Spin off....things you never thought you had to tell your BM

[Pembroke]

Don’t feed my horses moldy hay. Just throw the whole bale away.

Don’t intentionally buy cheap and crappy hay. It’s crappy.

Don’t blame me for everything.

Don’t treat some clients differently than others.

Don’t be a stalker.

Don’t close all the doors, and then start giving out the crappy, dusty hay and start the machine to knead (idk if that’s the right term) the oats.

DO take care of your indoor.

Don’t insult your clients.

Don’t think clients are free labor.

Don’t send everyone who disagrees with you to the door.

DO treat your animals.

There is NO such thing as a “small colic”.

Don’t feed hay that is FULL of mycotoxins.

Don’t feed grain that is full of mycotoxins.

DO get some competent workers.

Don’t keep horses out in the storm. Especially if they are clipped, their blankets are flying everywhere, because your incompetent worker couldn’t fasten then properly. And if the horse is with only his stable blanket, soaking, do bring him in.

I should NOT have to water my horses’ hay. If you have dusty hay, you should do it. (But I guess everything is fine…)

Don’t be rude.

Do keep to your word.

Just don’t be stupid.

And I could go on and on… This is mainly from two stables. One owner is a vet. The other a FEI trainer with, apparently, 26 years of horse owning experience.

[HPFarmette]

Please feed my easy keeper Arab enough hay so his ribs don’t show.
Please fill the water trough in his half-acre dry lot (you have 25 horses on 15 acres) before you go in the house for your afternoon nap.
If my horse gets injured, call me with actual info, don’t have your teenage daughter call me at work with no info and make me break speed limits for the half-hour drive to the barn.
If you are not going to medicate him as you said you would, tell me. Don’t pretend you did, I can see how much medicine is left.
Don’t scold me for leaving a flake of hay in his stall as I depart. A flake.
Thank god I now have my own farmette. Finally a bunch of us realized our horses were hungry all the time, and left that pig’s barn.

[TrailPony]

Your passive agressive statements about how my horse would do better in a different pasture do not go unnoticed. My horse is by herself because she fights with the other mares and I would prefer her to look bored rather than pay more vet bills.

Also, the fact that you think not telling me about a swollen hock and gash on said hock because you sprayed medicine on it for me, is another reason I want my horse by herself. I do not like coming out to the barn to find a blood crusted gash that should have been cleaned out days ago.

[CindyCRNA]

[QUOTE=CrowneDragon;7920612]
I lost a new Rambo fly sheet this way. It shrunk in the dryer from a 78" to about a 60". I could tell that all of the barn fly sheets had been thrown in the washing machine together, because they were half clean and all wrinkled in a big pile. The BO would have none of it, insisting “look, it’s dirty”. Yes, it is in spots, because 10 fly sheets were put in the machine together, and then mine got shrunken in the dryer.

“No.”

Soooo…you think a brand new $150 fly sheet just shrank because the horse wore it? :rolleyes:
I was also constantly having to rescue my turnouts from the wash pile, because they would get put through the machine with hot water and Tide to get them clean. Yes, I see that yours are cleaner than mine. They also aren’t waterproof anymore.[/QUOTE]

I just found my 82" full neck fleece cooler shrunk down to about a 70". I can tell my BO washed it as there was so much white debris in the velcro and I wash mine by itself.

[sdlbredfan]

OMG on the preceding post ‘One owner is a vet. The other a FEI trainer with, apparently, 26 years of horse owning experience’.

Please publicly out these idiots, or at least PM anyone who asks who and where they are. Knowing something like that might save a horse’s life, by preventing anyone from boarding there.

[Pembroke]

[QUOTE=sdlbredfan;7923718]
OMG on the preceding post ‘One owner is a vet. The other a FEI trainer with, apparently, 26 years of horse owning experience’.

Please publicly out these idiots, or at least PM anyone who asks who and where they are. Knowing something like that might save a horse’s life, by preventing anyone from boarding there.[/QUOTE]

I live in Estonia. But, hey, if anyone is interested in knowing who they are from which stables, I’ll be happy to share

The FEI trainer and her facility was the more dangerous one. Moldy/mycotoxin filled feed, “small colics”, etc etc. Oy.

But, of course, we have spread the info by word of mouth in local horse community (And they don’t have many boarders now anyway. But there are their own horses, sadly)

[CrowneDragon]

[QUOTE=CindyCRNA;7923681]
I just found my 82" full neck fleece cooler shrunk down to about a 70". I can tell my BO washed it as there was so much white debris in the velcro and I wash mine by itself.[/QUOTE]

Dude, I feel your pain

[myleetlepony]

Before dumping the dump truck bed full of rocks against the indoor arena wall, check and make sure no one is riding in it.

Don’t drive said dump truck at 30+mph down the driveway, especially when after the turn around the barn is where people have to walk their horses to access the indoor arena.

Don’t smoke your weed in the hay loft above the stalls. It’s also better to wait to smoke it until your two law enforcement employed boarders are NOT on the property.

Don’t stand like a creeperson in the dark corner of the indoor arena watching your female boarders ride without saying a word. Oh, and don’t interrupt their lesson to scream at them about not turning off a light. Perhaps waiting until they are off their horse is more appropriate.

Oh, and you might want to double check if someone has a horse in the aisle beneath you before starting up the diesel tractor in the hayloft RIGHT.ABOVE.THE.CROSSTIES!!

Luckily, this person really did not like horses and had hired a barn hand to feed, clean stalls and do turnout/in.

Even better, I found a much better place to board, by accident, less than five minutes up the road and a knowledgable barn owner who actually LIKES horses.

[CdnQH]

Please do not use my show mare to help collect your stud “because he thinks she’s pretty nice”.

This still makes me beyond angry when I think about it.

[OverandOnward]

If the board contract says “blanketing/unblanketing”, that’s what boarders expect and what they are paying for, even if you don’t know how to blanket/unblanket a horse and don’t want to learn.

If you can’t keep (or afford) help that will do the “blanketing/unblanketing” appropriately, print an amendment and have each boarder sign their own copy removing the promise of blanketing. Adjust your board rates downwards accordingly to match the market for board that doesn’t offer blanketing.

And yes, that will probably cause many/most of your current boarders to leave for barns that offer blanketing, and yes you’ll get new ones with different habits and expectations.

Because that is the way the boarding business works. By level of service offered and performed.

[yankeeclipper]

Dear BM when a horse is colicing, it’s emergency before ego…

[Frizzle]

Please tell me that the only water source in the pasture in which my horse will be living is a stagnant, chemical-filled canal. (Yes, I should have asked, but I never in a million years thought that fresh water sources were not a given.)

Please do not cross-tie my horse in the aisle while you clean his stall instead of actually turning him out.

Please do not go 6 weeks without turning my horse out. (Thankfully, I was at this barn every day and would ride and/or turnout, and then handgraze my horse.)

A flake is not just any random piece of hay that comes off the bale–seriously, that little 2 pound chunk does not count as a flake.

Please do not hire someone to take care of the horses who has zero horse experience, and expect him to figure it out. Especially if you yourself have no horse experience. And then go out and buy a yearling stud colt because you’re a big tough guy and clearly if we weak women can handle these big horses, it will be no problem for big old macho you. We will say “I told you so” when said stud colt becomes an unruly hellion who repeatedly runs over you and your terrified worker. And we will laugh hysterically when said stud colt turns out to be a cryptorchid and you end up giving him away because you are too cheap to pay for the surgery, and only bought the colt for an ag exemption.

Please let me know that my horse has a gigantic gaping bleeding wound. (This horse was a grey, so it was not exactly difficult to see blood on him!)

Please do not buy nasty, foul-smelling, bug-filled hay because you’re too cheap to buy decent hay.

Please do not buy the barn, force me te switch from part-board to full board, and then inform me that I have to clean my horse’s paddock every day because it’s “too much to ask the barn help to do.”

Please do not constantly tell me my horse is eating way too much grain when I have repeatedly explained to you that, if you read the back of the feed bag, I am actually feeding my horse the minimum amount required in order to get the RDA of vits/mins, protein, etc. He is not overweight, and the fact that you keep saying, “But he’s not very active” is not going to change the fact that he is eating the minimum amount.

Please do not cut back on my horse’s hay just because I have bought some of my own and throw him a flake or two every night. That is supposed to be extra hay, not replacement hay.

I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of for now. So grateful for the barn I’m boarding at now!

[LSMarnell]

Don’t take in young racehorses over the winter when their owner wants to give them a break. You are not set up for it with no paddocks, only (1) 20 acre pasture, and high tensile fencing.

If you do take said racehorses, do not be surprised when they know nothing of turnout or tensile fence & run through it injuring themselves, escaping into the road, and letting the other boarders horses out into the road.

Do not tell me having my horses teeth looked at by a qualified dentist is a “waste of money” or that “you have never had a horses teeth floated in 20 years.” That is not something to gloat about.

Do not keep the barn closed up tighter than Fort Knox because you are too cheap to take the 1 stray cat you took in to the vet for spaying. Are you kidding me?!

[LSMarnell]

Oh, and please do not bring my horse in from the pasture 3 legged lame, leave him in a stall, turn out all the lights, and go home without actually GETTING A HOLD OF ME!

When confronted about it, do not tell me “it’s not my JOB to call the vet!”

[CaitlinandTheBay]

[QUOTE=zakattack;7919937]
:eek: That is HORRIBLE!! Was the horse ok?[/QUOTE]

Yes, luckily we got there just a bit after it was done. I raised hell, took the collar off and, ten years later, he’s never had one on again. I’ve found other ways to manage his cribbing, and it’s just not worth the risk with boarding. Actually, I take that back- once another boarder put a collar on him without speaking to me and I lost my $%#! on her and the BO. Don’t make decisions about my horse without consulting me first. Seriously, I am a text message away.

[TankDiveGirl]

Yes, you DO need to feed ALL The horses more than TWO total flakes of hay a day. Yes, that includes mine, who is underweight. No, you do not have to feed him TEN POUNDS OF GRAIN a day, just give him all the hay he wants. Yes, i am aware he’s eating poop, that’s because you do not give him enough HAY. No, he’s not aggressive, he doesn’t appreciate having weanlings run up on his blind side. Yes, he still needs to be turned out with other horses and NOT in the sand arena with no hay. Yes, you DO need to change his blanket when it’s below 35 degrees, he’s THREE HUNDRED POUNDS UNDERWEIGHT. No, it’s NOT normal for horses to be sore after every single trim. Maybe if you waited less than 8-10 weeks between trims, they’d be less sore?

SO glad to be at a barn now where not only is he fed 4x a day, he lives out 24/7, they change his rugs as needed, and he’s THRIVING. Oh yea, and they text me if he does anything even remotely not like him, where before the person who was keeping him only checked the horses twice a day… and I caught 2 colics while i was there just by virtue of being out there every day.

[SnicklefritzG]

If there is no grass to speak of in the pastures, for @#$@#$ sake, put some hay out there, particularly if horses are going to be left outside basically all day (7am-5pm). Put the hay in separate piles if you have to. Telling people “we can’t feed hay during the day because the horses will fight” is no excuse!

Do not change the feeding program without discussing with me first. Certainly not when I wrote down EXACTLY what my vet wanted my horse to be fed at each meal. Why do you think it is ok to suddenly start feeding my horse 3 extra quarts of grain?

Don’t tell people how firmly you believe in good footing and then leave the arena undragged for over a week.

Don’t leave an old-style heating unit (with exposed heating coils) running unattended in the barn bathroom. This is a fire hazard.

Needless to say, I no longer board at that place.

[ElisLove]

Do not suddenly up my in-perfect-weight horse’s grain by 4 TIMES the amount he was getting, without even informing me or my trainer.
Luckily caught it the day it was done (they changed his feed chart) and changed it back. Don’t know if they still fed him more than he was supposed to get or not.

[heronponie]

@LSMarnell;7928451

Do not tell me having my horses teeth looked at by a qualified dentist is a “waste of money” or that “you have never had a horses teeth floated in 20 years.” That is not something to gloat about.

Seconding this!

In fact, I could probably think of a dozen things to fall under the “not something to gloat about” category. Including, but not limited to:

• stretching your poor horses 8, 10, 12+ weeks between trims
• having a saddle that “fits everything!”
• the amazing deal you just got on expired dewormers
• performing haphazard emergency vet care on your own so you can avoid all those expensive bills for stitches and antibiotics (psh!)

Etc…

[RaeHughes]

I am so glad from these that my horse is on my own farm and I have knowledgeable people that I can ask for advice