Natural Horse Care in an Unnatural World

You might recall earlier posts back in February when my 27-year old Paint colicked with a strangulated lipoma and needed emergency surgery.  I was fortunate that this happened in the morning when people arrived at the barn and noticed his discomfort. Getting him to an emergency hospital was crucial to his survival and recovery. But, this got me thinking. What if it had happened during the night when no one was at the barn? On average, horses at the barn where Kobeejo is boarded, come in at 5pm in nice weather. They stay in until 9am the next morning. That's 16 hours spent in their stalls. (Many, including Kobeejo, will stay out on nice nights in summer, but generally, November through June is spent in at night). Usually, the barn is void of humans from 7pm until 8am. Eleven hours with no one watching them. That amount of time can mean life or death if something goes wrong. Not long ago, a friend lost a horse due to colic and a twisted intestine, all of which happened at night when

In the 16 years I have owned my horse (a now 27-year-old Paint), I have boarded him at barns that fall into just about every category imaginable. He has been at large barns with rules so strict I felt suffocated, private barns with rules that rivaled big barns and some that allowed me to do as I please, and just about everything in between. We have moved 13 times in those 16 years, sometimes repeating barns we thought "had gotten better." The very first barn my horse was boarded at was also the same barn where I volunteered as a trail guide 40 years earlier. Seeking riding lessons, I naturally started there (by this time the riding stable it once was had become a privately owned boarding and lesson barn). I bought my horse (who had just turned 11 years old) while I was there as a lesson student. I boarded him there on "outside self-care" board. A show horse most of his life, he now lived on a 75-acre natural pasture with 20+ horses. This was a first for him and