Deep-Cleaning Your Saddles, Bridles, and Leather Tack

11:13 pm
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The weather forecast for the rest of summer: sultry. Ready to stop sweating it in the barn? Get the chores done early and haul your old tack inside: it’s time for a saddle and bridle deep-clean!

There are a lot of witch’s brews and home remedies out there for stripping and conditioning tack. Walk into a feed store and ask for recommendations, and you’ll hear hearty endorsements for everything from ammonia to olive oil. The general idea is to strip the oils and dirt out of the leather, leaving it clean, but dry, and then returning […]

Refreshing and Entertaining Horse Treats

8:48 am
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Horse treats aren’t just rewards for a job well done. A horse treat can add refreshment and entertainment to your horse’s life, encouraging natural behaviors even if their stall-bound life doesn’t exactly resemble the open grasslands horses are designed to inhabit. Horses are foragers by nature, picking out the good from the bad while grazing, so offering them treats that require a little more work than a pile of hay is a great way to enrich their lives.

You can buy plenty of stall toys that work by hiding treats. Doctors Foster and Smith offer a […]

Organizing Your Tack Trunk

10:59 am
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Summer is here, and the show season is in full swing. Luckily, you organized your tack room, your tack trunk, and your trailer during spring cleaning, right? OK, we know you skipped spring cleaning, but that’s no reason to let a disorganized life bring you down. Take a little time on a rainy day and get your stable life back on track. Here’s some barn organization tips:

Sort it out: Whatever you might need at a show does not include everything you own. Pick a tack trunk or a storage bin to start your adventure. Go […]

Dusty Arenas: Do Your Homework With Magnesium Chloride

4:45 pm
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17 Comments
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Keeping horses healthy requires horse-owners, trainers, and barn managers to acquire so much scientific knowledge, it’s a wonder we aren’t all awarded honorary doctorates after a certain number of decades. Working closely with veterinarians, nutritionists, and extension offices gives us a working knowledge of biology our high school science teachers probably never anticipated. Still, one wonder of science continues to evade many horsemen: how to keep the dust down in an indoor arena.

Watering indoor arenas has long been the go-to method for keeping down dust, but since it can cause freezing in winter and mud […]

Are Automatic Waterers Right For Your Horses?

3:33 pm
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Carrying heavy water buckets is probably one of the least pleasant aspects of daily barn life. Stall cleaning can be meditative, sweeping the aisle can be relaxing, but lifting buckets, dumping them, scrubbing them out, and carrying them, full of water and splashing on your legs, is never fun.

Thinking of dumping buckets and going with an automatic waterer in your horse’s stall or paddock? Let’s look at some pros and cons and decide if automatic waterers are right for you and your horses.

The first obvious pro is eliminating dragging around a hose or carrying back-breaking […]

Alternative Horse Bedding: Corn Cobs

4:37 pm
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12 Comments
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Ready to give shavings the boot? If you’ve been thinking for a while, “maybe using chopped up trees as horse litter isn’t the best idea,” you’re in luck. There are a variety of new, environmentally-friendly bedding choices on the market. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of one such choice, corn cob bedding.

Corn cob, ground up and processed into pellets with steam and water, creates an absorbent, biodegradable bedding for horses. The bedding composts much faster than wood shavings (some manufacturers state their bedding composts in as little as six months […]

Fans for Stables

6:56 am
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Ask an expert what a stabled horse is often lacking, and you’ll probably hear the words “fresh air.” Ventilation in barns is of utmost importance; a horse’s sensitive respiratory system is susceptible to mold, fungus, the fumes from ammonia in their soiled bedding, and dust floating through the air. Even in summertime, with all the windows flung open, a barn can be a place of still, unmoving air, which exacerbates heat problems as well.

All sorts of fans exist to help out with still stable air, from massive ceiling fans to discount-store box fans. Which fan is […]

Making a More Environmentally Friendly Horse Farm

Spring is here, and everything’s turning green. Take a cue from Mother Nature and add a little green to your farm routine. If you’re running a farm or visiting a boarding stable on the regular, you’re participating in an important conservation effort, whether you knew it or not. Farmland conservation promotes green-space in rapidly developing areas, supporting animal and plant life which would otherwise be threatened by new construction.

So just by participating in the farm lifestyle, you’re making a difference. What’s next? Here are a few ways to add environmentally friendly practices to […]