• About Joan Fry

Backyard Horsekeeping

~ One woman´s experience with keeping her horses in her own backyard

Backyard Horsekeeping

Tag Archives: shavings as horse bedding

Do You Feed Your Horse on the Ground?

03 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by Joan Fry in General, Horse Health

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

a pipe corral, Backyard Horse, Backyard Horsekeeping, behavior, Feeding, horse ownership, horse safety, shavings as horse bedding

Some horse owners, when they’re building a wooden corral or erecting a pipe corral, don’t include feeders.  Their reasoning is that in the wild, horses eat grass—and they eat it at ground level.  Feeders are usually placed so the horse has to lower his head in order to eat, but not at ground level.  (For good reason.  Feeders usually have three upright metal bars to hold the flake of hay and keep it more or less intact while your horse yanks chunks of it out to eat on the ground.  You don’t want your horse to wedge a hoof between the bars.)  But many of these owners make a costly mistake when they decide not to put down rubber mats, either.  Horse owners who want the best for their horse will include a feeder, and will also place enough mats (four in a 24’ x 24’ pipe corral) so the area underneath the feeder is covered.  Why is not having rubber mats under the horse’s feeder a costly mistake?  Two words:  sand colic.  And sometimes even rubber mats aren’t enough.

Show horses have shavings in the barn aisle as well as their stalls.  (Photo by Joan Fry)

Show horses have shavings in the barn aisle as well as their stalls. (Photo by Joan Fry)

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How to Clean Your Horse’s Stall or Corral

18 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by Joan Fry in General, Safety, Tack and Equipment

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

a pipe corral, apple picker, Backyard Horsekeeping, horse companion, how to clean a horse corral, shavings as horse bedding

Although these may not be the first questions you think of when you decide to buy a horse and keep him in your backyard, you need to think about them now, before you buy the  horse.  The real first questions are, what’s the best, most efficient way to clean your horse’s stall or pipe corral, and where do you dispose of the waste?

One of Prim's first roommates--a goat named Franklin.  The corral is 24' x 24' and bedded in shavings.  (Photo by Joan Fry)

One of Prim’s first roommates–a goat named Franklin. The corral is 24′ x 24′ and bedded in shavings. (Photo by Joan Fry)

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Thank you for reading my blog. Please feel free to contact me with any horse-related questions or comments you might have.

Backyard Horsekeeping: The Only Guide You'll Ever Need (Lyons Press, Revised Edition 2007). Praised by everybody from horse behaviorists to trainers to veterinarians, the book's appeal was summed up by Horsemen's Yankee Pedlar, who gave the book a five blue-ribbon rating: "It is the author's voice and commitment to detail that make this book stand apart."

Joan Fry

"Playboy, my first backyard horse, really belonged to my neighbors. But I fed him and brushed him and kept his water bucket full, and in return, they let me ride him whenever I wanted to."

“Even as a kid I loved to write. When I was about eight I typed my first novel on my parents’ Underwood typewriter. I called it Silver the Wild Horse, and it was all in capital letters because I didn’t know how to work the shift key. It was illustrated in crayon. From that little experiment, I found that I’m a better writer than I am an artist. I also discovered my future: I would write about horses.”


John Fry on Imperator, four-time World's Grand Champion Five-Gaited American Saddlebred.
Photo by Avis

Recent Posts

  • Oh No–Not Again!
  • I’m Eating, Don’t Bother Me
  • The Horse in Winter
  • Blanketing Your Horse
  • Goodbye to All That
  • Dropped Fetlocks
  • Dear Robert Redford
  • Do You Feed Your Horse on the Ground?
  • Feeding the Backyard Horse
  • Slaughtering Horses for Meat
  • What Do You Do with the Pee and the Poo?
  • How to Clean Your Horse’s Stall or Corral
  • How to Buy a Horse for Your Child
  • How to Buy a Horse
  • A Day in the Life of a Backyard Horse Owner: Day #2

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