Well, I just snapped a few quick pictures of the barn I'm boarding at. It's not too exciting. I guess I can use this prompt to complain about my barn :) When looking for barns around here though, this was by far the best we looked at. It has a very large arena with a nice sand/felt footing. There is kind-of trails to ride on outside. There is a turnout area, heated/locked tack rooms, 12x12 stalls, and it was very inexpensive to have full care (stall cleaning once a day, hay and grain included, feedings twice a day, and turnout/blanketing) compared to other places. BUT I am a very picky owner so there are several things that irk me about this barn.
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| Supposedly, this will eventually become turnout, but right now it's being used as one of several manure piles... |
1) Lack of turnout. There is one tiny turnout pen that has almost no grass and is very scarily put together. It was just recently built, but for some reason, there is two 2-foot gaps in the fence, so electric tape is wrapped around to prevent horses from going through, but basically they could just step over it if they pleased. There are also plenty of stumps, branches and blackberries in the turnout to create more of a chance for injuries. They don't get turned out all that often either because there's about 17 horses and one tiny pen. But at least they get to socialize and bask in the sun.
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| Barn aisle with all the ponies :) |
2) Stall cleaning = not very clean. I know my horse is super dirty and messy, but I hate seeing her stand in wet bedding. It's not healthy and it's not what I'm paying for. I've cleaned her stall several times myself, which I believe that I shouldn't have to do. And the other day, it looked like the stall cleaner was in a rush maybe and didn't actually clean the stall, just threw a bag of pellets on top of the wet bedding. Can you say wasteful and not at all helpful?
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| Jetta looking out her stall |
3) Feeding. I may be paranoid, but sometimes I don't feel like Jetta's getting all that she's supposed to. I brought up two bags of grain for her (because we switched to something less sugary than what the BO is feeding) and one bag still hasn't been open. If Jetta is supposed to be getting 3 pounds of grain a day, that second bag should at least have been opened by now. Oh, and I was told Jetta was out of her CoolCalories supplement the day she ran out, so now she has to wait five days until I can drive home to get some more. A little bit of a warning would have been nice.
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| Huge 80x200 arena with GGT footing |
But those are my only complaints and there are definite benefits to this barn. My friends ML and CL both board there so we carpool most days and have a lot of fun riding together. And did I mention that the arena is huge? So even with three or four people you have plenty of space. It is so nice to have heated, locked tack rooms so I don't have to worry about my stuff, though because I have so much horse junk my stuff is in a tiny area when I would prefer to spread out, but that's my own fault. It's close to school so I don't have to drive super far. At least Jetta does get turned out, and if the pen isn't available she can run around in the arena. I don't (usually) have to clean stalls and I get to ride almost every day! So all in all, a good barn, but it still has its faults.
Sounds pretty awesome! Honesty, I think that no barn is ever "perfect" the way that we would like it. It sucks but some things we just have to deal with and we have to decide if the pros outweigh the cons. Good luck and hopefully Jetta will like it :-)
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