A Typical Daily Winter Barn Routine

Winter is here! It's cold, snowy, and the days are shorter. Most horse barns have altered their daily barn routine to match the change of season. This many include more hay being fed, horses being brought in at night, and less riding. If you're curious what a typical day looks like, then check it out...

A Winter Morning Routine

Ride and Roam shares her typical morning routine at a horse barn she works at. It includes feeding, turning out, and other barn duties. Each farm will do things slightly different, though most of the chores remain the same.

If you found that interesting, here's another sample winter barn routine...

1. Turn on barn lights and head to feed room.
2. Feed horses their grain (which are currently in their stalls).
3. Feed barn cats and check their water.
4. Check weather and put on blankets if needed.
5. Turn out horses into their dry lots or the indoor if icy or very snowy.
6. Load up slow feeder nets with hay and take out to horses.
7. Check water and make sure it's unfrozen.
8. Clean stalls, fill stall hay nets, and scrub/refill water buckets.
9. Make up grain for the evening feed.
10. Come back at lunchtime to feed horses more hay, if needed.
11. In the evening, bring horses in and feed them their grain.
12. Pick out their hooves, which may have snowballs.
13. Change out blankets or take them off.
14. Check over the barn one last time and close up the doors.

This routine doesn't include riding or lounging, but that is usually done in the morning or afternoon after barn chores are done.

Who's counting the days down till spring...