My name is Brownie and I’m a bay quarter horse who’s been around a while. I’m highly opinionated about what makes me happy, especially in the winter. When my humans know how to winterize my barn, life is better. Some owners I’ve had in the past were not good at maintaining my horse barn. Those were hard winters for me, so I came up with some helpful tips on winterizing prefabricated horse barns, right from the horse’s mouth.
Look at the big picture. Does the roof need to be repaired? Are the gutters, downspout and drainage pipes functional? Next look at all the walls, both exterior and interior for needed repairs. Being stuck inside a stall with a leaky roof, and having no opposable thumbs to do anything about it is miserable.
Clean inside the barn. Rats and groundhogs can be a problem for disease and even broken legs, so get rid of them and fill their holes with gravel. Cleaning the ceilings, interior walls and floors of spider webs and old manure helps prevent lung issues. Besides getting rid of dust and germs, fresh wood chips or bedding hay smell wonderful. Ask any equine; he’ll agree.
Fix doors and windows. A little WD-40 will keep hinges working even on the coldest winter days. It’d be unfortunate to have an open window on a warm winter day, only to freeze that night because the hinge got stuck.
Food and water. My favorite things need to be kept fully stocked at all times. It’s about equine priorities. Oh yeah, and winterized. I need water that isn’t frozen, so that means I need to be able to get to the creek anytime, you carry water to me twice a day, or the automatic waterer needs to be winterized with wrapped pipes and/or heat tape. Rodents will nest in or near my feed, so please use rodent-proof metal cans with lids. Mice “sign” does not taste good, and can’t be healthy to eat. It doesn’t take much to make me happy. Pick ice out of my feet every day and brush mud off my coat. Except for bitterly cold days, I don’t even need a horse blanket. But I do like my modular horse barn to be my equestrian haven. If you need even more tips, talk to Carolina Storage Solutions. They know what a horse needs. Tell them Brownie sent you.