To protect our horses from dangerous sun damage, such as skin cancer, it is important to provide them with adequate UV-resistant shelter. If you are interested in creating a cheap and effective shade shelter for your horse, the one shown here is a great example. This shelter is also removable, making it suitable for grazing horses without upsetting landlords. It is likely to be less expensive than purchasing a new rug, and will last for many years. In addition to providing quantifiable UV protection from the sun, this shelter will also prevent your horse from sweltering as they might under a rug.

 

So you will need......

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4 x 100mm x 100mm thick square-shaped h4 treated posts- these are the most affordable and available from any good timber merchant who often delivers them. Buy these at a height to suit your horse's needs. We have big horses here, so ours are 3.6m high.... another option you can consider to make your shelter even cheaper is to use just two posts as a lean too against an existing structure like a shed, garage, barn etc.....as shown here with our sleepout....

 

1 x square or rectangular shade sail with D rings on each corner -a minimum recommended size would be 3m x 3.6m but bigger is better, trademe do some great prices for these at around $70

 

A bag of Postcrete for each post is about $15 per bag.

 

We advise you to place the whole structure facing towards the mid-day sun, with the front of the shade being slightly lower than the back, to maximise sun protection......

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Dig your holes so your posts go into the ground at about 400mm deep-place them squarely, and add postcrete mix all around them, which is a dry powder form of cement that sets as solid concrete once water is poured onto it so there is no mixing or mess-Make sure though that you do not move the posts until dry-or they will be baggy in the holes-24 hours usually does the trick.....

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Then fix on your shade sail and there you go for a very effective yet affordable, easy shelter.