My horses are pretty low maintenance…..or am I low maintenance and my horses are unlucky to have me? Whichever way around it is when I’m not riding after work I do very little in the way of horsey care. Granted that makes my autumn yard routine pretty boring but I wanted to put it out there that actually not everyone has complex lengthy uber fancy yard routines and it’s ok to be basic.
So obviously I have 3 horses and 1 stable, all my life my horses have lived out 24/7 and are rugged up for the worsening weather. They have all had stints of stabling due to injuries and Tissy was stabled in the run up to big races to get her used to it. This winter will be the first time I will actually have a horse in overnight.
Tissy is missing some teeth and has some TMJ arthritis which means she finds chewing hay and haylage pretty hard work over winter. The winter gone was the first time we noticed her tilting her head and really struggling with chewing, it meant she dropped quite a bit of weight and at the time I didn’t have a stable at the yard I’m at.
So I snapped a stable up when the opportunity came and thank goodness I did because I’ve had two of my horses on lengthy box rests this year but most importantly it means that Tissy will be able to come in overnight in winter to have a big bucket of speedibeet as a haylage replacement. Which we hope will be easy for her to eat and thus maintain better condition.
Anyway, seeing as the grass is still good enough not to need to supplement with haylage right now they’re all still living out in their summer fields, and will probably moving to the winter fields sometime soon. Which means all I do on a non-riding evening is grab their feeds, check them over, top up their water, poo pick and go home. What does everyone else do when they’re not riding? Am I missing out on horsey care?
Beth Endurance 