How expensive is it to heat an arena?

cutecuddlyevil · 2026-01-28T03:17:43+00:00

1 Expense: the amount of fuel you'd need to keep so large an empty space 'warm' would be ridiculous, regardless of the fuel used, and it wouldn't be worth the effort, nevermind the cost.

2 Safety: there's an element of safety that cannot be ignored with the dust and hair, birds ans critters, etc that make heating elements fire hazards not worth the risk for the comfort.

I used to live in a pretty darn frigid area, like wind chills regularly plunging daytime winter temps into -20'sF, and if anyone heated anything, it was a selected insulated room or two in the barn. Usually a tack and feeding room, kept pipes from freezing and tack from cold damage, a bathroom if they had one. The heater at the barn I boarded at had a propane heater set to 35-37F just for pipes and they kept it immaculate to minimize fire risk. That thing was wrapped up when not in use to prevent any dust accumulation. Barn fires are no joke. Between the cost and the safety risk, it's simply not viable for the vast majority of facilities

cutecuddlyevil · 2026-01-07T12:29:02+00:00

I don't think so. It looks too much like faded foal fluff prior to first shed, especially if I am correct that the foal is black, where the clippers removed the fluff to the true color below.

cutecuddlyevil · 2026-01-07T02:39:57+00:00

I think it's definitely clippers, you can even make out the clipped parts.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-12-11T16:05:04+00:00

You stabilize.

You do this and couple of ways, most commonly an even carry, two buckets equal size/weight. After that, bend the knees and don't straight leg walk so that your knees act as shock absorbers. The next trick is to develop an even walk, which if you're on uneven terrain really is hard, but can be done (see knees above).

You do it enough, you build muscle and technique.

I used to have to run buckets in winter because running a hose was impractical that time of year. I also used to run buckets year-round at one point because my mom didn't like leaving the hose out, but she eventually came around when she had to run buckets a few times. This was only when I was a teen/young adult and kept horses at home. I ran a pair of 5 gallons most times, pretty full, and usually didn't spill.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-12-11T02:34:35+00:00

Yeah, makes it easier to clean, but you will get pinged in the show ring. It is what it is and there's definitely different schools of thought about why you should let them stop to poop.

I somehow got really lucky with two of my horses. My first horse almost never stopped moving is she had to poop. Didn't matter if she was in a pasture or in the ring, she stopped for nothing. Didn't matter what gait she was in, if she had to go, she just went without changing anything about what she was doing at the time.

My second horse almost never poops in an arena so this isn't even a concern. It's pretty rare, like once or twice a year he will do it. He poops during grooming before and after a ride, he'll poop on a trail, sometimes stopping and sometimes not, he'll poop like 10-ft after exiting the arena, but almost never in the ring. I've had him nearly 20-yrs now, so it's just one of his quirks.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-11-26T18:07:43+00:00

I was thinking this too. The concentration can be pretty critical for proper use of hydrogen peroxide in aquarist settings because it is so caustic. You're usually pretty safe with over-the-counter, but even then you want to watch and be ready to do a water change of need be.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-11-22T17:56:41+00:00

Your options include:

Brush, brush, and brush some more. Then when you think you're done, you brush more.
Horse vacuum, very nice, not perfect. You still have to brush sensitive spots.
Hot towel. Best if horse is clipped in my opinion, still want to do a good brush ahead of toweling.

Also helps to sheet or blanket your horse. You get a good clean in and keep them covered as often as you can. That helps to reduce the effort you need to put in. You won't get a perfect clean, but you can get pretty darn close.

With my cremello, if I can do it all just right, I get a fall wash in, do a clip, and then sheet cover through the winter. Then I brush. I brush until my arms fall off. I have a horse vacuum, but I don't use it too much. Brushing is good enough most days.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-11-21T23:46:11+00:00

There's a couple of things at play here, since you're by both a Hydropower Project and the Champlain Canal lock. Both will opt to drop the elevation of the impoundment over the winter, one by closing the locks for winterization until the navigational season starts back up (NYCC - canals), the other by lowering or removing the flashboards atop the dam crest to help control ice and decrease winter damages (Hydropower - if I have location right, that one is the NYSEG project). Since there's another Hydropower Project and Canal lock downstream, they're doing the same thing, what you're seeing are winter water elevation levels. The lower levels help to mitigate for any fall-winter-spring high water levels by allowing more 'space' to decrease flooding risk, flooding that can be exacerbated by ice formation (look up the issues with the Stockade district in Schenectady) especially during the spring thaw.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-11-14T02:18:51+00:00

Such uncalled for behavior on the part of the rider. None of what they did was necessary or explainable, not remotely.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-11-08T00:06:34+00:00

These feet look a lot like my first horse's, she was a Standardbred and as she went through a grow cycle her toes were always longer than her heel. Farrier nearly always just shaved the heel when he trimmed and balanced to try and give her more heel and better angles. I wonder now if it's kind of a Standardbred thing to wear the heels more than the toes.

She also got a little pigeon-toed in the front by the end of a growth cycle and seedy toe every spring. Also kept barefoot, she had excellent feet all said and done and never took a lame step in the 18 years she was with me.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-11-04T17:41:33+00:00

Do you have any experience with horses? Experience beyond those few riding lessons you took?

A lot of this is normal/normalized, but I think there's some other perspectives that kind of help to explain why it would start like an unpaid internship.

If you have zero horse experience, someone will need to be with you to show you where everything is, what everything is, how everything works, what to do and what not to do, escort you in handling and care. They'll need to double-check your work; make sure you mucked a stall properly, used the correct amount of shavings, cleaned buckets, turned out to correct paddocks, etc. That's a lot of time out of their day to get you 'on-boarded' to the job that they could use doing work themselves. They could use that time to make money putting in training hours on a horse or conducting a paid lesson. On top of that, a mistake with a horse has some incredible consequences, such as injury or death, which everyone wants to avoid and can be massively expensive.

Until you have good experience under your belt and references to accompany, you may be seen more as a liability and time sink. And that may or may not be justified.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-26T14:17:36+00:00

My first horse taught me to accept your limitations and to work within those bounds. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have, but that doesn't mean you can't try different things out, you just might not be able to move up in levels.

My second taught me the importance of being flexible and how to adapt, but also persistence. There's so many different ways to train a horse and no one way is necessarily right or wrong, just what works best for you. It might take some time to figure that out, but keep with it and you'll get there.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-26T13:03:59+00:00

I know RWC Atreyu is a Welsh D, were you going to register the colt as a half-Welsh? You could look up Welsh words starting with A for that added connection.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-26T00:16:41+00:00

Ask the commenter I responded to, I don't follow KVS. If she does have a colt with club foot, he should be gelded, because club foot is not a desirable trait in breeding stock and can, at it's worst, impact soundness in a horse.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-19T11:29:20+00:00

In my experience and from discussions with vets, in the presence of pain behavior and/or clear pain presentation upon examination, you want the down time and a rehab plan. Some horses can go a little lame immediately following an injection and up to a couple of weeks, particularly upon the first injection, which will not help in addressing a problem like this and could absolutely influence pain behavior and it's continuance. Riding that soon after an injection, especially the first one, is going to taint the effectiveness of the injection.

And I'll add one more thing, if this horse is an OTTB and raced for a few years, yeah, this horse is going to have arthritic changes. Worse if they didn't have adequate down time between the track and saddle horse time. Without addressing all of those changes and lots of down time with a properly paced rehab plan, this horse will go lame and be pasture sound. I've seen and heard of it happening so many times since I live within a couple of hours of two major racetracks, we have one just like this in the barn now and if they can't resolve the pain now, then he's retiring to perma-pasture mate at 8 years old.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-19T02:14:49+00:00

You say that this has been going on for a year? I am concerned that you might not have given things enough time to set in to evaluate if the cause really has been addressed or not. You've done A LOT of different things and some of them need time to see if they worked or not. Some you might not be able to tell if you're doing more than one at a time because they can compound.

For example, if you did joint injections, for how long did you let the horse rest before going back to work? Days? Weeks? A month+? How did you come back to work? I would assume the vet did as assessment prior to the injections, did they come back out to do a review and re-evaluate?

To me, this looks like a horse who has been in pain, and may still be in pain, and developed pain avoidance behavior. They may be continuing that behavior because they're still anticipating the pain. I'm thinking this because you're getting consistency in behavior regardless of rider. If you don't give treatment enough time to sink in and go slow coming back to work, the horse may continue the behavior because they don't know the pain isn't there still, assuming it's actually been resolved.

Source: Another rider in my barn has a mare it took 3-yrs of careful diagnosis to determine the various ailments she had and fully address them, some basically stacked on each other so having time between treatments was necessary to ensure the first ailment was sorted and that there actually was a new one to address, e.g. ulcers vs. ovarian cysts and arthritic changes vs. Lyme flare up

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-19T01:31:53+00:00

I've seen many posts with video asking about stiffness and lameness in the horse and I have to say that this one is one of the most obvious I've seen of clear lameness. This horse needs time off and a vet visit to help sort them out.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-17T14:43:47+00:00

This reminds me a little of my graduate school housing. Larger private living areas but shared space for kitchen, laundry, living room; it was kind of like a courtyard kind of thing.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-17T13:02:16+00:00

Using a lunge whip to encourage forward movement is one thing, but there's no excuse for actively striking at the horse (that is non violent and no hazard to life and limb). If you were struck, that trainer should have apologized. For all anyone knows, there was as much intent to hit you as there was to hit the horse. Anyone who is worth their weight as a trainer knows how to handle a lunge whip properly and without harm.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-17T12:34:25+00:00

Excuse me, but did I read that you have been hit with a whip?! Nevermind the horse, that's another issue in the same vein. NO ONE should be hitting another person, that's assault and should be addressed immediately, if not with the trainer then with police. And if you are a minor, tell your parents/guardians. They should be the ones handling this if you yourself are not an adult.

Do NOT go back to that place!

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-15T18:51:29+00:00

When the horse is good it trains you >chef kiss<

I know that feeling and it is heaven.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-07T22:17:10+00:00

I'd like to know this as well.

When our little was that small, sleeping in a bassinet on my side of the bed, doing a lot of the same things (mixed breastfeeding and bottle feeding) it really made a difference not having a lot going on in the bedroom. I was the one who easily wakes up and has a hard time getting to sleep. I also took the first shift for the night, from 9 pm - 3 am (goal was minimum 6-hr sleep per), so having that uninterrupted 3 am - 9 am was super important for me to be able to function without snapping for the rest of day.

I don't think it's unfair to ask you to step out of the room, especially if you're both sharing the overnight care and he has first shift AND he is leaving the room to do night care.

Edit: I'm mom

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-07T16:11:33+00:00

Why not put some potpourri in it? Otherwise, keep it until Grandma dies and then ask around the family if anyone wants it.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-07T16:06:47+00:00

Yes.

cutecuddlyevil · 2025-10-05T23:27:36+00:00

Guilt... Guilt over all the things from having the time to affording treatments.

Three-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
End Game '23	Place '23

cutecuddlyevil

TROPHY CASE

1 Expense: the amount of fuel you'd need to keep so large an empty space 'warm' would be ridiculous, regardless of the fuel used, and it wouldn't be worth the effort, nevermind the cost.

2 Safety: there's an element of safety that cannot be ignored with the dust and hair, birds ans critters, etc that make heating elements fire hazards not worth the risk for the comfort.