What all is Included in Boarding

Horses have 24/7/365 turnout on a track system and have the ability to move and make choices for themselves. Our barn and track were built after hiring Amy Dell (author of Horse Track Systems) as a consultant to help us with our set up. So literally the girl who wrote the book on this management style had her hand in our property set up!

Barn was built with horses in mind. Ventilation control, two large entry/exit doors to minimize entrapment risk, 10' overhang on east side of the barn, concrete flooring with mats. Horses have choice in whether to use actual shelter, overhang shelter, or timber for natural shelter.

 1/3 of a mile track on a hillside with about 70' of elevation difference from the top of the track to the bottom. Track has mostly dirt footing through open field, along treelines, and through timber. Pasture access available to poor doers who are not metabolic. See this video to see our track!

Hay is provided in hay stations around the track. Some are ground level, some on trees and hanging. These stations do move around the track so it isn't always the same, promoting more foraging activity. Hay at the bottom of the pasture includes about 20-30%  alfalfa in the grass hay to encourage movement to higher valued forage. It is available at all times to horses. Hay is of various species and from various fields to provide diverse forage. 

Supplementation is necessary to round out a forage only diet. Horses are fed once per day a pound of timothy pellets or alfalfa/beet pulp pellets, depending on the horse's needs, and is top dressed or made in to a mash with a balancer, 2-4 Tbs salt (depending on weather conditions), and a serving of Vitamin E since almost all horses are deficient in  Vit. E., especially those with hay only diets. Any additional feed/supplement to be fed can be bought by owner and fed by us. 

Part of the joy of track systems are the different ways that horses can experience more natural features providing different benefits. Currently, the enrichment comes from various and changing hay stations at different heights; various footings to traverse; various salt stations including Himalayan and a regular salt block; three different ways to shelter themselves; and living in a herd with other horses. There is a 150'x150' paddock with the shelter connecting to the track so there is also a space to be silly and nap off the track. 

Half of the barn is available to the horses as part of their shelter. The other half is for hay storage, tacking up rack, and the tack room. Again, built with ventilation and openness in mind. The more open, the more inviting to a horse. Better ventilation for better respiratory health, breeze in the summer, and optimally closed during winter.  

The tack room was built with the PERSON in mind! It is climate controlled with a dehumidifier. This helps with quality of feed storage, medication and supplement stabilization, and maintaining quality tack. There is a mini fridge for your snacks or drinks or medications, tack cleaning station, racks for blanket drying, your own locking tack locker with maximal ventilation, a small equine library that you can borrow books from, and a small area for rider fitness to prepare to ride. All boarders will receive two totes; one for their summer fly gear and one for blankets/winter gear. These will be stored outside the tack room so tack lockers aren't crowded with this equipment and so it is easily available. 

Outdoor 20m x 40m (70' x 140') small dressage arena that was professionally built. It was built with a solid limestone base that drains very well with swales built around it to help shed water. It has 2-3" of angular sand as a top footing. Set against a beautiful backdrop of timber along the south edge, providing great shade. There are also books with exercises near the arena to get inspired! Ground poles and cones provided for targeted exercises.

We are providing video surveillance access to our boarders. This includes video of the inside of the tack room, the run-in shelter, and the paddock. This allows owners to check in on their horses at any time.  We recognize that we are off the beaten path and you may have a horse that doesn't need ridden much that lives here. The idea is so that you can still check in with your horse if you're wondering how they are doing without having to make the trek to the barn. We will also provide frequent updates to you with pictures of your horse living their best life. 

We truly will treat your horse as one of our own. We will apply fly spray once per day during fly season, provide frequent relief of fly gear during the overnight hours a few times per week, we will blanket (owner provided) as necessary (excessive switching of blankets may incur additional fees). We do have coolers available if a horse is found wet and cold, which we will leave them tied with hay net until dried and discussion of being blanketed. We will hose horses down in the hot weather if they are found to be sweaty. We will do basic veterinary cares (ointments, eye drops, basic wound care, etc) if needed, anything requiring significant time will incur additional fees (such as frequently needed cold hosing, multiple medication doses per day, etc). A first aid kit is available for use during initial and primary care until veterinarian or owner can provide their own supplies for treatments. We also live on the property which means eyes are on the herd often.

You are allowed to park one trailer on the property at no additional cost. 

Additional features are going to be added to the track starting in spring of 2026. This will include sand rolling pit, sections of rock and pea gravel, logs to traverse, scratching posts, dirt mound to climb, and different enrichment activities. In the long term, we would like to create this into a full hardstanding track (better for manure management, hoof health, and mud control...however our muddy times are short lived). 

We are hoping that in the spring of 2026 we will also make some arena upgrades. This will include fencing the arena off to allow liberty work, adding a few inches of sand to the arena, hitching post near the arena, landscaping, and adding letters of a small dressage arena. Longer term goals will include building a pergola at the west end, or C, so that you can practice a test to a scary judges area, allow a visitor to enjoy a seating area while you ride, and possibly coordinate future clinics and training sessions.

Those who have built tracks will say to make them moveable as you start in the process. Which is where we are at! Once we figure out the best layout for our land and our herd, we will build a much better fence with wood posts and horse safe woven wire. 

We are wanting to build two pens that will be near each other and close to the track/herd but far enough away that biosecurity isn't an issue. This will be an area that new horses will come to on arrival for a quarantine period. It will also be an area available for those needing stall rest or containment prior to events. It will be more like a dry lot, enough room for movement but not enough to get too silly. It will have its own shelter. Use of this will be an additional daily fee (excluding for new horses) due to the extra cleaning required. 

We want to add an on demand hot water heater in the future so that it is available for baths, cleaning things in cold weather, making warm mashes, etc. 

We will add additional rock and drainage around the property to make it easy for parking, hooking up your trailer, and also not getting muddy when it rains. We plan to increase our landscaping around the property for a better look and to also help the wild things around the property (like native flowers and grasses, natural bug repellant plants like mint and lemongrass around human hangout areas, and large rocks). 

As we move into needing hay 24/7/365 from a previously "normal" horse keeping method of feeding hay only in winter, we want to find a consistent hay supplier who we will exclusively deal with to ensure that hay is cut to be the lowest sugar and also be a mature and diverse field and to avoid any weeds/toxic sprays. We will also test our hay to make sure it is safe for metabolic horses. We will then tailor our supplements to match the deficiencies. Currently, we have good QUALITY hay and good quality general balancers.

We do use cows to graze our middles...with cows comes flies. Even without our cows, our neighbors have them, too. Plus horses poop a lot. We will provide feed through fly control to the cows, we will use fly traps and possibly predators to help cut down even more. We will have an industrial bug zapper in the barn. We have chickens that free range and pick through the poop. We also will use an active compost pile to kill larvae of worms and flies. 

We will never know it all and research will keep emerging. Our knowledge will grow and as it does, we will adapt to provide the best for the horses. Everything we will do will be guided by horse welfare. Anything we currently do is because of this, so ask us all the questions!