Horses staying at Avila Acres are provided with a tranquil environment where fresh air and herd life are the norm. At Avila Acres, horses live co-operatively with other farm animals such as Icelandic sheep, Cashmere goats, Plymouth Rock and Rhode Island Red chickens, all which are rare and/or heritage breeds.

Not only have we found this exposure to a variety of sights, sounds and companionship beneficial for horses, rotating and mixing these various animal breeds through a number of paddocks optimizes soil quality resulting in high quality, sustainable forage.

Avila Acres accepts outside mares such as maiden mares, open mares, pregnant mares and mares with foals by their side for long/short-term boarding. While in our care, these mares and their young will receive personal, high quality care as they become members of our farm family.

We assess the individual needs and personality traits of each mare to ensure that her stay with us is as comfortable and stress-free as possible. We encourage that all mares be turned out in large paddocks/pastures with each other in a number of individual broodmare bands generally consisting of no more than 4 mares. Individual turn-out is available - please contact us for more detail.

Avila Acres can foal out your mare whether she is booked to our stallion or not. We ask that the mare arrive at the farm 14 days prior to her due date. When close to foaling time we regularly monitor the mare both in-person and with cameras which are equipped in the foaling stall as well as our regular stalls.

Pregnant and lactating mares are fed specialized grain 2-3x/day in addition to their regular hay feedings.

While staying with us, all horses will receive their annual vaccinations and teeth floating as well as regular worming and farrier work. These services are billed separately from monthly board bill.

Avila Acres employs the excellent services of the Dunnville Vet Clinic* which always has an after-hours emergency answering service and vet on call. For more information on the clinic, please visit:

Here at Avila Acres we try to do all that we can to keep the farm environmentally friendly and responsible. It's a lofty goal to be sure and there is always more we can do, but we know that every little bit counts in the big picture. Here are some of the things that we do now and some things that we hope to add:

Currently

We compost our straw in three piles: the fresh pile, the decomposing pile and the composted pile (or as we like to call it the "black gold" pile). We regularly water and turn each pile over to ensure the end result is highly organic and suitable to be used as compost.

Our run-in shelters are covered with recycled vinyl advertising banners which tend to be the same strong and durable material that our Coverall barn is made from.

The Coverall barn helps us minimize the use of light bulbs during grey-days and it retains heat better in the winter and cool air in the summer. For more on Coverall, visit www.coverall.net .

We include sheep, goats and chickens to freely share the paddocks and pastures with our horses.

During the fly season we use natural "fly parasites" in the barn instead of traditional chemical foggers or sprays.

Future Goals

Grow our own organic hay, grains and straw.

Install an underground rain-catcher to water the grounds and vegetable gardens.

Create additional paddocks and implement "intensive rotational grazing" for the animals.

Install wind and solar power.

And much, much more.......