Storing food and bedding should give protection from weather and be efficient to access for use.  These things are accessed daily and have turnover on a consistent basis.  They also create a lot of dust and dirt…

If you ride your horses you will need a place to keep your saddle, bridle and cleaning supplies.  This room should be organized and kept clean.  This said, I have seen plenty of owners who work out of a trunk or…

This is a testimony from a horse owner who took the 2 week no-grain challenge. A video – “Grain Based To Forage Based Diet”

Uncovered arenas are easier to build and less expensive. Their use in harsh climates is limited. The footing material and how it is constructed is the elaborate and costly part. Good drainage is imperative…

Vectors are flying insects like stable flies and mosquitos which not only annoy us and our horses but they also carry and distribute diseases.  Birds soil our barn structures, dive at us when we get too close…

My large animal veterinary medicine professor told us a story of a visit to a dairy barn in the middle of winter filled with milking cows all with pneumonia.  The farmer was perplexed but my professor knew…

Water buckets seem harmless yet they are famous for catching eyelids and removing them. Ouch! And preventable.

Water either comes from the ground or from the sky.  It is then tapped into and poured into a container for our horses to drink.  While simple in concept, the different systems devised by humans to get this…

Pictures from New York on a summer’s day. A beautiful barn with hand made interior doors and a set of wolf teeth from a 27 year old that were loose at a therapy riding center.

Horsemanship is leadership.  This simple phrase sums up all of my experience with connecting with tens of  thousands of horses I have never been with before and creating a willing partnership in minutes.  When…

Law 1 – A horse can kill or hurt you.

There were 201 deaths caused by farm animals in a year.  This included horses.  But there were over 1 million visits to the emergency room in a year for injuries caused by…

Law 2 – The horse that will hurt or kill you is your own.

This law is about complacency.  As we become comfortable around our horses we start taking short cuts.  Another aspect to this is that with experience…

Law 3 – Whenever working with a horse, always use a halter and lead.  Stay connected.

The idea behind a physical connection with a horse is that it prevents the horse from positioning themselves into a…

Law 4 – Place yourself between the horse and the exit. 

This law is an interesting concept that needs to start with a story. I finished working on a horse, and the owner wanted to take the mare outside to…

Law 5 – Become the leader.

This law focuses on a simple principle of horses.  They exist in groups with a hierarchical structure.  In other words, there is always one horse that is the leader, and the rest are…