Hidden Valley Ranch LLC

09/03/2024

Weeheeee, we are helping put this awesome event on. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/6dyjeDcxko3tnnff/

Send a message to learn more

06/08/2024

Don't forget to take a drive up to Cowboy Campground At Legacy Park, Idaho City ID tomorrow, Saturday morning. It's our amazing St Jude ride and we have a great breakfast planned, 8.30 am til 10 am.
Wonderful silent auction items and off course the poker ride for best hand. No need to bring a horse btw, you can participate and help raise money just by coming up for the day. Idaho City itself has a great day planned too, soooo, lots to see, experience and get out of the Valley. Silent auction ends at 3 pm with an ice cream social. 🤠

05/17/2024

So loving this... help arrived. Still a few things to finish, challenge accepted. I am a bid of a neat-o-freak.

05/17/2024

Ahhhhh

05/15/2024

Dinner turnout

05/14/2024

It's day 2 of the great pasture party for the horse herd! They're munching on grass and frolicking like they own the place!

05/03/2024

Just 1 hour to go....
https://www.idahogives.org/organizations/legacy-park-trust please help if you haven't done so. Our goal this year was $2,000. We are only at $440. Please make your contribution. Thank you. 🤠

I’m ready to support Legacy Park Trust Inc. on April 29, 2024 during Idaho Gives 2024. Learn more about Legacy Park Trust Inc. and all the other organizations participating in Idaho Gives 2024.

04/18/2024

First green pasture turnout of the year, gradually increasing from 40 minutes each day. They were thrilled, and hay followed for bribing and breakfast.

04/05/2024

Weeeeee, my photo made the news, thank you Roland Steadham 1st time. Amy Collins-Ritchie caught the moment for me.

04/04/2024

We might made the news with this shot from 5 pm.

03/31/2024

03/17/2024

Any gardeners out there, we have some great horse manure for you.

Perfect mix for your garden, trees etc. Large loads I can load with a skidsteer, otherwise, please bring your shovel and containers. Off Columbia & Cloverdale area, SW Boise Donation for our...

03/12/2024

So much truth in this, I could add a few more things. Overall, we have great boarders here at HVR. They are thoughtful and do help, but, I haven't ridden my horses. Each time I go outside with the intend, I see something that needs attention, am I a bid a**l about things, yes. Do I want HVR looking good, yes. Do we renew things, add things to keep HVR fresh, yes, all the time. 😎🤩

Full Board Isn't Full Service

A friend asked me to write this a while ago..and I have been thinking on it for several months. So here is a go.

Full board Isn't full board. The average boarding farm with anywhere from 5 to 40 boarders is so much work. Just the daily grind of getting up, feeding, haying, checking water takes up a significant amount of time. Stalls, another massive chunk, then repeat pm feed.

Then you want the boarding farm to do blankets ( something I refuse to do. I worked for a QH trainer in the 90s and spent hrs every morning and night reblanketing all the horses under lights ...cured me ) , meds, you want night check. You want their weight and physical appearance monitored through their blankets.

Now all the extras : tackroom swept, aisle perfect, walls hosed down, no rodents, cobwebs , working washrack with drain that never clogs...

Then perfectly manacured fields , mowed, fertilized, weedwacking. Fences repairs etc....

Board or bored...when your horse is in the stall more for inclement weather , you need to get there to exercise it and prevent colic ( motion is lotion for guts and joints ! ). Full board doesnt cover checking every single inch of the horse ( though most of us do take a quick look, i have trained myself to look at all 4 legs both side every day ) for bumps, bruises, shoes with sprung heels , mysterious fungus that appears on its flank. Owners need to be present, take responsibility for their own horse, make coming out to groom that retired horse on a schedule....and always always be accessible for emergencies.

When you see something needs done, just do it instead of complaining about it. We have all seen the posts about the costs of boarding and basically, if you are paying less than $1000/ month, someone is subsidizing your board. So pick up a rake, a broom, be present. Run a hose, scrub the tub. Triple check your horse. Check on the horse whose owner is ill ( with their permission ) . Leave things better than they were.
Many barns have a person or 2 that randomly helps with some stalls....I guarantee you the barn owner appreciates that person. I used to have a students father who would clean many stalls while his daughter rode. I know I'll never forget him.

Holidays....most barns have 1 of 2 ways of thinking. 1. Don't come out at all. 2. If you do come out, plan to help with feeding, haying, watering turnout and stalls. I can speak from personal experience...I havent had a holiday off since pre 2001 except for 1 Christmas, an exceptional student did all the work as my gift. I'll never forget that act of kindness. Nurses get double time for major holidays ( and still get to take off a day for Christmas , heck even the local convenience store pays double or time and half on major holidays) , barn owners get nothing, most of the time not even a thank you... I recall a colleague who boarded horses ( and of course taught lessons, trained horses, sold horses and ran shows because boarding doesnt pay the bills ) saying one day she realized her life was like the movie Ground Hog Day....and that she has done the same thing every morning every night for decades. Her farm went up for sale and she now boards her own horses.

Education. Do you know what horses diseases are, understand deworming, know what ailments to watch out for. When should the vet be called ? Can you wrap legs properly, handle an abscess, recognize fungus, spot a colic ? If not, pick up a book, watch some videos. Horse ownership means you love horses and you want to know everything about them.

Anyway...full care isn't day care you drop your "kid " off too and never pick them up from again. Be present. Your horse will appreciate the attention and the barn owner will feel relief that you are watching out for your horse.

3/27/23 update. 212,000 views. 1400 shares. And I have gotten a few nasty comments. I cannot understand the nastiness . Bringing awareness is a good thing. If it doesnt apply to you , then move on. Every barn has boundaries. Apparently some people are mad that I wont do blankets...not sure why, as none of them board with me ! Boundaries are made out of clarity and self respect. Every barn , I hope , has rules and boundaries ! Best wishes to all . Horses are my first and longest love.

( This post was made to bring awareness. At least in my area, boarding barns are becoming fewer to non existent. If we want them to stay, we must change . I have seen mostly positivity come from this...i particularly loved the person who shared it and wrote " I go a bit the other way . I try to help in some way every day that I am at the barn "
I , of course, want all the horses in my care to have good, healthy lives too. I would like to think we all do. )

02/26/2024

Another crazy day putting a little gravel and sand in the only remaining muddy paddock, Levi, the mud churner, has been busy building his own workout gym and was daily walking, churning and stomping, purposefully through the mud, yes he had high ground, but kept going.... not any more, we adding bedding chips with sand on top to hopefully keep this workout fanatic a little less entertained. 😁 Love our clients.

02/24/2024

Great day to get a few paddocks ready for new clients, scrapped out mud, new sand and bedding added. And Sunny got his 1st turnout. Love warm bonus days.

02/01/2024

Transformations, from mud to drying out quickly, the benefits of great drainage and a good base. We usually stockpile sand and roadmix for quick fixes. Another benefit, today Tractor Bob stopped in and scrapped our 8 acre herd dry lot.

01/31/2024

What happens here at HVR? Yup, even in the winter, when we get a break in the weather, we try to keep our horses as mud free as possible. A lot of times is not an easy task for certain. We believe in doing as much as possible to keep things fresh, updated and safe.

01/24/2024

Good Info:

POSTED BY A VET A FEW DAYS AGO.
As storm system starts moving into the area. When major barometric pressure changes occur gas colics can result. Gas colics typically present as acute very painful colics where a horse might hit the deck and start rolling but that will resolve very quickly with a full dose of Banamine. We're basically looking for that horse to be back to normal within 30 to 45 minutes of receiving Banamine which will alleviate the gas pain as it moves through the GI tract. If a horse is not normal after that time a more serious colic is going on and he or she needs to be seen. We've already had quite a few gas colics call in today but fortunately they all responded to Banamine.
As the temperature starts to drop tomorrow night, we will generally start to see impaction AKA constipation colics from horses not drinking enough water or from not moving around much, hunkering down trying to stay warm. It's important to really know how much manure your horse produces so you can start to see and catch that reduction in p**p production and you might start to see a decreased appetite or a depressed appearance or acute colic behavior. The biggest way to help prevent impaction colic is to make sure you can get plenty of water into your horse. This can be accomplished through: 1) adding a little salt to their feed and we like the Summer Games electrolytes because they are buffered and just a half scoop twice a day can help. 2) offering warm senior water where you add a handful or two of a tasty senior feed to a bucket of warm water making almost a tea and they will generally readily drink that up 3) using heated water buckets and freeze proof troughs or troughs with heaters.

01/21/2024

Here is what a boarder posted after I shared this video. Love my HVR family.
Sabrina just fed the herd and I couldn't be happier. We love our horses in this herd environment, always plenty of hay, extra hay piles, very seldom will horses miss out. In the summer green grass and a few shelters. 10 acres and different areas including a hill and inclines, makes for healthy horses that can run and play. Been here for years and would not want to anywhere else. Great facility and truly great care.

01/16/2024

Gorgeous day, 20 degree until the sunset.

01/10/2024

Feels like March here. Snow at night. Wind gusts or micro burst hit us approx 56 mph, 44 degrees after, rain, hail, heavy trash can flying... sunshine...

01/08/2024

Little frosty this morning at the ranch. But still tolerable temps.

01/08/2024

Feeding the herd and showing off our great view and the next storm heading in.

01/08/2024

Enjoying my view