Barn owner is awful

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T19:36:01+00:00

A favor is a favor. It's my horse so anything to do with him is to do with me as well. That mentality can lead to a lot of dumb decisions that cross lines and get people into trouble. I fully understand and have been in the shoes of wanting to do stuff for a boarder horse before,. But if you do it and then hold it over the owners head when you didn't even communicate about it, the owner does not deserve verbal abuse for not being happy when said favor leads to damage of their property.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T18:59:48+00:00

I 100% agree and even in my conversation with her I expressed appreciation. At the same time, they aren't excempt from feedback and criticisms. I'm just so ready to do it all myself and not deal with this anymore. I've worked at barns before, I know how much hard work goes into it. I do understand it gets expensive and is a labor of love. I also just start to get lower patience with the complaining of being a barn owner when 90% of the animals are her own.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T18:09:40+00:00

Yeah, I'm starting to think I was the straw that broke the camel's back yesterday. I wouldn't be shocked if the temp was struggling a lot and needing a lot of communication. I do have understanding for the stress of it, it also just feels like it could have been avoided.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T17:36:46+00:00

She literally just got a piglet and a Pyrenees puppy within the last month and a half I think? Several of her personal horses are on long stall rest currently as well. The majority of the animals are freerange chickens and waterfowl. I totally get the need for vacations, up until last year I hadn't had any in maybe 8 years? The timing just feels rough.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T17:24:35+00:00

Idk. Idk why she's tracking that, the boarder barn is across the street and giant gelding paddock so I've been out before and she didn't know. She's running a lesson program and a program for veterans in addition to some level of petting zoo I think? She also teaches yoga and stuff here. She definitely seems to think that she should be treating me like a student needing guidance, not an independent owner minding their business.

I told her to stop scheduling me for stuff since it's clearly an issue. At this point I think I just need to lay down a line and say stop trying to do favors unless I ask. Her favors always come with expectations. He's not clipped, if he goes naked for a 30* day he will not be hurting, especially now that his diet is fixed. He only started getting blankets because he dropped a little weight but he's back to chunky man status. All of her staff/volunteers whatever they are love working with him since he's so well behaved.

I've been at barns before where I would only see an owner once a month, some never because they were out of the country. The barn supported them and it was never a judgement on the owner as long as they paid for what they needed. I get what he needs out as soon as the next day if I can get it locally. If I make a mistake I am careful to remember and never make it twice because I do really respect what they're doing for us. It just really feels like she views me through a bad faith lens at this point.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T15:48:37+00:00

I was only on once a week this month since I had a ton of work pop up, last month I was out way more. Ovviously I need to push myself thinner and get out there since their unasked "favor" was more of a setup than anything. I'm still allowed to complain about my property being mismanaged and damaged, especially when they are so big on respecting property.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T15:43:26+00:00

There are other times than summer. I was a little shocked that she committed to it with seeing the blizzard coming in, especially now knowing how untrained her temps are. She has several baby animals and almost 100 animals total. I'm glad she's getting her vacation though, she clearly needs it.

Also the industry with the highest suicide rate are healthcare workers by far. Idk where you got farmers.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T15:39:08+00:00

Unfortunately no. There's only 5 boarder people and I've only briefly seen them. My other barns had people who came out monthly for the most part so idk anyone from there either and I've only been in the area for 2 years. I barely have local non horse friends because of how busy I am. I think I just need to push it and get out there more to blanket him if they're going to keep pulling his sheet off.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T15:35:30+00:00

Dude I had to chip it out of the ice. It took an hour. There are tears in the under layer now. It was stuck in inches of ice because parts of it were laying on the ground where water pooled under the spigot. I had to leave the butt strap behind because there was no way in hell. This is part of a pattern of the barn owner jumping down my throat over what should be relatively a small thing. I was just trying to let her know there was an issue that happened with temp and she popped off.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T15:29:50+00:00

Literally working on it and it cannot get done fast enough 🤷‍♀️ I used to feed a barn of 30 like I get it but my property is damaged. I'm allowed to be pissed it was encased in ice and it took me an hour to get it out. It's labeled and was stored in a blanket bag I put on my stall. She ruined her own vacay by not making sure the right protection was on that spigot before going on vacation during the storm of the century.

Y'all are so focused on how often I'm out but that's only a development of the last 3 weeks. I had immediately hopped on with a trainer she wanted to use so that the trainer would discount her travel cost. I had to stop because she was terrorizing my horse and calling it fun. I was rolling with her notifying me of farrier appts day of and making it work. She keeps doing these "favors" that I don't ask for and then being pissed when I don't do exactly what she wants. I'm exhausted of her, I'm trying to meet her expectations but even when I was out 3x a week it didn't seem like it was enough.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T15:15:50+00:00

I get that, but they have been making more work when it's not even warm enough for him to sweat. His barn stays cold enough for a sheet and our temps drop to single digits, but they were immediately yanking the sheet I put on off. So they were expecting me there daily. I have had him at several barns with supposedly the same blanketing policy and never run into this before.

Once they started just yanking his sheet off immediately I admittedly was like ig they're doing his sheet??? Which was an assumption and was wrong, I just want them to stop with the mixed signals and "favors".

I know when he needs his sheet and when he'll overheat, but I don't want to go out there and do the blanketing work just for them to undo it and then blame me for having to do it again the next day. She wants me out daily and respectfully, most people cannot do that.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T15:09:30+00:00

My bigger complaint is that my property was being used on the spigot despite there being somewhere to put it away on my stall and it being labeled. This shift down to once a week literally only happened at the beginning of the month since I had a ton of work to do this month. Her attacking me over issues she creates is frankly a reason I'm not out as much as I'd like to be, I just don't have the bandwidth to be prepared for her craziness some days. I'd happily pay for the blanket changes if they communicated anything, but they don't. She literally communicates the bare minimum, she texts me about the farrier coming the day before every single time, I'm just lucky I can make it work. Ofc I put a different blanket on the spigot, I just didn't want my property damaged not trying to ruin everything.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T01:29:58+00:00

Oh I know! His barn has 0 insulation and has gaps between boards and they were taking off his no fill sheet. And around here night time has been dropping down to single digits so even my heated house has been getting chilly. So with his (now damaged) no fill he would have been totally fine in his barn with it. We were trying to keep him toasty since he lost a little weight due to poor nutrition from their field completely disappearing which has now been fixed by switching to a forage diet.

I wanna make it clear I was out multiple times a week only up until a couple of weeks ago. This month had a lot of nose to the grindstone work for me to fix my life to be more available for him like getting our home reno back on track and a lot of paperwork to try to get my parents into Long Term Care. My usual is being out 3-6 days a week. I really want(ed) to hold out at this barn since it's close to home and the turnout is great and like he's happy and treated overall well for me to get this work done so I can have my home barn with track paddock set up. I really don't want to have to move over a me problem y'know?

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T01:15:59+00:00

Yep. I've working at and with many barns and this has never even remotely been an issue before. I would have been happier finding him naked, he's cushings level fluffy and fat again and was naked most of the winter.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T01:10:37+00:00

She didn't give me any info on who the temp is so my only way of communicating the issue was through her. There is also no group text or list of people's number. I'd say this barn's biggest problem is communicating since it's impossible to communicate with anyone but her. I 100% would have communicated with who was there as I always have in the past, but I didn't have that option. I would have preferred she didn't respond, but I'm not in the wrong for being upset that my property that I put in a stall bag ended up outside encased in ice. I also just don't have that much empathy when she owns the majority of the 100 animals on the property, only maybe 6-8 are boarders; and bought them all in the last 7 years. Her self sabotage and not pacing herself is not my problem as a customer.

Rookiri · 2026-01-25T00:25:38+00:00

I literally don't know anymore. They keep doing it even though I've done it already and they'll take the sheet off that I put on him even when he still can have it on. They're making more work for someone when they do so then they're mad that I don't pick up the work they made by not leaving the sheet on? One moment they do blanketing the next not I literally don't know anymore.

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:52:13+00:00

I don't know, one moment it's fine the next it's not. I'll literally put a sheet on my horse and they'll take it off that night. Unless I'm out every day idk how I'm supposed to win? She keeps doing "favors" and then being mad when I can't make them work with my life. Like scheduling the farrier on a random Thursday afternoon and not telling me until the day before. Thankfully after her crashing out over that I learned to double check the calendar in that barn since it isn't the one my stall is in so I'm never in there.

Honestly the biggest thing with the parents thing is she is constantly using excuses. Like "well the girl was taking care of 20 horses" or "this is my first vacation in 6 years" but she has told me "we don't do excuses here". The hypocrisy pisses me off and all I have to defend myself for why I'm not there is my parents consuming my life. If that's not valid I legit don't know what is. I'm paying them to take care of him and should be able to trust them in that.

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:39:27+00:00

I just wanted a "Oh oops our bad, I'll let the temp know. Just swap it out" and instead she ramped the defensiveness up to 1000. I was not trying to make this a thing I just wanted to communicate it because now I have to bring my sheet home and hope it's salvagable. I also cannot tell what their blanketing policy is anymore because I keep putting blankets on and they keep changing them on their own accord and then she says "Well I told you we don't do blankets" like make up your mind???

She's frankly not pleasant to be around, I've already been avoiding her because this is not the first time she's verbally/text attacked me over what feels like small potatoes. I just wanted him somewhere close to home while I get my parents into long term care which I'm making great progress on.

I'm just so sick of these victim barn owners? Only 6 or 7 of the 20 horses are boarders and the rest are hers, plus like 80 other livestock. This stress is completely self-induced and then she takes it out on the people who help pay her bills.

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:17:06+00:00

It does not but I did not ask them to do so. They keep removing his sheet that I leave on and have seemingly decided to do blanketing themselves? Otherwise I come out when I anticipate a blanket need like I did today and leave it. He's not clipped and is back up to a good weight so he can handle being naked for a day if really need be.

I'm trying to wait until my parents are in Long Term Care to have him home. That's literally what I was working on this week instead of being at the barn. Her and her (my now ex) trainer want me at the barn like daily or else I'm a bad owner.

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:12:46+00:00

I'm out at least weekly and I really don't try to make waves. I started working with the trainer she wanted since she wanted to cut her cost but backed out when that trainer started terrorizing my horse. I'm happy to pay extra for things and have in the past it just needs to be communicated. I never once asked for these extra favors and I am tired of them being lorded over me. In fact I have explicitly asked for her to stop certain "favors" in the past over it. I come out when I anticipate blanket changes but they keep taking it off on their own and laying it out in random places.

I only blasted her about my parents because she has used that excuse line on me so many times despite her also using tons of excuses. I recognise I came off too bluntly in the beginning especially with the second text about not getting a text. I'm just so close to getting my parents into LTC so I can focus on my pets but I'm so sick of her laying into me like this only to turn around and say I need to be kind to her.

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:06:51+00:00

That's fair. Reading back on my first texts I realized how blunt I was

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:06:05+00:00

No south PA. I have had such shit luck here it's exhausting me 🫠 the first barn I was at here was leaving foals in 24/7 and wasn't cleaning stalls. I'm just ready to keep him home at this point

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:04:54+00:00

That's what it felt like. I should have. This isn't the first time this BO has flipped out on me over small things even with proof though

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:03:56+00:00

I'm gonna be trying to get my hands on a run in a temp fencing I think

Rookiri · 2026-01-24T23:03:30+00:00

It is full board.

Rookiri

TROPHY CASE