Have you ever thought about going to a barn or stable? I thought that I would discuss some general barn etiquette that you will want to follow when visiting horses. Most of these rules are pretty universal regardless of the barn that you visit and the general purpose of having rules in the first place is safety.
1. No flip flops
You may be wondering why you can’t wear flip flops to the barn and the main reason is for fear that you might get stepped on. Horses are living breathing beings that can occasionally get scared or just excited and accidentally step on you. If you are wearing boots, this may be momentarily painful or at most leave a bruise. If you choose to wear flip flops you could easily break your toes rather than just bruise them.
2. No running or screaming in barns
Like in the previous rule, and you will see this theme throughout, horses can be easily frightened and adding running screaming humans to the mix doesn’t generally contribute to a stable demeanor in a horse. Imagine I came to your house unannounced and started running and screaming around your living room. You would probably be a little surprised too. Horses are also prey animals so natural selection has made them inherently more fearful than predators like ourselves.
3. No smoking or vaping
If you have read my previous post about the difference between straw and hay, you would know that horses eat hay and straw is used for bedding. It is also worth noting that both of these products are dried out plant matter meaning very combustible. This is why smoking or vaping is a big “no no” because you do not want to be the person that burned the barn down or worse harmed anyone stuck inside.
- Leave all gates and everything else for that matter the way you found it
This is general courtesy because it would be rude to open all of the gates and leave the next person to close all of them after you. It can also be dangerous because if you are not aware of pasture set-ups or who is allowed where then you may be accidentally letting someone where they are not supposed to go. For example, say that two horses that are aggressive toward one another are separated by a fence. One day, you didn’t close the gate to that fence and now these horses are fighting, which could result in one or both becoming injured. It would also be very difficult to intervene due to their size. It can also be dangerous if there are multiple gates and someone has closed all the gates and releases a horse only to realize too late that you opened a gate and the horse is now roaming free is a potentially dangerous area.