Horses don't Nest

...it all started with Brandy: 'Ginger Nut'. In his twenties in this picture, I loved him so much.  The same age as me, he died when I was 26.

WINTER:
HAYLAGE&BEDDING

In the old days, we used bales of soft golden straw to bed our ponies down for the night, teenagers in love with their shaggy show jumpers, we'd have done anything for them wouldn't we?  Their beds were very deep and had banks, pony-club style all round the edges, and we never really knew why, it was either something to do with getting stuck in the stable, or was it to stop draughts!? We just did it because that's just what everyone did, no question.

  

Of course many of our ponies developed coughs, depending on how much turn-out time our DIY  livery yard would allow, and mine was in for 7 months and out during the day, in at night only the rest of the year.  We didn't know better, we all just did what everyone else did. 

 

Luckily, at the time my pony Brandy (here being 'ridden' by John) had a cough, HorseHage was available, and I was the first on my yard to buy it, now everyone I know uses a haylage from one source or another, and you don't hear yards of coughing horses anymore do you? 
 

And we're all getting much better at feeding off the floor or using Haybars instead for a more natural feeding position.  because it lets fluid containing nasties drain away. Thank goodness we are so much better advised, thanks to horse magazines, our knowledge isn't simply passed on wrong advice from yardees or people who think they know it all, magazines are here to help, written by people who DO know stuff.

 

 

Then we all changed to wood chips because straw was thought of as bad, we got them wherever we could, there weren't many places to buy speciality horse&pony type wood chips, but if you travelled around, you could find some.

 

So  then we had a new dilemma, how do we make a soft snugly bed fit for our best friends: our ponies,  so they'd have the cleanest, tallest, snugliest bed on the yard?  The answer was, we couldn't treat our stables the same way ever again, and our ponies really didn't mind...why?

 

 

Because Horses don't nest.

 

By and large, if a surface is quite dry and safe a horse can sleep on it.  We make our beds because all the while we're sprinkling the 14 times dust-extracted, dust-free, lemon scented wood chip down we're thinking, would I like to sleep on this aren't we?  Well horses don't need hypo-allergenic togg20, orthopaedic bedding! they are horses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time of year, Tom & Henry are usually still out, and actually last year they didn't come in at all at night even, but then we got mud-fever, and we're NOT going through that again!
 

 

Its very very wet here, so to keep my boys feet in tip-top condition, and not standing soaking wet for 24 hours a day, I have just brought them in at night.  thus I have been thinking about bedding and haylage.

   

When they come in I bring their beds all the way forward to the doorstep of their stables, so they don't stand all night with their arses in the air! 



It's about 5cm deep with a clean sprinkling of BedDownExcel shavings.  Its smells nice, but again, this is just for me since I'm certain the boys are only interested in what goes in their buckets and haybars!

 

They don't have a deep bed at all, just a couple of inches beneath the clean sweet smelling surface is the rubber matting John installed before they got here, I wish I'd have had this when Brandy was alive.









Then John installed anti-cast strips all round their walls, about a metre from the floor (depending on the height of your horse), 10cm wide strips of rubber (John used off-cuts from doing the floor), screwed to the wall, and skid marks ending at these strips mean they really work too, it just gives their hooves something to grip on.

 

Tom & Henry are eating 1-2 bales of HorseHage daily and at night I hang a net outside their stables too.

(I hate haynets, they're not only dangerous, but all that reaching and pulling with his nose in the air isn't natural, and probably bad for your horse too, not to mention he probably gets quite frustrated getting the hay out, especially if this is his only source of feed), but with a small amount local haylage in a net: HaySoft in it just for variety, I think it's ok. 

They love this haylage, and it now comes in 3 easy to use chunks per bale. and they love this arrangement too, they can look out, chat and eat, what could be better?  I swap the sides each night too so they don't get bored or use only one side of their necks.
 

  

Tom&Henry have never had a cough, our new modern ways of working have made certain of that, and they don't have to wade through a deep bed full of dust spores either, it's all very simple and as natural as possible, except being in the stable, but until my vet can give them an injection against mud-fever, I'm taking precautions!

 

 happy winter xx

 

 

 

And Now for Something Completely Different

A POST (nothing to do with mud fever...well, maybe a bit...):

 

 

 

 

 

It's funny how you can so easily get wrapped up in your horses' afflictions you almost can't see anything else, do anything else.  But apart from Henrys' MF, all things are fine back at base.

 

Though Tom did fling off a shoe Thursday night which John and I found, funny how it's always the white foot that loses the shoes...I wonder why that is, all new advice suggests the white and black hooves are just as strong as each other, but that's not what we are seeing here at WW.

Steve came today in the baking heat to put Tom's shoe back on,  he puts himself in the yard exactly where Steve shoes him, not tied up and waits....how cute is that?

 

 

 

...anyway, Steve said he's never known 2 horses to get their shoes off like my 2 in all his 20something years as a farrier...well Trakehners are special...athletic, sharp, and they manage to twist the metal too, very skillful!

 

 

 

The boys are looking fantastic, healthy and shiny.  They have just been bathed for the last time before the weather gets chilly.  They seem very chilled and happy.  Have come through harvest without so much as a sniff.   Have watched as John and I did our August bank holiday hedgerow prune and trim (this is also an attempt to avoid any village hullabaloo). 

 

 

They witnessed as the builders had a skip delivered and didn't bat an eyelash at anything.

 

 

I guess it's just that time of year, they are looking slimmer, although because of all the rain we've had the grass has been plentiful and they will go into winter well 'conditioned'.

 

 

 

In preparation for winter, I am planning on altering my strategy from last year.  Last winter they didn't spend a single night indoors, but then we got mud fever, and that's very nasty, so we won't be doing that again.  Prolonged contact with wet conditions without any respite, not again.  I thought I was doing the right thing, treating them like horses, but of course in the wild they'd wander for miles making sure they didn't stand in wet all day long wouldn't they? Tom & Henry will come into nice clean dry stables at night during the worst weather as we had done every other year, that's what we'll be doing.

 

 

Plan your winter now, get your rugs cleaned and mended, stock up on your first aid kit, bandages and boots, get your order for shavings in too just in case there's a shortage.

And the wet summer we've had will undoubtedly affected the hay crops all across the country, plan for a shortage and get your order in now, otherwise you may have to contend with less than perfect quality, and it's just not worth the worry, even if your horse likes hay from the bin (like mine do).

 

 

...and the boys do like their nice soft clean beds...and lots, and lots......and lots of haylage.

 

 

happy hacking x