I am one who stalls horses daily. Horses are in half a day, nights in winter, days in summer. We consider our stalls as a tool,
teaching horse to be comfortable when restrained, accepting of things done behind and around them with no reaction
from horses. Our horses get handled twice a day, which seems to keep horse remembering WHO is the leader of the
herd, gives directions that horse follows! It is not an argument like I commonly see with quite a few "pasture kept"
equines. My horse accepts that we will do things when WE say they need doing, doesn't get upset about it.
Since we have a number of horses, stalling allows horse to get fed alone and get all his/her hay and grain with no fights,
lay down to sleep. Sometimes a bully in the group makes a tired horse too wary to lay down around the other equines, so
horses get leg-weary. A dry bed in their stall encourages laying down safely. The horses go out daily in all weather except
sleet and sheet ice. Not hothouse flowers, they work for a living here. Being out in fields exercising is good for them, socially,
physically in the groups. But ours are ready to come inside when the nasty flies come up with the sun, or as nightime temps
drop severely in winter.
We seldom blanket, horses wear their long hair. But on those nasty, icy days, stalling for the night allows horse to dry out
their legs, hooves, melt the ice chunks off and get fluffy again. I do usually groom horses to keep them fluffy, they are much warmer
if they can fluff or flatten the hair. Along with grooming, I do a daily once-over to check for injuries, rocks or ice in hooves, lost a shoe.
This "laying on of the hands" will tell me who is getting fat under the long hair, who is thin, so feed needs adjustment. Can't tell
that by looking! Fingers digging thru the hair to find or attempt-to-find the ribs is the only way to tell that. Even more important is
tracking how much water they take in, both winter and summer. I have to know what is normal for that horse, to know when
drinking is not meeting that level. Horses colic when they don't drink well. Would be real hard to do this with only pasture tanks and a herd
of horses outside.
Cleaning those stalls daily allows me to see that each horse has been pooping and peeing, eating their meal, to insure the food is moving
thru the animals. No poop or wet spots means big problems, I MUST be doing something about problem NOW!!
I know a lot of the outside keeping is to not have to clean stalls. So the sheds get filled with frozen poop balls, hard to walk on, hard to lay on,
cleaned (maybe) in the spring. Flooring is often uneven, flooded or muddy in warm weather, not bedded, poop attracting flies to bite horses inside.
I think my methods are set for pretty low standards, but there are plenty of folks who have an even lower minimum for horse keeping.
Guess that is their priviledge, but it does bother me when they tell me their horse chores only take 20 minutes total each day. Yeah, horses
"manage" with sheds, no barns, they are designed for outside living. Just always surprises those folks when horse gets sick, hurt, and
has been that way for DAYS! Old wounds can't be stitched, maybe infected, or horse is breathing badly, takes a lot of Vet attention to get him
healthy or usable again. They don't understand how that problem happens!!
Kept outside with sheds is just not how I keep my horses, not how I was brought up. In our Michigan location animals need
weather protection. If I haven't got a place to put them inside in bad weather, time to handle them each daily, then I don't need
to own them. Includes the sheep and cattle having stalls, no dogs outside overnight. Guess that makes us a bunch of sissies!
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