No, you cannot leave the grain in an open wheelbarrow every night because then racoons, possums, and god knows what else get into it. And yes, they in fact do carry diseases.
Don’t give the obese Friesian more grain, even if he looks hungry.
Please make sure the horse with anhydrosis has access to water when turned outside in 80 degree weather. Man, sometimes I wonder.
Yes, he will escape if you don’t bungee cord the stall door shut. Like really. For real, you’ll have to go find him at 7am.
(of the advertisement boasting 30 years’ experience)
Yes, in fact, it is possible to do the same thing for 30 years and still suck at it.
oh and…
Don’t leave my horse out all day without shade or water, in Florida after just shipping in from PA in a full winter coat.
Don’t scream at me that “SHE WASN’T OUT!” after we had a neighbor call that our mare was bleeding from a cut on her face the night before. When we drove the 45 minutes in a snowstorm to check, we also found her foreleg had almost been degloved. It’s OK, accidents happen, but if she would have spent the night like that we would have lost her.
Then don’t say “I WON’T cut her grain back!” after the vet told us to keep her quiet and give her more hay and less grain. She’s an Arab, for goodness sake! She doesn’t NEED grain on stall rest!
Don’t tout your huge, lighted indoor arena to me when I come to check out your facility and assure me that boarders can use it any time, then when I get there refuse to turn on any but one set which is only marginally brighter than moonlight because “it’s too expensive to have the arena lights on.”
I did not know that board increases were limited to certain months of the year.
I agree that proper notice is important but I am missing what July has to do with it being inappropriate.
“Hey! There was moldy hay in both my horse’s stall and your foal’s stall so I tossed it and gave them fresh. We’ll need to keep an eye on the stack just in case there are a few more bad bales.” (And this stuff STUNK! It was black, slimy and gross!) When I came in at 11am and morning chores were done at 9am “Hey! My gelding’s water bucket was dry when I came in this morning. If he’s going to stay in for the day, can you make sure he has water?” or my favorite “Oh my God! What happened!?” when you notice your gelding absolutely beat to a bloody pulp with patches of missing hair, welts, cuts, bite marks and a bleeding laceration on his front leg that required medical attention. BO’s response “Oh, I didn’t notice anything when I brought him in!” This was in the first week of moving there. I only stayed the week.
Eating poop is not normal. Please feed 16.2 hand western pleasure horse some grain and more than one small flake of grass hay. He’s still growing and is eating his poop because he’s starving. That is NOT how you train a horse to go slow and quiet!
I will not pay for “custom work” for you to hire somebody at a show when I am the “custom work” and never got paid. If you charged everyone for custom work, where is my salary for all the grooming and stall cleaning?
Why am I paying for that 2 weeks of full training if we are expected to feed and work our own horses because you decided you needed your assistant and all the grooms when you go to a show out of state?
If you are my trainer, please do not go off to the dog races to gamble and drink during the middle of Congress and leave me on my own to prepare my halter and pleasure horse. Especially when this is my first major show!!!
When my horse somehow manages to impale himself on something and you then lead him to and from the pasture and barn twice a day for TWO DAYS while ignoring the gaping hole on his hip and the dried blood all down one side of his body and don’t bother to call me, and then ignore the vet truck at the barn at 10 o’clock at night after another boarder sees the blood and does call me, please don’t then call me the next day to inform me his wound has maggots (yeah, because the vet couldn’t really do anything with it given all the necrotic tissue, thanks) and I should probably come out and take care of that.
And you don’t get to whine about “30 days notice” when I tell you we are leaving the next week.
I’ve boarded at mostly great places with wonderful owners and staff, but there was one. . .
Do not move my horse to a new location without my permission in the middle of the night because your ex evicted you.
Do call me when my horse is injured so I don’t show up three days later and find her three-legged lame, yellow goop dripping down her leg, whinnying for me.
Do not stop giving my horse antibiotics prescribed by the veterinary hospital (for above injury) because you “don’t believe” in antibiotics and they “give her diarrhea.”
I knew I had a great barn owner but this makes me love her even more!
Yes, my horse’s stall needs to be cleaned DAILY by you, as stated in the board agreement.
Please do not feed my horse moldy hay. I realize it sucks to buy a shipment of (cheap) hay and discover it is moldy, but that does not excuse you to feed it anyway to avoid losing money.
This was many barns ago, but I had to nag them to keep the water tub in my two guys’ run filled. “But it freezes in the winter!” “Winter in Montana is five months long, are they not going to get any water then?” The compromise was they filled it in the morning, I filled it at night. It was a muck tub, and it was always dry when I got there, never found ice in it.
Don’t turn my new show horse out when the pasture is clearly a sheet of ice… (that was good for a nearly 9 month layup…)
When my horse comes in hurt from being turned out on a sheet of ice, I would like to be notified and not discover it the next day when I came out to ride (horse obliterated his Peroneus Tertius when he slipped. moved VERY strangely…)
The horse with the broken pelvis who can’t have his rear feet cleaned with any sort of regularity really does need a clean stall. And no, I don’t feel bad for flipping my lid over it when it’s something I had to bring up four times in three months.
When I buy extra bedding, it’s not so that the barn can stop providing the bedding that is included in board. It’s so that the the dirty stuff can be removed and replaced. Not left for my horse’s feet to marinate in…
And when I clean the stall myself at night, it’s not so that it can be skipped by whoever is cleaning stalls the next morning. Again. It’s so the bedding stays CLEAN.
When a fresh feed/supplement/med chart is done, it really IS kind of important that my horse continue to receive bute so he is a little bit comfortable…
Oh… and when your place is on a well, not having a generator capable of running the well so that the 17 horses you’re responsible for have water at all times? NOT OK! Because filling my econo car with snap close plastic kitty litter pails of water and driving 20 miles to the barn during a declared state of emergency because you didn’t plan ahead is NOT ok. (actually ran into this at two separate barns!)
[QUOTE=SharonA;7908539]
The medication that the vet marked, “Give daily” while you were standing in front of him, nodding your head, is meant to be given every day. When you say “water troughs in every turnout,” I assume you mean, “filled” water troughs. When you said “horses out all day every day,” I assumed that meant not just for the hour it took you to clean their stalls. While 30 years ago, you may have learned x or y or z, it would have been nice if you had opened your mind to learning new things over the past 30 years.[/QUOTE]
Oh man, I boarded at a place like this… minus the 30 years experience on the barn owner’s part. She was a relative newbie who decided to buy and run a commercial boarding/lesson barn.
On top of the above, from that same barn, I could add:
-Water buckets in stalls actually need to be dumped from time to time.
-A Facebook message two days before the end of the month is not an appropriate way to notify boarders that you’re changing your boarding rates/payment terms for the next month.
-You actually need to put bedding in stalls.
-An all caps text message is not an appropriate way to address issues you have with your boarders, warranted or not. Sending 10 text messages in a row does not make it any more appropriate.
-When your horse is colicking, calling the old feed guy who tells you to pour a bottle of Gatorade down his throat is not the same as calling the vet.
-Every horse who is off under saddle without a huge swollen leg or bloody gash does not have EPM and need to be put down ASAP…
-If I’m paying you $15/day for bandage changes on my horse’s hoof while I’m out of town for my wedding (your generous offer), you should actually, you know, change the bandage. Putting a manure-filled boot over my horse’s open hoof wound is not the same.
I lasted 10 month with my horses at this barn, only because it was the only barn in the area and we were desperately searching for our own farm during that time.
I only need 5 things, and that’s what I am paying for, to get all 5 from one BO seems close to impossible.
Feed my horse.
Provide my horse with access to water, at all times.
Either turn out or clean stalls.
Provide my horse with hay.
Let me know if there’s a medical issue, and then follow the vets recommendations, I will pay extra for that.
I don’t understand why this is so hard… I just don’t get it.
Please buy grain. And feed it.
Please buy hay. And feed it - unless it is moldy.
Please turn my horses out and don’t lie to me when you don’t - I freaking live on the property so I know when you are lying.
“I forgot” is not an acceptable answer when I ask why the hell my horse was still outside (running) when I got home from work at 7:00.
Again - grain and hay are not “optional” supplies at a boarding facility!
Please don’t allow your “rich important” boarders to abuse turn out time. There is a rotation schedule and my “cheap foxtrotter” gets his time out as much as their horses do.
Please don’t yell at us to get out of the arena because you rescheduled a lesson without telling anyone or changing the open arena times when this is my last chance to ride this week.
Please don’t be the one to come tell me I can’t lease the horse I’m leasing any more because he bucked off a kid who was not leasing him. That is between my mom and the owner for the lease and between the kid’s parents and the horse’s owner and you. I was 16 and had no place in that conversation. The horse in question is the gelding I’ve now owned for 17 years and he bucked because that kid put a cruel bit in his mouth and did things she shouldn’t have been doing.
Please don’t call me yelling at me to not leave the hose on without even asking if I even used it that day. I’ve been your only boarder for a year and have never done anything like that. Perhaps it is the new boarder who is 15 years old and has trouble with the rusted over handle?
When my gelding returns from getting his teeth done and I ask you to keep him in a separate turn out until the drugs wear out, please don’t turn him out with the herd and the gelding who was able to keep him away from the food and water trough until I found him very hungry and thirsty the next morning.
Please don’t turn all the horses loose on your lawn to mow it when you have no main gate and lucky for me our two geldings were far more interested in eating the fresh grass and not following your horses as the cavorted down the main roads.
A mix of barns, so glad to have my own place now. I will say that I do understand everyone can be stressed and make mistakes, but something’s are just personalities that don’t show up until too late.
[QUOTE=trubandloki;7911237]
I did not know that board increases were limited to certain months of the year.
I agree that proper notice is important but I am missing what July has to do with it being inappropriate.[/QUOTE]
I think it may be a case of, most barns with 20+ horses, aren’t buying hay in July. The contract for it in the fall, and set their board prices for the coming year. All my board increases have usually been in September and once in February, when BO had to find a new hay source on short notice.
Sandy M- around here they DO buy their hay in July- our first cut is usually in the barn at the end of June/early July. If it’s a bad year, prices go up then. A barn that waits till Sept to buy a substantial amount of hay may be in trouble unless they have a contract with a supplier.
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