Who is doing the barn for Christmas?

We are :heart_eyes:
Hope the barn staff gets off that day and owners do the work.

Merry Christmas

We did cash presents and some fun gifts.

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By doing the barn do you mean the chores or decorations?

When I boarded I always decorated my horse’s stall.
But at home I do not.

Since I am not boarding right now, I am doing all the barn chores in my barn on Christmas, just like every other day of the year.

When I was barn staff, I did my scheduled chores, even if it was Christmas.

It is great if the barn staff can get the day off and the horses still get all the same care. I don’t like it when they give the staff the day off and the horses stay in and do not get their stalls cleaned.

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For my retired barn of horses out my back door-- I will do chores as normal, same as every year.
For the boarding barn where my hunter lives? They split the day up, all stalls are cleaned, horses fed/turned out, by a rotation of the employees. Horses should not suffer for our holidays.

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I do self-care board, so I pretty much always do the feeding, cleaning, etc. My horse lives in a pasture with a friend of mine’s retired mare. I take care of both of them while she’s across the state in college. When she’s home (like now) with her riding mare, we kind of swap back and forth a little, but I live a lot closer, so I still tend to do more of the feeding. She fed my guy for me while I was out of town last Christmas, and I’m going to feed her girls for her tomorrow and Christmas morning and we’ll both be there for the evening feed.

Whether full board or self-care or when I had my own place for 20 years, if I was home for Christmas I was definitely going to the barn on Christmas Day. When I was a teenager, most of my presents required being tried out on the horse or on me (while on the horse), so not going to the barn was unthinkable. Plus…ponies need candy canes, carrots, apples, cookies, and smooches!

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My trainer is finally accepting help after several years insisting that he wants to do 35 head of horses by himself, so I’m doing the Christmas Eve and Christmas morning shifts along with a couple other boarders. Trainer will still be there but we hope to be able to get him out in time to spend quality time with his family.

I’m sure he likes the quiet time in the barn by himself as much as we all do, but none of us are getting any younger and our backs don’t really need to do all those stalls by ourselves.

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Business as usual at our barn. Which means me.
I did get a couple of ā€œHorse Blocksā€ to set out as presents for the Equines. The dogs will share Christmas Morning with us around the tree. I’m sure Santa will have presents for them as well :-D.

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I convinced BM to let me handle morning chores for the handful of horses at the barn :sparkles:

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I decorated the flat bed trailer with two bundles of Idaho third cutting OG hay for the horses. We all think it is beautiful even if it is tucked away safe under the barn. That is the only Christmas decoration I did but hey - it is a pretty color of green! Maybe hang a red bow on it?

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My horses volunteered to feed themselves on Christmas; just leave the feed room door open. However they said they would not pick their stalls. :laughing:

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When I boarded, we owners used to pitch in (under the direction of the manager if needed) so staff could have a day off. Nice way to show appreciation I think.

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To the dismay of all staff, the barn owners have decided to give them the day off WITHOUT PAY. Merry Christmas to them. :frowning:

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@kenyarider - That’s so unkind!

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Mine are at home so I’ll be doing chores as usual.

When I boarded, I would show up on Christmas Day. Help with chores as I could and bring gifts cough cash cough for staff. Boxes of doughnuts and booze were also appreciated

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Grinches

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I am a barn manager. I volunteered for Christmas morning. Double pay. The horses normally go out at night. Since the weather will be mild many of them will stay out during the day tomorrow. It should be a short morning to bring in the few that don’t want to be out 24/7 and administer meds

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I’m doing tonight, my YS1 is doing Christmas morning, and our boarders are doing Christmas night. I did Thanksgiving and said I wasn’t doing Christmas night. There are plenty of us to share the workload, no need for one person to take all the slack

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My barn has the regular staff working but they close the barn to boarders so they can get done and out of the barn by 2-3pm at the latest. One staff will do nighttime check to top off water and they live on the property. They did the same routine today on Xmas Eve

I’m actually farm sitting so I’ll be doing that barn am and pm but doing the bare bones, no bender blanket or extras on Xmas it’s also my birthday I want to be home.

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A group of elves will appear at the barn tomorrow morning to do chores so that all that will remain in the afternoon will be bringing in and feeding. Many goodies are already in the barn, though more and hot cocoa will magically be made available at the appropriate time.

Our barn is a modified co-op with the best group of women anywhere. They will come and help each other and have a blast. It’s become a tradition.

Merry Christmas to all.

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I am sneaking out of my full house of family to quietly feed and cuddle ā€œthe boysā€ and Gordon the barn cat (well, not cuddling Gordon as I have no death wish, but I will wish him a Merry Christmas and give him extra food) --The Boys will each get a hug and breakfast. Tomorrow, unusually warm weather (57!) so I am going riding with a gal-pal!

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I just furtively snuck back into bed after feeding the animals so when my kid wakes up, we can celebrate Christmas morning uninterrupted.

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