It’s been a few weeks since Tissy started her new winter routine, in previous years she has lived out 24/7 with grass, ad lib haylage and hard feed. But she’s 23 and starting to need a little bit of extra care. Her teeth aren’t as good and she has arthritis in her jaw so keeping weight on her is a little bit harder. Getting her fit and building muscle also takes a bit longer which is why I don’t really give her long winter breaks anymore but keep her ticking over fitness wise.
So Tissy will continue to do 2-3 training sessions a week to ensure she keeps her muscle bulk and stays nice and fit and active. These tend to be one hack, one lunge and then whatever fits into that week for the third session. It’s a balance as although I want her to stay fit and healthy I don’t want her to lose too much body fat. So I take pictures and measure her weight every week to keep an eye on how we’re doing and act accordingly.
Tissy is now stabled overnight, I started bringing her in as soon as we needed to supplement the grazing with haylage, as she finds it harder to chew these days. She comes in around 6pm after I’ve finished work and goes out around 6:30am. Basically I wake up, pop on some trackies, waterproofs over the top and hop straight in my car to the yard at 6am.
I switch her rug over to her turnout and take her straight out, then I muck out, throw up the bed, soak her fibre beet/speedi beet mix, which were using as a forage replacement, but she still has ad-lib access to haylage at all time. Then I go back home, do a 20minute workout, do about 15mins of housework and then get ready to go to work which starts at 8am in clinic.
I know that it sounds like a lot before work but if I don’t do it in the morning it’s not happening at all, plus I feel much better throughout the day knowing a couple of things are ticked off my daily list and the last thing I want to do when I get in from doing the horses around 7pm every evening is housework.
So far she’s looking really good this winter and has settled into her routine nicely, I even enjoy mucking her out every morning!
Beth Endurance 