Best Horse Barns for Your Horse | Bay Area CA

Deciding how to keep your horse is often a challenge for many owners. The benefits of pasture care seem to outweigh those of stabling your horse full time. Pasture care boosts your horse’s mental, physical, and social health, and your budget as well. However, having an adequate place for your horse to seek shelter, get dry food and good water free of the elements and with fewer bugs and flies is super important. Thats why we at Golden State recommend having a smaller barn or shelter for your pasture horse to call home.

Natural Environment

Pasture care best replicates a horse’s natural environment – free access to grass, water, and the ability to move at will. Common vices seen in horses are nearly exclusive to horses kept confined for most their days – these include wood chewing, cribbing, weaving, wall kicking, pawing, digging, or stall-walking. The basis of many of these vices lies in boredom, isolation, and insufficient exercise, all of which are linked to stable only care. However in a horses natural environment there are typically caves, rock overhangs and dense groupings of trees that help provide much needed shelter for the horse. Bringing your horse into a stable or shelter at night can protect them from the elements and allow them a warm and comfortable place to eat and sleep away from predators.

Shelter in the Winter

Some may worry that horses won’t be comfortable outside, especially in the winter months. However, this is where having a horse barn is beneficial to your horse. A barn can help keep them warm and dry during the cold winter months. The barn is also helpful during rain, excessive wet weather can cause skin problems for your horse. It can also cause mold to grow in leftover hay which can make the horse sick. Having your horse in a barn also makes it easier for the owner, it’s simpler to monitor feed consumption, the horses may stay cleaner, and grooming is effortless.

A combination of a horse stabled and in the pasture is your best option, it keeps your horse both happy and healthy.

Contact Us

Get in touch with us at Golden State with any questions about our horse barns or shelters. You can contact us on our website by using the contact form. We will get back to you as soon as possible