Danger! Be careful of full board barns

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 he loved it. He ran with the herd, ate all the grass he wanted and had plenty of company. He slept in verdant pastures and, for the first time in his life, he could actually be a horse! This was in the summer while the weather was warm.

However, come fall, things went terribly wrong. One day a major storm arrived... a cold rain, thunder and lightning. I went seeking my horse and found him standing at the tree line far from the barn, soaked and shivering. Once I got him into the barn, the vet came out. He was having a bad bout of Ehrlichiosis. His temperature was 103 and he did not want to move nor eat.

After this incident, it was obvious his life of living inside as a show horse had become the norm for him. He needed a stall. And the barn only offered stalls to full boarders. The price of his board went from $150 a month to over $400. Despite the cost, this was when I began to discover the cons of full board.... allowing others to make the rules and care for my horse. As an adult with Asperger's Syndrome (on the autism spectrum), caring for my horse myself was my therapy.

Since then, we have moved around seeking the "perfect" situation for mine and my horse's needs. It's been a tough ride, but taught me the truth about most full-board facilities, at least in the northeast USA.

I am not like many others. For me, learning about proper horse care and utilizing this knowledge has been vital to my mental well-being, as well as my horse's physical and mental well-being. However, I have witnessed some very disturbing trends in the care of horses and most of them took place in facilities that offer "full board."

There is no one who knows your horse like you do. Yet with full board, you are trusting strangers to make life or death decisions about the care of your horse. Full board barns offer general rules, such as how much hay your horse gets each day and what kind of grain he eats, as well as bedding needs and turn out and in. Every horse, with a few exceptions, is treated and fed the same. Yet, the reality is that all horses are different in their care needs.

Hay

Horses are grazing animals. They require 2% of their body weight in forage every day. Yet, many full board facilities specify how much hay your horse will get. Most of the time, this is highly lacking. Most of your full board barns, including those with steep boarding prices, do not feed the appropriate amount of forage. Hay is offered more as small meals twice a day (usually 2 or 3 "flakes"). On top of this, they feed their own grain, generally an inexpensive "complete feed" grain. This is the opposite of how a horse's digestive system is meant to work. They require forage most or all of the time, day and night. The way their digestive tract works requires this.

 Acid production, microflora in the hindgut, hormones, and many other factors, play a role in a horse's gut health. Lack of the proper amount of forage causes more problems in horses than most anything else. Grain causes other issues.

Feeding by the "flake" should be frowned on. At this point, I am the only person I know who feeds my horse by the pound (weight) and not by the flake. Yet, all experts in equine nutrition will tell you that feeding by the pound is preferred. Why? Every bale of hay weighs differently. Two flakes of one hay might weigh a measly 2 pounds while another bale may offer 6 pounds in those same two flakes. Either way, 12 pounds of hay a day to a thousand pound horse is nowhere near the 2% required. Horses are good self-regulators when offered more hay than they can eat. Eventually, they will consume only what their body requires.

Behavioral problems such as cribbing, wood chewing, weaving and biting the bars of the stall, are all behaviors developed due to boredom, mostly from lack of forage. Not only are horses instinctually hard-wired to eat forage most of the time, but not giving them this requirement will result, eventually, in health and behavioral issues.

(The below information is by approximation only, as many factors can vary).

The reason big barns feed such small amounts of hay is money! Plain and simple. It's rarely about the horse's health. 4-5 "flakes" a day costs pennies on the pound per horse. At that rate, if fed from a 40-pound bale of hay, your horse will get approximately one bale per week. In reality, most average size horses should be eating at least half a bale per day (of a 40-pound bale)! The rest of the time, the horse is either standing in a box (its stall) or paddock, hungry and miserable (unless there is suitable grass, which is rare at most big barns). Its instincts are telling the horse it needs to eat, its stomach and mind are in agreement. Acid is flowing through the horse's digestive tract with nothing to digest and that is frustrating and can even be painful.

A horse's stomach is very small. The lower portion of the stomach produces acid continuously. The top portion is not protected against an acid assault. A horse standing in a stall 15 hours or more at night with nothing to eat is literally starving, even though the horse may look fine on the outside. The grain he was fed at dinner with his measly portion of hay most likely offers the calories to keep him in weight but does nothing to aid his digestive tract. Nor will it help alleviate boredom once he's finished and has to stand there for hours upon hours.

On top of all this, going long periods with no forage puts stress on the digestive tract, messes with hormones and kills good bacteria in the hindgut. You might not see it happening, but it is. Eventually, your horse will colic! I heard an equine vet recently say "It's not a matter of if your horse colics, but when."

There are types of colic that cannot be prevented nor predicted. A strangulated lipoma can happen to any horse. And it happened to my 27-year old. Fortunately for my horse, his digestive tract is well cared for, with 24/7 free choice forage and no grain, just a ration balancer. Add to that the fact I give him as much turn out and exercise as I can, which keeps the blood flow in his intestines moving along well. He came out of surgery for the lipomas with no loss of intestine and healed quickly despite his age. If he had been getting only small meals a couple times a day with lots of grain, the outcome might have been different. He could have lost part of his intestines or worse.

Turn Out

Most full board barns offer very small paddocks, particularly for single horses. The idea is to have as many horses as possible. More horses = more money. This is not in a horse's best interest. These are animals who need to move and eat all the time. It's in their make-up. Small paddocks also mean less grass and more mud. Mud can lead to many issues, such as scratches, thrush, and rotting feet. The paddocks get dug up as the horse(s) moves around, leading to ruts. In the winter, these ruts freeze to solid and make walking difficult. This can lead to sprains and tears to ligaments and tendons.

The other issue is that your horse is victim to short turn out times. On average, most full board barns turn out about 8am and turn in around 4 or 5pm max. Eight or nine hours out of every 24. Other barns may have less turn out. This, once again, leaves them standing in a box more hours than not. If there are no shelters, horses are left inside 24 hours in bad weather. They receive grain and small amounts of hay in the morning, are generally finished pretty quickly, as a horse that's been left with nothing all night will be famished and gobble it down (which can lead to choke and impactions).

Few barns allow for night turn out, even in summer. Horses stand in hot stalls, sweating and hungry. If they have a run-out off their stall, they are the lucky ones. Rare few barns have runs off the stalls. Most do not even have stall windows, which leads to the next topic:

Airflow

Closed up barns (such as in winter) are dusty and potentially dangerous. Microtoxins in dust from kicked around manure and urine are terrible for a horse's airway. Simply sweeping an aisle with horses inside can produce this dangerous dust you may not see, but is still there. Horses exposed for long periods can develop allergies, breathing problems, excessive mucus, and even heaves. Using a leaf blower may be an easier way to clean the aisle, but is not good if horses are in and it blows dust everywhere.

Bedding

Unless you provide your own bedding, many full board barns offer small amounts, and it's generally cheap and dusty. Of course, on full board, you don't have to clean your own stall, but your horse has to live in there and sleep in there, and breathing in dust is bad for his respiratory tract.

Not only that, but some horses develop hock sores (and sometimes hip sores) if bedding is not deep enough.

Take Home Point

If you must board your horse at a full board facility, ask lots of questions and get clear to the owners how you want your horse cared for. Make sure you know the exact cost you will be paying if you need to purchase extra bedding and extra hay. Make clear turn out needs. If they seem reluctant to your needs, go elsewhere.













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