winter getting out to the barn and getting your horse to be busy is far, far more important than during the summer. I have multiple toys for my horse and just keep his brain as busy as I can. The nice thing is in the winter the trails are far less populated and we can get out without running into mountain bikers and the like.
It isn’t even so much preserving the grass for the summer - an aside, mine actually do, one horse per acre means I cut my hay bill in HALF during spring and summer - but actually it is to keep my paddocks from getting turned into a mud pit, thus causing holes and ruts that dry into the ground in the summer and cause cemented tripping hazards.
Yes ideally, but what barn charges enough in board to build up this infrastructure?? I have a 1/3 acre paddock off one side of my barn that one horse and the donkeys share in the winter, with rock put down over Lighthoof panels along the side of the barn but the rest turns to mud (which is fine because then less grass grows the following summer for the donkeys), and then a 24x48 pen on the other side off a stall for the other horse, also rocked with Lighthoof. It was thousands of dollars. No amount of boarding would cut into that expense.
I’ve considered boarding, mostly by fencing my lower five acres and putting up a small three side barn with tack room, running power and water to it… But I honestly don’t think so. The cost involved would be astronomical. I’d need to fence in and rock a winter area around it, and then be on top of boarders that they don’t turn Pookie and Blaze out for a romp because they feel good and the sun is out, no matter the pasture is soggy and boggy. I maintain a nice property, it isn’t labor intensive and I like that. It’s raining today but they are out because the ground isn’t completely saturated. We got a half inch yesterday in the morning (.47 as of noon, total of .55 for the day), they stayed in. Today is forecasted a quarter inch, so far only .07, but the ground is still fairly firm even after yesterday. Once the sod is permeated through to the clay, they are up for the year until the waters recede in the late spring.
Some barns around here don’t supply “turnout” at all. It’s almost California-style, a shelter inside a small wood chip paddock, somewhere between a tenth and two-tenths of an acre, but no stall inside the barn though they do get lockers inside and can use the wash rack and cross ties for tacking up. And they are FULL with waiting lists, because the paddocks may be small but they are mostly mud-free and feed quality hay year round. Think of the small initial costs and ongoing hay costs offset by charging $350 for such a small area, multiplied by 10 or 20 paddocks just like this.
OP, be careful demanding too much out of the norm from your barn, you may find yourself looking for a new barn.
Where I’m boarding now, the turnout policy is “one size fits all.” Unless the owner requests that their horse be kept in, the horses go out every day, unless it’s really storming or very icy. Some days it’s only for about 2 hours while stalls are done, but it’s something. Horses are hand walked in the indoor if they can’t go out, but not for very long (15 minutes???) It’s a dressage barn, so this sort of setup comes with the territory. Most paddocks are dry lots, or just big enough to grow some grass for snacking. The few with more grass are partially closed off with electric fence when it’s really muddy in the spring.
I do grumble a bit, because (most) horses don’t melt if they get rained on! At the same time, dealing with a lot of soggy rainsheets isn’t exactly pleasant.
I lived in the PNW while going to school. I was introduced to some lovely ladies who had their own place, who graciously allowed me to come ride one of their “extra” horses who didn’t get ridden very often. I’m not exactly sure of their acerage but it was probably somewhere around 10 acres and they had 4 horses. The horses were outside all day every day, although they did have access to their stalls in the barn if they wanted to come in. I believe they usually kept them in their stalls at night. No rain sheets on any of them, except one of the horses who did tend to get rainrot.
I also free-leased a horse at a big boarding barn for about a year. Horses were outside during the day every time I was out there, even in the rain. Only went inside during the night. I’m not sure how much total acreage there was but there were group of horses in different paddocks. The property maybe was 30 acres?? Just guessing. Maybe about 10 horses in each paddock? I don’t recall how many stalls there were, nor do I think I ever counted.
So… I don’t see why horses can’t be turned out in the rain. They don’t melt…
Yes, I can understand not wanting to rip up the pasture, but both places I have experienced in the PNW didn’t appear to have anything fancy or special with their paddocks and they seemed just fine to me with horses turned out most of the time.
For me and my horses, I can’t imagine ever keeping them in a stall most of the time. For long term health, their bodies were designed to slowly move and graze all day. Not stand in a stall. I know that’s not feasible for everyone, especially in certain locations, but I guess I’m fortunate to live where I live.
I completely agree with all the comments about footing and understand it’s a delicate balance in order to keep them usable year round. Thankfully my horse’s pasture is on a decent grade, and drains very well. There is some grass, but the majority of the ground is dirt & pebbles and there are several evergreen trees to stand under.
The vibe I’m getting as to ‘why’ is so the horses don’t get too wet, which I understand for some of the pastures that are completely exposed without tree coverage (all horses have individual turnouts). I’m not trying to request any special treatment or extended turnout times, just turnout even if it’s drizzling outside. But maybe that falls into special treatment if it’s not their typical policy? I just figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask!
I completely trust their judgement when it comes to horse care and I wouldn’t raise a fuss if it was due to iffy footing or acclimate weather. It’s a private H/J barn that has a handful of boarders who aren’t in the training program (like me). I absolutely love boarding there and horses get A+ care, but I know my young horse will benefit with consistent turnout and won’t melt away if it’s drizzling outside.
At the end of the day, if my horse absolutely can’t stand to be outside alone without friends, then at least I tried to advocate for her – she can stay inside and play with her stuffed animal toy that she loves dearly
I am both a boarder at a higher end H/J barn and provide retirement board at home here in the wet PNW. Without all weather (gravel or hog fuel), well-designed sacrifice paddocks, year round turnout is difficult. My home barn is set up with mud free gravel sacrifice paddocks attached to the barn with an overhang so the horses can choose wet or dry time. I must limit pasture turnout as the ground is saturated for months on end and becomes so damaged by hooves that I spend $$ and time fixing them.
At most boarding barns locally, owners have put in gravel paddocks for turnout-- money saving in the end on bedding and labor frankly. My current barn has not done this to an extent that all horses get out daily and I really, really wish they would. But that being said, sometimes horses standing out in pouring rain in small, gravel lots is not really a good thing.
I regularly tell people, my horse won’t melt. He may throw a HUGE fit because he is a delicate snowflake of a thoroughbred and lord help him getting his tail wet. :rolleyes: He has a turn out sheet with a hood. He won’t die. Tear up the ground and be brought in for being a dumb, dumb? Yes.
Even in the rainy PNW the actual mud in any facility is determined in large part by geography, where you are in regard to hills and creeks and marshes, and the soil which can be sandy gravel or clay or deep black topsoil.
A farm on a sandy hill will drain better naturally though the pastures will be less lush in summer. Riverbottom land is very fertile but standing water in winter. Etc.
Around here in our suburb/exurb high density boarding barns it is indeed quite standard to invest in some amount of drainage work including gravel and French drains, and freshly topped up footing. We don’t have much snow so don’t get the mud season melt. Outdoor arenas also need drainage.
That said, standing outside in small individual paddocks in cold rain doesn’t do much for the horse beyond fresh air
My self board barn has stalls with small runouts and a big turnout arena (outdoors all weather,) for attended buck n run fun. Not ideal but we make it work.
Space is definitely sacred in the PNW area! We’re lucky to have decent-sized turnouts, my horse’s lot is probably 80 x 200? So while she tends to stand a sleep in the same corner, she does have the ability to walk and graze
They don’t melt…
