Normal Daily Scenarios for Horse Barn Members
A) All barn members are expected to clean their stalls, set up their horses’ feed, and change their water everyday. If you do not ride, expect to spend about one hour a day here (not including horse watch or other responsibilities). If you do ride expect to spend about two to three hours at the barn.
B) In addition to regular chores, there may have a chore such as sweeping the aisles or cleaning the wash stall.
C) A morning and evening feeder is provided to give horses hay, grain, and water at 7am and 5pm.
D) Each week members put in three hours total of horse watch, where members are required to be at the barn while horses are turned out in electric tape fencing. A chore per hour (i.e. sweeping, turning the horses in/out) is also expected during the horse watch.
E) A total of three weekend blocks of horse watch a semester are also a must for each barn member. These blocks are four hours long.
F) Every night a week, two members come to the barn between the hours of 9-11pm and give the horses hay and fresh water. Each pair chooses a night of the week to do night check. This takes about a half an hour.
G) There are four three-hour workdays
during the academic year at which the barn is completely cleaned for
various events. This activity is mandatory.
“A Day in the Life of a UVM Horse Barn Member”
I am a freshman at the University of Vermont, and I am an Animal Science student majoring in Pre-veterinary medicine. I am taking 17 credits right now during my second semester here. These credits include inorganic chemistry and a lab, animal science 43, plus a calculus course, an English course, and psych 1. Oh did I mention that I have a horse in the barn? So as a pre-vet freshman, I have learned time management. Usually, I have to plan my time very wisely at the barn. I have planned my horse watch to be in one three-hour block so I only have it once a week, and I have a few days a week planned that I have time to ride. On days that I do not have a lot of time, I come to the barn, do my stall, clean my water buckets, and fill my grain buckets. I then make sure that all my chores are done for the day before I go in the tack room to get ready to go to class or back to the dorm. I usually chat for a minute or two with my friends, and then its off I go. When a get to ride, I try to do all my chores first so they are out of the way. If I am around at 4 p.m., I try to help out with bring in and feeding. I have to admit that it’s a huge time commitment to have my horse here, more so than I expected, but it is completely worth it.
Last modified May 10 2005 12:51 PM
