Moonbrain Mare wrote:
But one thing that I see happening is that in animal snark communities dedicated to being against bad owners/bad care etc, people can easily go over the top and lose perspective. There can be issues where if you're not doing things in a textbook shiny double-laminated eleven star super expensive way, you are a BAD OWNER ABUSER. I knew a girl with a parrot who got reamed out because she was using a feed for it that was supposedly inferior. It was ridiculous ... the parrot was loved and cared for and healthy. It was just like ... whoa, step back and take a deep breath and realise that the feed doesn't matter that much if the animal is happy and healthy eating it. I guess it can be really easy to get sucked into being hyper critical, I mean where do you draw the line between what matters and doesn't matter? But when people go too far it can be really hard to stand against it because you can have a mob of people against you, and argueing makes you sound (and feel) like a bad owner trying to justify their badness.

My poor horses don't even have a barn right now. I even *gasp* have to tie them to trees when I bring them in. We've only moved to our new place a couple of years ago, money is not super-tight, but we aren't rolling in it..... the priorities have been feeding us, feeding the animals, and our ongoing fencing projects (fencing in more sections of our land). Next project is going to be replanting a couple of the pastures, not a barn. I don't feel too badly - horses have lived without barns for a long, long time - it's the pasture they need more! And, we live in a temperate climate, so other than a few nights in the 20's a year, it's pretty easy on them. In the summer, it's actually cooler to be under a tree than in a barn.