How to Keep Your Horse at night while camping
There are a few different options for keeping your horse secure and safe during the night when you are camping.
About the biggest difference between going trail riding and taking your horse camping is just that; camping. Staying in the woods overnight is a great way to spend time with the family and enjoy the natural world. It’s hard to imagine anything that beats a campfire, camaraderie, and a little stargazing in a quiet spot. It’s one of the activities I most look forward to, and bringing along horses only adds to the ambiance. As therapeutic as it can be, camping with a horse does raise the responsibility level. Before you sit around the campfire at night, your first responsibility is to make sure your animals are taken care of. Two of the biggest areas of concern are feeding your horse and making sure they are safe and secure during the night. Hopefully, you found our article on feeding horses helpful. In this article, we’ll discuss a few considerations about where, and how, to keep your horse overnight.
Highline
Maybe the option quickly becoming a favorite is the highline. Highlines are so popular because they provide you with a secure way of keeping your horses that follows Forest Service regulations. Most areas controlled by the federal government won’t allow you to tie your horse to a tree overnight. Their concern is that tied horses can harm trees by chewing on the bark and trampling the roots. However, you can string a highline between two trees and be legal. Be sure to bring along a few tree savers in addition to the line itself. Highlines are a good option that keep your horse secure while allowing them some room to move.
Hobbles and Pickett
Depending on the area, you might also be able to keep your horse on a picket or in a set of hobbles. Both of these options can allow the horse to graze at night. While they have been widely used in history, we personally don’t use them overnight. One disadvantage to using a picket rope overnight is that if your horse would happen to get tangled in the rope, you wouldn’t likely find them until morning. Hobbles offer the same disadvantage, in addition to the problem of giving the horse too much mobility. In a campground setting, I certainly wouldn’t recommend hobbles.
Trailer Tying
At the campground, the one advantage you have is that your trailer will be close by. Trailers are certainly not a bad place to keep your horse tied. In some situations, you can keep them tied to the outside. In others, it might be pertinent to tie them on the inside. This is a good idea if there are frequent bear visits to the campground, or the camper down the road can’t keep his dog on a leash. The big disadvantage of tying to a trailer is that if you sleep in it too, you’ll have to put up with pawing or maybe some rocking as the horse moves. It might not be a big deal to some people, but I know some people who lose sleep in the situation. Depending on you, your horse, and your situation, it might not be a bad option.
These three approaches constitute the most common ways to keep a horse secure at night in a campground. Each offers its own advantages, while they also have disadvantages as well. Depending on you, your horse, and your campground, you’ll certainly be able to make one work on your next trip.