The Big Purple Barn, A Sanctuary

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Bowie, MD
The Big Purple Barn, A Sanctuary

Providing a lifetime of comfort and care to our sanctuary animals and connecting our community.

The Big purple Barn, located at Hidden Haven Farm, is a non profit organization that seeks to promote the horse human bond through innovative education and outreach programs we offer to the community that utilize our resident equines. We provide a permanent home and care to 15 special needs equines from our work with local rescues. We provide volunteer opportunities, horse care education, riding l

essons, day camps and various programs throught the year. Our volunteer staff is highly trained, our resident horses are personable and eager to interact with people and our programs are are geared towards teaching people about the joys and responsibilities of horses.

08/26/2025

Honor is making huge progress now 🙌! We are working on a full update for him, but we couldn't be happier that he is making friends. He is slowly building a relationship with Miles which is what we had hoped for 🥰. Friendship is critical to their mental health and well-being. Watch for a full update coming soon!

08/26/2025

Jewel seems to be a magnet for fairies 🧚‍♀️! I must remove this particular knot at least once a week if I am not on top of making sure she's brushed and deranged daily! They say if your horse gets these, they are a favorite mount of fairies to ride in the night! Jewel must be a busy girl ❤️ If you get these on your horse, you can remove them without cutting! Apply some conditioner/detangler first. I use something with silicone like show sheen or cowboy magic. Then work from the bottom up. Typically, these are several sections of hair twisted together and held near the lowest point of the hair strands. This took about 10 minutes to hand detangle and brush through. I then applied more conditioner and brushed through the entire mane. Voila! Beautiful 😍

08/26/2025

Teefs! Because Owen is rhe cutest 😍

08/26/2025

Sometimes, having only one ear causes wardrobe malfunctions 🤭 We are always checking Jewel's fly 🪰 mask to be sure she hasn't slipped it sideways. She needs it in the summer to protect her eyes from dust, UV rays and pesky bugs. It does give us some entertaining moments 🤣.

08/26/2025

Good morning farm family!

Zoe is checking ✔️ in to see how everyone is doing. We love seeing all of the back to school 🏫 posts as kids headed back for another school year. We will be headed back to work soon as our fall/holiday season kicks off in September! Where has the year even gone 😕!?

Zoe is helping develop our events and activities as we work on planning 📆this week. Yep, while the kids head back to school, we head to the desk💻. This is a significant transitional time for us. Many of our volunteers are back to school, sports and activities and that means shift changes. Whenever we are short handed, I cover. We will be hosting another volunteer 🙋‍♀️ orientation in September to help fill in the gaps in the schedule. The days are getting shorter, the mornings will be getting cooler and we will be working hard to help the animals transition as well as adding back in our community engagement events and programs.

There is much to be done and I'm working 💪 as hard as I can. Being inside at the computer is my least favorite place. I'd rather be out with the animals and the people who participate in programs here. We've got some updates to work on and some news to bring you so be sure to keep checking in with us each morning!

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

08/25/2025

Good morning farm family,

Happy Monday! So many kids 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️👨‍🦽 are headed back to school this week and labor day weekend is fast approaching. We are officially entering that transition period between summer and fall which rolls right into the holiday 👻🦃🌲 season. Wasn't it just March like 3 weeks ago!? 😳 It seems like time ⏲️ is passing at lightning ⚡️ speed right now and I need it to slow 🐌down!

These faces want to know what is in store for coming weeks and months! The little break I got gave me the chance to pause and look at things with a little more clarity and I have work to do. I've been talking with volunteers 🙋‍♂️ who have great ideas, conversing with my fellow horse 🐎industry peers, looking for new insights and inspiration ✨️ and now it's time to start putting those things together. I've certainly got my work cut out for me! But I feel ready. I've had the opportunity to more properly mourn the losses of the year and it's time now to move us forward once again. Keep watching the page this week as I catch everyone up and unveil some of our upcoming events, activities and new classes!

Speaking of catching up, I hope you notice something in this photo! That's Honor 🎖standing behind Bruce, Bugatti and Zoe! He continues to make progress integrating into his group and we are so excited for him. I'll be making a post this week on his progress, but I wanted to make sure he checked in with you. This was quite a welcome and heartwarming 💕 sight to me when I resumed feed duties.

Please have a wonderful Monday and be careful of those kids headed back to school. Be kind to one another and spread some smiles today. The world is a scary place right now, especially in our own backyard, but we can all continue to be beacons of light 🕯for one another.

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

08/24/2025

Good morning farm family!

What a wild week! I escaped to Dewey Beach 🌊last week to try to reset before the big fall/holiday rush. What I expected was a few days in the sun ☀️ with my partner and our barn dogs, Sailor and Gadget. What we got was a wild week featuring the coastal effects of Hurricane 🌀 Erin! I've literally never experienced anything like that in my life, and we had it pretty easy for our little section of the Delaware coastline.

We did get one absolutely beautiful day ✨️and took full advantage of it. We also leaned into the stormy weather 🌧and made the absolute most of our trip. The power of nature is something awe inspiring to behold.

While we were gone, we had an absolutely amazing group of volunteers 🙋‍♀️ who stepped up and pitched in to make sure everything was taken care of. Our VP and Assistant Director, Taylor, really took the reins so to speak, and made sure Abby was well cared for and continued to support Honor's integration as well as overseeing evening care. We can't do what we do here without our community of care which includes volunteers, donors and our friends who share, interact and support our work.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the computer 🖥 , refreshed, ready to tackle a week of back logged office work and getting the fall schedule posted. I've got emails to answer, voice mail and texts to respond to, a newsletter to write, and website updates as well. This has truly been one of the hardest years I've trudged through, but the love of our community lifts me up and helps me press on. Im actually looking forward to planning out the next few months and I truly hope to see you at one of our events!

Tomorrow, our regularly scheduled daily updates will resume! And boy, do we have a LOT of updates to get to! Be sure to follow along and see what we've been up to and what we have in store.

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara
📸 of me, Gadget and Sailor

08/19/2025

Bodi is feeling this crazy weather week!

He's also here to remind you the barn is closed this week aside from our routinely scheduled volunteers who provide hands on care. We are taking a week to recover from the busy and HOT summer and prepare for the roll out of our fall and holiday programs and activities.

Your messages and calls will be returned next week when we reopen! Thank you for your continued support of our animals and programs. We hope to see you soon!

08/15/2025

Good morning farm family!

Jewel 💎 is sending out good weekend vibes! Today is a busy day with the farrier. That means trimming 14 sets of hooves and checking in on Abby and her special shoes. It's a long day for both us and the farrier.

Beginning this weekend, the barn will close for one week for all programs with the exception of our volunteer program. Daily care will always continue! We are closing down for a week to allow the animals a little down time to recover😴 from an action packed summer of camps, visits, a new horse arrival, and other activities. In just a few weeks, busy fall 🍂 season will be upon us and it will be nonstop until the holidays🎃🎄🎉.

Where has the time gone!? The days are already getting shorter, the leaves are changing slightly and the animals are preparing for their winter coats to come in. We just want to hold on to these last days of summer ☀️ and we certainly don't feel like we've accomplished everything we set out to. It's been a rough year for us all.

While the barn will be quiet for a week, the expenses 💲still pile up. We just got in a load of shavings and a load of hay 🌾and today we will purchase feed for the animals. This is in addition to our current vet bill and paying the farrier. I know I sound like a broken record all of the time asking for support, but we can't do what we do without our community. We appreciate each and every donor and your dollars go directly to the care of the animals.

It's $5 Friday so please consider just a $5 donation to help us continue to provide the best care for the animals in residence and to continue to be an integral part of our community. ❤️ We hope to see you at one of our upcoming events beginning in September!

Yours in gratitude 🙏, love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

08/14/2025

Good morning farm family,

Today marks week 4. One whole month, which seems like forever, and yet just a blink of the eye. Honor 🎖 has been here for four weeks now and so much has happened.

1. He had to learn his first turn out area, the round pen. This came with leading in and out daily and the patterns that came with it.

2. About a week later, we introduced him to night turn out in the round pen and day turn out with Zoe and Maggie. A whole new field, new horses to meet, and new patterns.

3. Learning about his stall and where his own personal food and space were. We had several hiccups including a popped off door, a broken guard over his feed area and a shattered front wall board. Most of his stall mishaps happened around feeding time. We learned he is very anxious over food and perceived lack of access to it, which is understandable and we can help with that.

4. Learning new neighbors both in turn out and in the stall.

5. Learning to be brushed and handled. He really got this quickly because he genuinely loves attention.

6. A NEW turnout schedule that finally included overnights in his permanent group as well as daytime stall rest with fans and food.

7. Making new friends and practicing herd dynamics and behaviors.

This is A LOT and he has generally been such a good boy about all of these changes. He has had to learn one pattern and then learn another. We are getting to know him better and understand his anxieties, his triggers and things he enjoys. We are working to support him at each step of this journey. Tomorrow is a farrier appointment, which is yet another new thing on his plate, but an important step in helping him feel his best. We will let him have another few weeks of his new group turn out before slowly introducing new skills and activities for him and use that time to continue to get to know him and improve the support we give him.

Thank you for being a part of his journey here ❤️ at his forever home! This is marathon, and not sprint. We have time 🥰.

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

08/12/2025

Good morning farm family,

As I say often, there is so much happening day to day they I don't post about, it's sometimes hard to decide what deserves and update. Today I'm updating everyone on Abby.

As you may remember, 2 summers ago, Abby started acting "off" and just not herself. We tried several things that had no effect before finally doing some bloodwork. Over the next several months, she would test positive for Lyme, cushings and equine metabolic syndrome. The EMS would eventually evolve into full blown insulin dysregulation and she would experience bouts of laminitis. Her feed, medications, and treatment protocols are evaluated and adjusted constantly and I communicate with the vet and farrier regularly.

This last bout of laminitis, which began over the winter, has been the most challenging. Whenever you get an illness or injury, we hope to see a general linear progression of improvement. We'll, this has been a wild roller-coaster with dips, hills, turns, and we might have been trapped upside down for a bit. I have leaned into an online support community to compare notes, began researching more, and working with the health-care team to come up with solutions. Thankfully Abby is a smart pony who rests when she needs to and seems to know what is best for her.

We recently got her feeling pretty stable and decided, since I'm going on my ONE annual vacation, to get her the soft ride clogs. These clogs are glue on shoes with a dome underneath on the surface that touches the ground, creating almost like a balance ball effect. The shoe is designed to add protection to the sole depth, provide cushion for the coffin bone and ease break over. A special gel is injected into the space between the shoe and the hoof to create a custom orthotic.

When we applied Abby's shoes, her left front foot, which was clinically the worst, immediately became better. She got instant comfort. The right front, which had take a lot of load from her painful left front, became worse. Our farrier and I worked through some different scenarios to see if it was the shoe. We removed it, had her walk flat, had her walk in a boot and then decided it was best to reset the shoe and leave both feet protected, because she walked thesame no matter what. We surmised it wasn't the hoof that was painful, but the tendon. I noticed mild swelling and some heat in that overloaded right leg.

So began the next phase of trying to help Abby. Abby went into a resting phase of laying down more agsin, and resting her feet and legs. We gave her the option to limit her movement as she didn't seem ready to walk much. I started wrapping her legs overnight with supportive bandages to help support the tendons and help them recover. We added back her secondary pain medication and just started applying diclofenac cream to her tendons.

I think this setback wouldn't have felt so significant if we hadn't put so much faith in some kind of amazing magic from the shoes. Almost everything we read and watched talked about how game changing they would be. We had them applied by one of the best farriers in our region. It was heartbreaking NOT to get that magical and miraculous improvement. But the horses here don't do ANYTHING by the books, so why should this be any different?

However, throughout this period, Abby has remained in good spirits. She's been eating well and pooping well and kept her sassy attitude. She is generally compliant with any care she needs. She is patient and I know she's just on her own healing journey and trusting us to support her every step of the way. She's finally, noticeably improving in comfort and she even felt good enough to make a break out of the back of the barn the other day! Our farrier will be out Friday to trim the other horses and take a look at Abby. We have faith we are on the right track, it's just a more scenic route at the moment. We can't give up!

Did you know that Abby's specialty care for rhe past 2 years is approaching the $10,000 mark? She requires specialty feed, prescription medications, special supplements, specialty farrier care and additonal supplies. Your support helps us keep our residents, like Abby, comfortable and cared for no matter what happens!

Send Abby some love and good thoughts 💕.

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

08/11/2025

Happy Monday farm family!

Let's talk hooves. You know, the big toenail at the end of each leg of a horse? Hooves are the very foundation of the horse. There is an old saying, "no hoof, no horse," and it couldn't be more true. Horses with hoof issues require far more care and management. Things like poor quality hooves, aging hooves, damaged hooves, laminits and even nutritional deficiency can affect the hoof.

Horses are designed to carry approximately 60% of the weight load on the front hooves and 40% on the back hooves. That means each front hoof takes a 30% load and each back hoof takes a 20% load. When a horse has a hoof issue that cause the load to be distributed incorrectly, that can cause catastrophic limb failure over time. While strong, the very makeup of a hoof is a delicate balance that has to be protected snd maintained.

From and AI overview:
A horse's hoof is a complex, multi-functional structure that supports the animal's weight, absorbs shock, provides traction, and facilitates movement. It's a vital part of the horse's anatomy, acting as both a protective barrier and a shock absorber.

Here's a breakdown of the hoof's key functions:

✅️Weight Bearing:
The hoof wall, particularly the outer layer, is designed to bear the horse's weight, distributing it across the foot.

✅️Shock Absorption:
The hoof's various structures, including the digital cushion and frog, help to absorb the impact of each stride, protecting the bones and joints.

✅️Traction:
The hoof provides grip and traction on different surfaces, preventing slipping and facilitating movement.

✅️Circulation:
The hoof contains a network of blood vessels that contribute to blood circulation, returning blood from the lower limb back to the heart.

✅️Protection:
The hoof wall acts as a protective barrier for the internal structures of the foot, shielding them from injury and infection.

✅️Communication:
The hoof contains nerve endings that can send signals to the central nervous system, providing sensory information about the ground and the horse's movement.

We work with our farrier every 6 weeks to maintain the best outcomes we can for the horses in residence. It's the single largest healthcare expense we budget for. Each visit is $600. Currently, Abby is on her own schedule due to her laminitis and her recent application of orthotic clogs coming in at $450.

Honor, pictured here, needs some hoof care. You can see his feet are flared wide and breaking. He also has a significant crack in his hind right that we hope is generally superficial. We are keeping his hooves moisturized with hoof dressing. Lucky for him, the farrier is here this week!

If you would like to sponsor a trim, the cost is $45 per horse. Can't do $45? Pitch in $11 and sponsor one hoof! Every dollar makes adifference!

Here is how YOU can help!

👉 click the DONATE button on this post
📫 mail a check to The Big Purple Barn at 6407 Hillmeade Road Bowie MD 20720
🤝PayPal directly at https://www.paypal.me/bigpurplebarnbowie
💳 check out our website for alternative donation options including Google Pay, Venmo, PayPal, credit card and bank transfer (www.thebigpurplebarnbowie.org)

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️ and hoping to help educate along the way,
Tara

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Bowie, MD

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+12406876995

Website

http://www.thebigpurplebarnbowie.org/

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Our Story

The Big Purple Barn was originally called Hidden Haven Farm, and established as a sanctuary for special needs horses and ponies. Since 2001, we have cared for over 25 resident horses, ponies and minis, until their call home to the rainbow bridge. In that time, we provided countless outreach experiences to our community and began community based programs to allow youth and adults a way to learn about and interact with our residents on a personal level in a supportive environment

The concept for The Big Purple Barn emerged in 2010 as a place for people and horses to connect and have the opportunity to learn and grow together. We are pleased to announce our non profit application acceptance in 2013. Prior to this, The Big Purple Barn was part of Hidden Haven Farm, established in 1991 and finding a permanent home in Bowie, MD in 2001. The farm worked closely with local rescue organizations providing a permanent home for special needs horses and ponies and minis as well as providing opportunity and access to the animals and basic riding and horse care programs to the community.

As our relationship in the community deepened, The Big Purple Barn was born out of the needs of our community to provide more focused opportunity to discover horses and provide opportunities for special needs populations as well as community service learning opportunities for local schools. Since 2010, we have expanded our programs to include volunteer opportunities, school and event outreach as well as interactive and educational opportunities for special needs members of our communities. In 2013, we received our 501C3 designation. In 2015 we began accepting new animals into the sanctuary and now we proudly provide a home to pot bellied pigs, sheep and goats! Our programs focus not only on animal care and appreciation, but on land conservation and stewardship and urban agriculture.

08/26/2025

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08/11/2025

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