Shady Grove Stable

01/30/2025

01/28/2025

Soooo thankful for upper 40° weather and sunshine😍🤩🤗it was so fun being able to get a few worked this afternoon FINALLY after weeks of ice, snow, and single digits every day🥶

01/22/2025

Here’s to the owners who are outside every couple of hours to monitor their horses’ health in these frigid temps.

Here’s to the owners who are checking waterers for ice. Here’s to the owners who are freezing their fingers to hang up their hose, or bringing hoses inside their house to keep from freezing.

Here’s to the owners switching blankets, double blanketing, or cleaning out shelters for their unblanketed horses. Here’s to the owners who are worried if their horse is staying warm enough with or without their blanket.

Here’s to the owners who are throwing countless flakes of loose hay out while making sure the round bale feeders don’t go empty.

Here’s to the owners praying that equipment starts, and hydraulics work smoothly. Here’s to the owners who figure it out when the equipment fails you.

Here’s to the messy mud room, filled with winter bibs, charged heated vests, boot dryers plugged in, and headlamps charged. Here’s to the countless pairs of gloves you have to swap out each time you venture outside.

Here’s to the rigorous training schedules, riding lessons, and busy barn coming to a halt. Here’s to putting the health of the animal’s first.

Here’s to the part of horse management that isn’t so glamorous. Thank you for all you are doing for the safety and wellbeing of your horses during this time.

Here’s to all of us ❄️🩵

01/19/2025

I just shared some cool graphics from AAEP on cold weather facts. I know my people all know this but because of the cruel cold snap that is starting this evening I just need to repeat a few things.

1. Water. Horses need ALOT of it, especially in the really hot or really cold weather. They don't like to walk to the water tank when their sheds are nice and comfy and sheltering them from the wind. We won't even talk about the footing in most of our turnouts... Encourage your horse to drink.
Add table salt, plain old table salt (not electrolytes), to their grain or vitamin mineral ration. Think the potato chip reaction.
Take them a bucket of warm water.
Make sure your tank heater is working well. Go break the ice off the tanks multiple times daily in the next few days because even the heated tanks may get iced over in the upcoming temps.
Make a mash out of their daily grain. Hot water over feed or hay pellets softens the pellets quickly, adds some water to their diet and prevents the salt you just added from sinking to the bottom of the pan.

2. Hay. Keep it front of them. Horses generate more heat from digesting hay than they do grain. Even if your horse is a little on the plumper side now is not the time to skimp on the long stem forage. The rationing can resume once the temperatures are a little more reasonable (closer to the 20s).

3. Do not make major changes to your horse's diet or routine in the next 3 days. It is not the time to switch to round bales or start a new grain. It is not the time to stall your feral brumby who doesn't drink well inside and always stresses in the barn. It is ok to do a little pampering (see warm water bucket tip in #1).

Questions? Give the office a call. In the meantime I'll be outside convincing the vet truck heater that it really does want to work in this weather.

01/14/2025

01/11/2025

Snow day!! Everyone is staying warm with lots of hay and dry blankets! They’ve also been loving their time out, romping in the snow ❄️

01/07/2025

Crossed leg straps can easily cause rubbing and/or burns on the horse's legs, especially when the blanket slides around and gets crooked, and the horse tries to get up from laying down.

Looping the straps as shown below keeps the straps safely off of your horse's legs!

01/07/2025

Icey snow day here at Shady Grove!🥶

01/05/2025

During these cold winter days you may be thinking about offering bran mashes to your horse as a warm, comforting treat and also as a way to help prevent colic due to the higher fiber content of bran. This, however, is an outdated concept and nutritionists point out several potential problems associated with feeding bran mash too often—namely, an imbalance of the dietary calcium-phosphorus ratio that could lead to bone disorders, and a disruption of the healthy fermentation patterns in the horse’s intestinal tract.

The best way to help your horse stay warm this winter is by increasing forage 🌾 and providing shelter 🏠 during a cold snap. And as far as the risk of colic, your first line of defense is to provide plenty of water to keep your horse hydrated. 💦

As always, your equine veterinarian remains your best source of information; contact them to learn more about feeding mashes (they are typically not an issue if fed as the occasional treat) and colic prevention this winter.
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Brough to you by the AAEP Horse Owner Education Committee

12/24/2024

A very important reminder courtesy of the horse doctors at Miamitown Equine Veterinary Services:

"When securing blankets, make sure that the snaps/clips are facing inward, toward the horse! If they are facing out, they can easily become stuck on something, like the hay net in the picture."