Horse Shelters

by Elaine Polny
(Palgrave, Ontario, Canada)

"If you build it, they will come!" (so I thought!)

I can't tell you how many times I would look out just to see the horses standing in the rain and not in the shelters we so diligently built for them. Or when it's snowing and the horses all turn their bums to the wind in the wide open spaces. It just confirms more often than not, horses prefer the open spaces than a confined one. This should not be a surprise given their evolutionary make up. They just don't run around in the wild looking for a cave like place to hide from the elements.

But horse shelters we must provide given our domesticated situations. They need it from the sun as well as from the cold.

I have found through experience that the horse shelters that they will use more often are the ones that are longer in length than depth. They all want to be able to escape quickly and not be caught in the back with a more dominant horse in their way. They will stay with the herd group rather than walk off individually to a shelter even if they wanted to so providing adequate shelter doesn't always mean the size of the building. The herd dynamics make up for some of this too. The lowest horse of the pecking order will not compete for the shelter with a horse further up on the ladder so personal space in the issue for these ones.

So what this really means to us is, we need to go take a look when the weather conditions are nasty to see if all the horses can get the shelter they want and need. We can't assume they are all able to use it efficiently just because it's there.

We built an indoor arena where I leave the doors open and have witnessed all seven of them in there many times. Interesting to note that they all stand very close to the door opening not in the middle or at the back of the building. (The joke around here is we built the most expensive horse shelter there is!)

So get on your rain coat, or your winter jacket and have a look for yourself.:0)
(Don't ya hate it when I give you more homework!)

Elaine Polny
Horses by Nature