Summer At The Stables: Caring for Horses in the Months of Sunshine

Life is in full swing here at Amazing Grace Stables. Every week is packed full of chores, lessons, and preparations! Summer is a time to have fun, making good use of these cooler mornings and long evenings. But it’s also a time of hard work. Each season presents its own unique challenges to horse owners and summer is no different. There’s always more to do and so many things to keep a close eye on! 

Come take a peek at what is going on at the barn right now.

Keeping Cool:

Isn’t this on all of our minds right now?! We’ve had some intense weather and we’re sure to have more in the next couple of months. And my horses are definitely feeling the heat. Dolly seems to have the hardest time during the summer. She spent nearly half her life in northern Wisconsin before coming to Missouri. And though she has adjusted more through the years, it’s still clear to see that it’s not her favorite time of year! I always want to keep our horses as comfortable as possible. And when it comes to heat, we sometimes have to get creative. Obviously, shade is crucial; no horse should ever be without access to it. Our girls will often come stand in the barn for the hottest parts of the day or graze near the tree lines. But that’s often not enough to keep them cool. So we have fans, usually a box fan for each stall. They love it! They’ll come to stand in front of them for hours! On some of the hottest times, I’ll offer them a chance to get misted down with the hose. Cutter is the biggest fan of this!

Staying Hydrated:

A horse, at rest on a pleasant day, drinks 8 gallons each day on average. So how much do they have to drink during the summer? At rest, they’ll have between 10 to 15 gallons. But during times of high heat, exercise, or stress, that can be 3 to 4 times more than that (Like 60 gallons!)! So the importance of keeping buckets and water troughs clean and full at all times cannot be stressed enough. I like to have multiple sources of water available so that all horses can have easy access to water at the same time. If I suspect that one of my horses may not be getting enough water, I will do the ‘pinch test’. It’s a quick and easy way to check. First, I will stand by my horse's neck and gently pinch a fold of skin, where the neck joins the should, between my thumb and forefinger. When I release the skin, I watch how long it takes for the skin to flatten out to normal. A healthy horse’s skin springs back almost immediately; if the skin slowly goes back or stays ‘tented’, the horse is dehydrated and needs attention.

Haying Time:

Hay is getting ready for winter's cold in summer's heat. It’s the hot and often hard process of cutting, raking, and baling healthy grasses to have enough stored away for the long months of winter. While many people will buy their hay, my brothers and I bale it ourselves. 

Haying is a job that has to work around the weather. It must be done on the hottest days and when there is no rain. Should it rain on your haying process you’ll get lower-quality hay and mold quickly grows - definitely not what we want to feed our horses! Planning our haying days means constantly checking the weather forecast and watching the sky. We were blessed with a good first crop of hay already in June and we will be cutting more this month as well. 

There are many different ways to bale hay, such as small squares (weighing about 40 - 60 lbs each), large square bales (weighing about 800 - 1400 ), or even small or large round bales (weighing between 600 - 1700 lbs). I like using the small squares for our horses, easier for me to carry and feed and to watch out for contaminates as well.

Summertime with horses can be busy, but it’s also filled with a multitude of blessings: watching the horses graze in the late afternoon, seeing the sun glint off their shiny coats, riding under a full moon at 70 degrees and so much more. As we take this first step into July, I am looking forward to the many beautiful adventures I, my horses, and my students will have throughout this summer!

 Want to know my tips for keeping cool while riding horses? Check out my other blog post: Best the Heat from the Saddle - World's Best Ways that Don't Cost A Dime