Creative corralling, or, take a chair

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

On one of our recent rainy days, I needed to clean my horse Ben’s stall – badly; he’d been confined in it for at least 24 hours because of the weather. He’s a good fellow about stall cleaning with him in it, moving where he’s told and waiting patiently, but I wanted to strip the thing. I could have put him out in his paddock, but decided to give him a treat – a bit of grazing while I worked.

Now, we don’t have any grassed paddocks at our barn. But there is a grassy area beside the main barn that, with some handy if offbeat materials and a bit of ingenuity, can be turned into a makeshift corral if the horse is a very good guy about barriers.

So out Ben went, to graze happily, though the lack of any equine companions did leave him a touch uneasy. Normally there’d be horses in the adjoining paddock, but everyone was tucked away. I kept looking over from the shedrow where I was mucking to check on Ben every couple of minutes and walked over there frequently so he could see me and be reassured.

He did well. He worried at times and when his stall was ready he was happy to return to its security, but all in all it was a pleasant interlude for him.

And yes, of course I took photos!

2

Heh heh. That’s clever. :slight_smile:

3

Cute. I love that balance between a fence is a way to keep the horse in, others out, and a purely psychological barrier saying these are the boundaries.

4

Thanks for the pics, but unfortunately, they were not kitty pics.

5

Oh, yeh, the psychological barrier can be as powerful as a physical one, especially if the horse is acquainted with the idea of electric fences. My late QH gelding, Nick, was very good about boundary lines. Once when he was recovering from a minor ailment that kept him from turnout, I made him a tiny grass paddock next to the shedrow, using yellow plastic caution tape from wall to tree to upturned wheelbarrow to doorway. He stayed inside it, never even tried to test it.

Well, until the day he finished off all the grass and leaned over the tape to grab for greenery outside, accidentally broke the tape, and finally realized he could go through it without consequences.

6

Sorry about that. Will these do?

7

Excellent.