Owning horses, especially when they live on your property, can feel like a full-time job. (And for professional horse people, it is!) Their daily care starts in the morning and continues into the evening, with breaks in between.
Because every horse is different, living conditions vary by region, and everyone’s reasons for owning a horse are unique, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a daily care routine. The most important thing you can do is make sure you provide:
- Quality nutrition and hydration.
- A safe place for them to seek protection from the elements.
- Routine veterinary and farrier care.
- And all the love you can give.
Creating a daily routine from scratch can be overwhelming. But if you’ve surrounded yourself with a quality care team, they can help you create the best plan to fit your horse’s needs, your abilities, and your budget.
Special Schedule Situations
Time of year can affect when and how you do certain things in your daily horse care routine. In spring, for instance, you might need to change the time of day you turn your horse out on fresh grass—dangerous sugar levels are highest in the afternoon and evening. On hot summer days, horses might be more comfortable indoors under a fan and getting turned out at night. Then there’s the threat of weather, with storms, excessive rain, or dry spells causing you to adjust your horse care routine. Speak with other horse owners in your area to find out what they do when it comes to turnout and care for their horses during different seasons.
Real-Life Scenario: Katie and her Minis
Katie Miller has owned Miniature Horses since 2018. She currently has six Minis in her Lebanon, Indiana, barn and shows them in driving and halter classes. Upon getting into the breed, she did a lot of research on how to best care for her Minis. She didn’t want them to become typical “chubby ponies,” because obesity and excess body condition can be dangerous for their health.
“Part of being a responsible horse owner is surrounding yourself with knowledgeable people,” Miller says. “I’ve been really fortunate to have a great team of professionals, such as veterinarians and farriers, and pony-loving peers that have helped me shape my daily routine. I’m always open to new ideas on how to best care for these little equines, and this industry is full of wonderful people who are willing to help.”
Here is Miller’s typical daily horse care routine for her Minis:
Morning
- Feed high-quality grass hay.
- Water while the horses are eating hay.
- Give grain and supplements. She prefers to feed a low sugar and starch ration with lots of protein, fiber, and fats.
Afternoon
- Groom the ponies, which includes checking their feet and redoing any braids or tails that need to be put up. The driving ponies wear braids and tailbags to protect their manes and tails.
- Work the show ponies. During the show season, they usually get 20-30 minutes of work three times a week. Miller says this typically means two sessions in long lines working on fitness and self-carriage and one session hitched to a cart, with a little halter practice at the end.
- Massage, stretch, and liniment the driving horses. Miller is a big believer in at-home therapies for performance horses. After the driving ponies work, she massages them with a hand-held massage gun, stretches them according to her equine chiropractor’s advice, and applies all-natural liniment to their bodies.
- Turnout. Miller puts properly fitted grazing muzzles on all her Minis and ponies and turns them out in a small field with limited grass for two to three hours. This prevents them from overindulging on sugar-rich grasses—which can cause metabolic issues and associated laminitis—while also keeping them in show shape.
- Clean stalls, scrub buckets, and toss hay while the horses are turned out.
Evening
- Feed their evening helping of high-quality grass hay.
- Top off any waterers that need it.
- Give grain and supplements.
- Double-check the stalls to ensure all horses’ manure output is normal and to ensure they’re safe and comfortable for the night.
Real Life Scenario: Hope and her Training Horses
Hope Taylor is a horse owner and trainer based in Central Texas, where she and her two daughters work together to train, retrain, and finish horses of all breeds, disciplines, and sizes. Having previously lived in Illinois and Kentucky, she has quickly learned that feeding and caring for horses is very different in Texas than up north.
“There were definitely some learning curves to caring for horses (in Texas),” says Taylor. “First off, I’d never heard of so many colics in my life. Everyone’s horses were always colicking! Up north, we were used to abundant grass and Timothy/orchard grass hay. Here, folks don’t always have the option of grass, and coastal Bermuda is our ‘home hay.’ Hand in hand, these were the main culprits of so much colic. I share all of this as my goal quickly became how to get our Texas horses to live a very natural lifestyle to keep their sensitive systems happy and still be able to utilize our state sources.”
Here is Taylor’s typical daily horse care for her and her clients’ horses:
Morning
- All the horses live outside 24/7 with seasonal grass and free-choice netted coastal Bermuda hay. However, they have stalls for feeding and escape from inclement weather.
- Morning starts with the horses coming into the barn for their feed or ration balancer and alfalfa, if needed.
- Taylor hangs a haynet of coastal Bermuda in each stall for the horses to nibble on while she checks water buckets. “This allows the excitement of mealtime to dissipate and puts a little forage in the belly if they were snoozing prior to coming up (to the barn),” she explains. Then she distributes feed/balancer and alfalfa.
- While the horses eat, Taylor grabs a pitchfork and wheelbarrow and heads out to the two ¾-acre pastures to pick up manure. Everything gets collected and dumped on the manure pile, except during peak growing season and heavy rains. “During this time, I just need my pitchfork to spread each pile in the field (think of becoming a human manure sprinkler),” she says.
- Taylor also sweeps out the “snack shacks” (24-by-24-foot covered and matted areas with feeders and netted round bales), disposes of soiled hay, and checks troughs.
Noon/Afternoon
- After morning chores, it’s time to start training, groundwork, and rides. Taylor gathers the tack she needs and pulls horses from their stalls one by one. If she’s teaching lessons off-property, she splits training rides between morning and afternoon/evening.
- After training, all the horses go back out to pasture, and Taylor cleans and preps the barn and stalls for the evening.
Evening
- The horses come back in for dinnertime. They munch while Taylor once again picks manure from the pastures and tidies “snack shacks,” then quickly turns the horses back out.
- On bad weather days, Taylor keeps the horses up in the barn. “During the day, I hay and pick stalls every three hours,” she says. “This allows me to ensure manure output matches input. The last nighttime hay feeding is also tripled.”
Make Daily Horse Care Work for You
The beauty of backyard horse-keeping is the flexibility. Some horse owners prefer early morning rides, others groom or do barn chores at night. Some horses are easy keepers, while others need more hands-on attention. The most important part? Consistency, observation, and adapting to what works best for you and your horse.
Related Reading:
- Year-Round Horse Health Care: What To Do and When
- Timesavers: Ways to Make Barn Chores More Efficient
- Horse Time Commitments: Balancing Life With Ownership
Megan Arszman, a lifelong horsewoman, loves sharing her passion for horses with others, especially her daughter. Together, they enjoy riding their Quarter Horses around their Central Indiana farm and spend weekends showing Miniature Horses and dogs.
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